Characters / Werewolf: The Apocalypse

Garou Nation

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Fera

Fera

Ajaba

Werehyenas native to Africa, charged with culling humans and animals — killing the infirm, weak, and elderly — to maintain their overall strength.

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• Arch-Enemy: Of the Simba werelions.
• Dark Secret: Akin to the Bastet, the Ajaba have a set of weaknesses called Yava they must keep secret (in 2e and W20, but not in Revised). The Simba discovered the weaknesses and used them in their genocide — though their pride in their superiority means they won't admit this.
• Back from the Brink: Due to the Simba's attacks they were on the edge of extinction, falling to the Wyrm or both before one of their number managed to negotiate an alliance with the other Changing Breeds of Africa (eventually including the Garou of the Silent Striders and an African offshoot of the Red Talons) and defeat the mad Simba king Black Tooth. Unusually among the Chaging Breeds this alliance, called the Ahadi, actually held after the shared enemy was gone, leaving the Ajabi at the heart of a significant new power, giving them the protection they needed to recover.
• Final Solution: Black Tooth, a brutal Simba king, led an attempted genocide against the Ajaba. The handful of Ajaba survivors nurse a deep-seated hatred of Simba for this reason.
• Gonk: They tend not to be very pretty in human form, with jutting lower jaws, bristly hair and heavy builds. This is not universal however and some can be good looking.
• Hermaphrodite:Metis Ajaba often have hermaphroditism.
• The Migration: In response to the massacre, the surviving Ajaba have scattered worldwide.
• Moral Myopia: The Ajaba were perfectly willing to apply their sacred purpose to themselves, culling their own kind as well as humans and animals. When Black Tooth killed Ajaba en masse, they were outraged.
• The Social Darwinist: They kill humans, animals, and Ajaba who are old, infirm, or weak.

Ananasi

Werespiders created by Ananasa, a high-ranking servant of the Weaver who is now imprisoned in Malfeas.

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• All Your Powers Combined: Ananasa created spiders (and the Ananasi) by combining the energies of Wyld, Weaver, and Wyrm.
• And Man Grew Proud: The ancient Ananasi ruled over humans in their sphere of influence with an iron fist, feeding on them and demanding sacrifices in exchange for knowledge. Eventually, humans grew resentful and hunted down their Ananasi masters.
• Been There, Shaped History:
  • In Krapina, a town in northern Croatia, archaeologists discovered the fossilized remains of over eight hundred Neanderthals. The Ananasi claim that their ancestors carried out a slaughter there.
  • The Ananasi claim to have taken full advantage of the Inquisition, manipulating inquisitors into persecuting Garou and other enemies of the werespiders.
  • The Ananasi also claim to have helped end slavery in the U.S. through subtle manipulation of political figures. Since many Ananasi kinfolk came from Africa, they had a vested interest in liberating their kin.
• Big Brother Worship: On a species wide level. The Ananasi claim (correctly or not is impossible to say) to be the third of the Changing Breeds to be created, after the Mokolé and the Rokea. They don't really interact with the Rokea (not many spiders underwater) but the Mokolé are basically the only other Changing Breed the Ananasi respect and even admire to some extent. They'll even put themselves at risk to protect the Mokolé with no expectation of reward or even gratitude just because they think the world would be a lot worse off if the dragon shifters go extinct.
• Blind Obedience: "Obey the Mother-Queen in all things", "worship none but Ananasa", and "follow the aspect and faction that Ananasa chooses for you" are the most important of the Ananasi laws.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Ananasi morality does not resemble human morality. Their chief goal is restoring balance to the cosmos, but their means of doing so are manipulative and bloody.
• Dark Secret: The Ananasi are the only one of the Changing Breeds not created by Gaia to serve a purpose in her overall model of the world, being instead created by the powerful spirit Ananasa for her purposes. They are broadly aligned with the Gaian Changing Breeds' goals (though often not their methods) but given the importance the others place on Gaia (and the often deeply xenophobic nature of many of the Changing Breeds) they find it expedient to let everyone assume that they were made by Gaia too.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Australia's Ananasi helped engineer the extinction of the Bunyip... but the tribe's death broke the treaties between them and the Dreamtime monster known as the Yahwie, and the Yahwie now seeks revenge for the Bunyip's death by hunting and killing any Ananasi in Australia. It doesn't help that the Yahwie is apparently impossible to truly kill.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Their attitude toward the Wyrm. The Ananasi realize that the Wyrm has gone insane, but believe that it can be restored to its original state somehow.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Ananasi drink human blood in order to stay healthy and fuel certain abilities. They also enjoy mixing up this diet with other shapechangers, though not too often to avoid reprisals. Padrona are mysterious Ananasi who cannibalize their brethren for reasons yet unknown.
• I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure: Upon learning of Ananasa's predicament, the ancient Ananasi briefly served the Wyrm in exchange for Ananasa's safety.
• Lack of Empathy: Ananasi tend to turn... rather cold following their First Change. It's part of what makes them master manipulators.
  "Have you noticed the differences in your mind since you first Changed? You are not as warm as you might have been. The flowers do not hold the same beauty for you as they did, and likely your families are no longer as important as they were. This too is Ananasa's doing. We are cold and merciless because we must be. We are hunters, destroyers and builders. All of these tasks require a certain... distance from the objects we must work with."
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: If one of the spider bodies in the Crawlerling form that contains the Ananasi's consciousness is killed the Ananasi loses a portion of their memory.
• Manipulative Bastard: Thousands of years ago, the Ananasi tricked the Garou into storming Malfeas and attacking a giant opal, which they claimed was the heart of the Wyrm. In reality, the opal was a containment cell in which Ananasa was imprisoned. The Garou's assault cracked the opal, allowing Ananasa to communicate with the Ananasi, but the Garou have neither forgiven nor forgotten how the Ananasi lied to them. Manipulation continues to be a favored Ananasi tactic to this day. Incidentally, this is one of many incidents that's been claimed to have kicked off the War of Rage.
• Messianic Archetype: Anansi, a legendary Ananasi who traveled through the Umbra for years to locate Ananasa. Before leaving for the Umbra, he instructed his followers not to obey the Wyrm. When he returned, he brought news of Ananasa's predicament to her children.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: According to the 2000 Ananasi breedbook, the White Howlers (who later became the Black Spiral Dancers) fell to the Wyrm after the Ananasi tricked the Garou into storming Malfeas. The Garou targeted the ancient Ananasi for serving the Wyrm. The Ananasi retaliated by telling the Fera that the Garou would come for them next, igniting the War of Rage between the Garou and Fera. Well, maybe — there are numerous accounts of what started the War of Rage, and as of yet, none of them are entirely canon.
• Mirroring Factions: With the Gaian Garou. The Ananasi accuse the ancient Garou of self-importance and arrogance for believing that they could protect creation themselves, but this is exactly how the Ananasi themselves behave.
• Resurrective Immortality: Of a kind. An Ananasi in Crawlerling form that has lost much of their body mass from the spiders making them up getting killed can try to get inside the body of a human or another shapeshifter and eat their brain. If they succeed at this they can replace the brain with their form and take over the body. In so doing they start from the age of the body so older Ananasi will do this even if they don't need to to become young again.
• Save Your Deity: The long-term goal of the Ananasi is to liberate their goddess from Malfeas. They attempted it in the distant past by manipulating the Garou into storming Malfeas.
• The Sociopath: Most Ananasi (except for those with the merit/flaw Empathy) are devoid of empathy for other beings. Manipulation and deceit are time-honored Ananasi tools. Finally, the werespiders see themselves as set above other life forms, having been created by a high-ranking goddess. While the Ananasi do have a moral code of sorts, it sees other beings as expendable in the name of restoring balance to the universe.
• Spider People: In their battle form they resemble a human/spider cross, though the details of that shape varies from on Ananasi to another. Some are more spider, some are more human.
• Spider Swarm: Ananasi can transform into a swarm of spiders.
• The Stoic: Most Ananasi are emotionally muted. See Lack of Empathy above.
• The Vamp: Seduction is one of many Ananasi tactics for manipulating humans.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Ananasi have noble goals, in that they want to free their goddess and help her restore order to a broken universe. However, other supernaturals look askance at the manipulative means by which they go about this goal.
• The Worm That Walks: Unlike the other Changing Breeds the Ananasi don't have an animal form per se. They don't turn into a spider (even if they were born as one), rather they turn into many spiders, the "Crawlerling" form. This consists of a number of "leader" spiders (generally no more than ten) that contain the Ananasi's consciousness and the rest as mindless bodies following the leaders' command. This is because spreading one's consciousness across hundreds or even thousands of bodies creates a sensory overload that is way more than the Ananasi's mind can handle.

Bastet

Werefelines whose social structure, like Garou, is divided into tribes, in their case by species: Bagheera (leopards), Balam (jaguars), Bubasti (Egyptian shadow-cats), Ceilican (fae cats), Khan (tigers), Pumonca (pumas), Qualmi (lynxes), Simba (lions), and Swara (cheetahs). The Khara, were-sabretooth tigers, fell into extinction with their species.

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• Ax-Crazy: Rage Across Egypt describes Sakhmet, an ancient Simba queen who revered Helios (Re). She was prompted by Re to go on a frenzied killing spree in ancient Egypt, slaughtering all the humans and vampires she could find.
• Berserk Button: The best way to get every werecat in a tribe angry at you at the same time is to divulge a Yava to an outsider. You better either be really fast or really good at fighting.
• The Caligula: Black Tooth, a Simba (werelion) king.
• Cat Folk: They resemble hulking humanoids felines in their battle form.
• Cryptic Conversation: The Bastet rarely communicate information straight out (the Ceilicans especially just can't). To them, if you have to have something spelled out for you, then you don't deserve to know. However, this goes both ways; the Bastet who are being cryptic are also expected to be good at dropping real clues to their true meaning so people can work out what they're saying in a timely fashion. Piling on the obtuse metaphor will get you mocked.
• Dark Secret: Each Bastet tribe is subject to weaknesses called Yava that they work very hard to keep secret from outsiders. Most of these are incredibly esoteric, such as that white wine poured into a footprint will make the werecat who made the print drunk. Some of them are very deadly. Even if the weakness itself isn't a direct attack point (for instance, one tribe's Yava is just that they're always hungry), just the fact of knowing the secret provides a metaphysical advantage over the tribe.
• Dying Race:
  • The Bubasti are few and growing fewer because their feline kinfolk are near-extinct, with the only survivng members of the species held prisoner and ghouled by the Followers of Set. They occasionally bargain for a few nights' access to the captured kyphur cats, or breed with servals and caracals instead, but it's not working out great. Their ballpark total population is fifty-two.
  • The Khan aren't doing much better for similar reasons (tigers are still around but they're not doing well). This hasn't been helped by their tendency to get into very foolish internecine wars.
  • Averted with the Ceilican who were in this position after many of their race being enslaved by evil Fae and many more dying in witch hunts due to their longstanding association with human magic users but they managed to recover due to somehow using dreams to negate their Yava (possibly permanently) and then faking their actual extinction so to this day even the other Bastet think they're dead and gone so no one's coming for them.
• Hypocrite: As a Croax points out in the wereraven's Breedbook the Simba werelions have lost the right to complain about the Garou's actions during the War of Rage since they did the exact same to the Ajaba.
• Ineffectual Loner: With the exception of the Simba (and sometimes the Bubasti), the Bastet are solitary creatures. Because they operate independently, they were vulnerable to the Garou (who operate in packs) during the War of Rage.
• Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: The Swara werecheetahs are solitary and standoffish even by Bastet standards, trusting only spirits and other Swara.
• Split Personality: As a side effect of either temporarily or permanently (even they're not sure which) removing their Yava the Ceilican picked up a new one which causes them to shift personalities at least once a year, sometimes more. They retain their memories but lack any direct connection to them, described as being like a movie they saw rather than things that actually happened to them. They sometimes return to old personalities, sometimes they never do.
• Supporting Protagonist: According to the Bastet themselves, Gaia's task for them was to coordinate the actions of all of the other Changing Breeds and ensure all worked together. Because this would require them to know everything about the other Breeds, they didn't take kindly to this.

Corax

Wereravens who serve as spies and messengers for the Garou and other Fera.

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• Amazon Brigade: The female-only Morrigan and Murder's Daughters camps.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Corax are easily distracted by shiny objects.
• Bird People: In their battle form, they become humanoid ravens.
• The Cassandra: The Corax claim that they tried to warn the Wendigo and Uktena about the imminent invasion of the European Garou, but the tribes wouldn't listen. The Corax sometimes run into this problem when trying to relay important information. Their trickster tendencies come in handy when trying to get obstinant Garou or Fera to listen.
• Clever Crows: They are tricksters.
• Due to the Dead: The Corax must respectfully ask a corpse's permission before harvesting an eye to drink. They drink from eyes not only to gather useful information, but to honor the dead by bearing witness to their lives.
• Eyeball-Plucking Birds: Corax in corvid form can pluck out opponents' eyes. They can also do this to corpses to learn the last thing that the dead guy saw.
• Eye Remember: The Corax can drink the fluid in a corpse's eye (provided that they ask permission first) and see events from the dead person's life.
• Gossipy Hens: They share information with the Garou, Fera, and themselves. Their totem, Raven, also asks that, whenever they learn a secret, they whisper it into the wind, so that Raven can hear it too.
• Information Wants to Be Free: The Corax bring secrets to light. The Corax code of conduct stresses that "there are no secrets".
• Knowledge Broker: Corax serve as messengers and spies for Gaia's forces, trading in vital information.
• Merger of Souls: Unlike most of the other Fera, Corax are not born, but made; new Corax are created via a ritual bonding a human or raven child with a spirit egg, the spiritual component that makes a Corax. Their First Change is triggered when the egg hatches.
• The Mole: During the War of Rage, they maintained friendly relations with the Garou on the surface. Secretly, they were keeping sensitive information from the Garou about Fera whereabouts and leading the Fera and their kinfolk to safety in the Umbra. This duplicity likely explains their relatively light casualties compared to the other Changing Breeds.
• Motormouth: Corax love to talk... and talk... and talk...
• Non-Action Guy: Unlike most other Changing Breeds, the Corax hate being in their Crinos form, which is awkward, ungainly, and generally unsuited to combat. They have a few tricks for offense or escape, but as a rule, a Corax does not want to be anywhere near a fight.
• Odd Friendship: The warlike Get of Fenris and Fianna Garou hold the peaceful Corax in high esteem.
• Passive Rescue: During the War of Rage, they quietly helped Fera and Fera kinfolk find refuge in the Umbra.
• The Quisling: Other changing breeds claim that the Corax allied themselves with the Garou during the War of Rage. The Corax deny this but can't offer the actual defence (that they were double agents protecting the Fera as best they could) without angering the Garou.
• Sneaky Spy Species: The only Fera breed that can fly, and can read the memories of the dead by devouring their eyeballs. Combined with their dislike of fighting and their firm belief that "there are no secrets," they've carved out a vital niche as spies, information brokers, and messengers.
• Tengu: The Corax's Far Eastern branch, who are the inspiration for mortal Tengu legends.
• Trickster Mentor: Like the Nuwisha the Corax enjoy a good practical joke and like to use such to impart lessons. However unlike the Nuwisha they don't see this as the only means of teaching a lesson and tend to pay more attention to making the lesson actually stick rather than making it funny.
• We Are Everywhere: As per the Raven totem's orders, the Corax spread across the globe and Umbra. They used to stay out of South America, where the Camazotz werebats did the same job as messengers, but since the Camatoz died out they have moved into that area too.

Gurahl

Werebears long thought extinct who serve as Gaia's healers. They're organized into tribes that tend to divide themselves by geographical habitat: Forest Walkers, Ice Stalkers, Mountain Guardians and River Keepers. The Okuma of Asia died in the Beast Courts' War of Shame.

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• Artistic License – Paleontology: In universe and out, from the Gurahl describing themselves as the oldest of the Changing Breeds;
  • In-universe the Mokolé are the actual oldest Changing Breed, seemingly predating mammals.
  • Out-of-universe this would make little sense from an evolutionary perspective, as bears are the youngest of the carnivore families and in fact evolved from the Garou's canines.
• Back from the Dead: One of their highest-level Gifts and one of their most powerful rituals each allow them to do this to a recently deceased subject. However, they can only resurrect a person once (and can't use one power on a subject on whom they used the other power, successfully or no), and if they wait too long before using the resurrection Gift... something a little more Wyrmish than the original soul will end up operating the body. Also, they refuse to use their resurrection powers on non-Gurahl. It's stated that their unwillingness to teach these powers to the Garou (who the Gurahl didn't think were ready for them) was one of the major factors leading to the War of Rage.
• Bears Are Bad News: Zig-zagged. They are retiring healers and considerably less prone to berserking than Garou... but managing to set one off is a bad idea.
• Been There, Shaped History: A rare case of this not being human history. The Gurahl deliberately created grizzly bears via careful breeding and a touch of spirit magic in order to create more resilient ursine Kinfolk.
• Came Back Wrong: If Gurahl wait too long to resurrect a fallen comrade, the resurrected body is at high risk of being bane-possessed.
• Ethical Slut: Gurahl are not necessarily monogamous, as illustrated by their use of the Rite of True Mating.
  "We use a ritual that tells us who our optimal mate is, and it isn't always the same one as the last time! Promiscuous? No, we're not. Another Changing Breed holds that distinction. Like Gaia's wild creatures, we choose the strongest and most healthy with whom to mate. This is the best way we know to ensure having hardy children. That's not promiscuity; it's survival."
• Fantasy Pantheon: Great Bear (their father-god), Ursa Major (their mother-god), and Ursa Minor (the child of Great Bear and Ursa Major).
• Heroic Sacrifice: In ancient times, Gurahl would willingly allow starving humans to kill them and eat their flesh. Gurahl who sacrificed themselves this way were often resurrected by their brethren.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Even in modern times, some Garou wrongly believe that the ancient Gurahl betrayed them or collaborated with the Wyrm.
• The Medic: Their healing skills are second to none.
• The Mentor: The Gurahl recognize the importance of mentoring their young. In ancient times, before the War of Rage, they mentored the Garou, teaching them the Rite of Purification, Rite of Passage, Mother's Touch, and Sense Wyrm.
• Mighty Glacier: Comes up in two ways. One, the physical boosts that the Gurahl receive upon shifting towards their non-Homid forms bulk up in terms of both strength and stamina, but their Dexterity scores stay pretty level. Two, unlike most shifters, the Gurahl can't spend Rage to get extra actions. Instead, they can use Rage to buff their strength to absurd levels. They might only hit once per combat round, but that hit can rend steel like it's butter, and while they can't necessarily dodge a hail of bullets, they can shrug off non-aggravated damage that would make even the Garou pause.
• Nice Guy: Generally speaking the Gurahl are the most affable of the Changing Breeds, as befits a species created to be healers. They only ever had any real beef with the Garou and that seems to have come entirely from the werewolves side. Even then while there is naturally still some bitterness the Gurahl as a whole are willing to drop that matter in the face of the Apocalypse.
• Our Wormholes Are Different: To enter the Umbra, Gurahl must perform the Rite of Rending the Gauntlet, which tears a hole between the physical world and the spirit world.
• You Are Not Ready: In ancient times, they refused to teach the Garou their resurrection gifts and rites, concerned that the immature Garou would become invincible if they could revive their dead. To boot, they feared that if the Garou abused these abilities, they would unwittingly resurrect bane-possessed Garou. The Garou initiated the War of Rage as a result.

Kitsune

Werefoxes native to east Asia, with powerful magic skills and close ties to Luna. They are the youngest of the Changing Breeds, coming into existence following the War of Rage.

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• Death by Childbirth: The birth of a Kitsune causes at least one death in exchange, typically one or both of the parents, with fox and human-born Kitsune being most likely to lose their non-Kitsune parent, and metis Kitsune having even odds of losing either, neither, or both. If both somehow survive, someone closely connected — family, friend, associate — dies instead.
• Elemental Powers: Unlike the majority of the other Fera whose spiritual powers and classes are dependent on the sun, moon, or time of birth, they align themselves with a Path that they choose upon becoming fully fledged Kitsune and these are elementally themed. However, another twist is that instead of the traditional classical elements the Paths are fusions of two classical elements into a new element itself: Eiji (Lava [Earth & Fire]), Doshi (Lightning [Fire & Air]), Gukutsushi (Fog [Air & Water]), Kataribe (Clay [Water & Earth]).
• Squishy Wizard: While not as physically powerful as the Garou and other Fera, they have considerable magic skills. And they lack a Healing Factor.
• You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Averted, unlike other shifters. As the Kitsune took no part in the Impergium, the ancestral memory of humans is not influenced by Kitsune, and they do not invoke the Delirium.

Mokolé

Werereptiles (crocodilians and large lizards) who descend from the dinosaurs, gathered into "Varnas" based on their species and "Streams" based on their homeland. The Varnas are Nile crocodile Champsa, gavial Gharial, American alligator Halpatee, saltwater crocodile Karna, Chinese alligator Lung, mugger crocodile Makara, monitor lizard Ora, American crocodile Piasa, caiman Sytra, and gila monster or beaded lizard Unktehi. The Streams are the Mokolé-mbembe of Africa and the Americas, the Makara of India, the Gumagan of Australia and Oceania, and the Zhong Lung of East Asia. Their ancestral memories give them a grasp of ancient history that other supernaturals lack. This also forms the basis of their Archid form which takes the form of various dinosaurs mashed together.

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• And Man Grew Proud: Ancient Mokolé ruled the Earth during the Age of Kings, but their pride contributed to their downfall.
• Cold-Blooded Whatever: While other changing breeds have specific animal types under their respective purviews, the Mokole mix-and-match every reptile under the sun — crocodiles, lizards, even dinosaurs — except for snakes^note and the surviving dinosaurs, the birds. Shattered Dreams clarifies that they were originally considered three entirely separate races: Were-Pterosaurs, Were-Plesiosaurs, and Were-"Dinosaurs" (which consisted almost entirely of tyrannosaurids and ceratopsians and might actually been two separate species themselves). Generations of interbreeding followed by a mass extinction bottleneck and millions of years of inbreeding resulted in the weird modern hodgepodge of all modern reptiles except snakes.
• Genetic Memory: Mokolé serve as Gaia's memory. Mnesis gives Mokolé access to their ancient ancestors' memories.
• Fantastic Racism: Most Mokolé really hate the Garou as, along with the Gurahl, they got the worst of the War of Rage except for the actually exstinct races. Lacking the often nurturing, forgiving nature of the Gurahl and able to experience the horror of those times directly through their Mnesis they're holding a grudge.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Like the Gurahl a lot of Garou propaganda from the War of Rage clings to the Mokolé, with many werewolves still thinking of them as Wyrm creatures.
• Lizard Folk: Mokolé do not have a humanoid lizard form outside of the "Reptoid Form" Gift they can learn to get a form analagous to the Glabro of the Garou. When they were the Lizard Kings during the Mesozoic, they could assume a bipedal, tool-using form called Drachid which was visually a Lizard Folk, and enough interbreeding amongst the Lizard Kings resulted in a whole separate Drachid species that their contemporary Changing Breeds could also use as breeding stock in the absense of mammals. The Wonder-Work, a.k.a. the Creataceous-Paleogene extinction, resulted in the complete annihilation of the Drachid species (even from the fossil record), and no modern Mokolé has been able to pull it from the Mnesis to recreate it.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: The Archid form is dreamt up by the Mokolé who pulls memories of reptiles, birds, and dinosaurs out of Mnesis to form their "true form" which tends to be an amalgamation of various dinosaurs in the west or something resembling a dragon amongst the Zhong Lung in Asia.
• Mokele-Mbembe: They derive their name and saurian forms from the sauropod-like cryptid. The Mokolé-mbembe are specifically the Stream native to Africa, with significant numbers having emigrated to South America (long before Europeans discovered the place, although the slave trade brought more over, following their Kinfolk).
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Averted, as the Mokolé are staunchly Gaian, but unfortunately believed by a lot of Garou, who associate them with the Wyrm due to the latter having a lot of dragon imagery.

Nagah

Wereserpents who serve as Gaia's assassins. Formerly related to the Mokolé.

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• Faking the Dead: The Nagah suffered terrible casualties in the War of Rage and were facing extinction if they couldn't get the Garou off their back. Their solution was to go into hiding and convince everyone they were already dead.
• He Knows Too Much: The narrator of the Nagah breedbook notes that Old Man Many-Skins of the Nuwisha is a Nagah target because he has stolen too many secrets from the other changing breeds.
• Internal Affairs: The entire species are this to the Changing Breeds as a whole, hunting down those who go too far.
• Masquerade: On top of the standard Masquerade that the Fera uphold, the Nagah hide themselves from the other Breeds, allowing them to think they were driven to extinction during the War of Rage. In the Beast Courts their existence is known but still kept secret from outsiders. The Nagah are also pretty sure the Mokolé know but thus far they haven't told anyone either. In the past, the Nagah had another Masquerade: They were believed to simply be magistrates and dancers, hiding their role as assassins.
• Master Poisoner: Poison is their weapon of choice. Not only are their snake forms capable of venom (even if the snake breed the Nagah takes from is not), but they prefer to use poison to assassinate their targets. One of their favorite modern fetishes is a punch bowl that can turn liquids into deadly poison.
• My Greatest Failure: As the Nagah tell it, long, long ago, one of their number fell to the Wyrm, and killed the wrong Silver Fang, sparking the War of Rage.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: The duty of the Nagah; those of the Changing Breeds who betray Gaia, either by falling to the Wyrm or misusing their power for selfish ends, and escape punishment by their own kind are to be judged and, if found guilty, killed by the Nagah.
• Rule of Three: For the Nagah, balance is a matter of three rather than two: the three great forces of the Triat, the three worlds of human, beast and spirit, the Three Mothers of the Nagah, Earth, Moon, and River, who are to be honored, and the three Nagah breeds, balaram (human-born), ahi (Nagah-born; lack the deformities and infertility of metis Garou, but are particularly vulnerable to pollution), and vasuki (snake-born). The luckiest number of Nagah for a nest, their basic social unit, is three, although sometimes they have to make do with two. They make it a rule never to operate alone, for fear of falling.
• Snake People: In their battle form.

Nuwisha

Werecoyotes who serve as tricksters and teachers.

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• Break the Haughty: A cherished Nuwisha tactic. Their breed's laws command werecoyotes to "teach those who need teaching a proper lesson". The Nuwisha themselves experience this in one Time of Judgment scenario. When the Wyrm hunts the Nuwisha to near-extinction, the few survivors must swallow their pride and seek protection from the Garou.
• The Cameo: The famous Nuwisha Old Man Manyskins appears in the Framing Device of the Nagah Breedbook, having been captured and being judged whether he can survive (though whether he's really powerless is questionable, given his history). A Nuwisha hinted to be him also manages to successfully spy on the training of young Ananasi in their Breedbook.
• Final Solution: In one Time of Judgment scenario, the Wyrm carries out a genocide of the Nuwisha and uses their remains to construct the five Columns of Flesh.
• Hypocrite: The narrator of the Nuwisha breedbook criticizes the Garou for their pride, but the Nuwisha themselves are anything but humble.
• Irony: The Nuwisha think of themselves as trickster teachers, but, judging by the other breedbooks, their "lessons" leave others confused or embarassed more often than enlightened.
• Joke Character: Their original interpretation in the gamebooks was treated as this, being compared to the Ragabash of the Garou but turned up to eleven in their antics. The original Nuwisha character sheet even had an entry called "Pants?", which was given the same prominence as their Breed and Totem and implied that the Nuwisha's choice of pants (or lack thereof) was an important character building concept.
• Master of Disguise: Old Man Manyskins, a renowned Nuwisha, is known for this. He has managed to convincingly portray even members of the other Changing Breeds enough to infiltrate just about all of them at some point.
• The Medic: Nuwisha who follow Kishijoten, Coyote's nurturing aspect, are healers.
• My Greatest Failure: A collective example. Luna was deeply hurt when Coyote created a world more beautiful than her, and the Nuwisha share Coyote's remorse for hurting her.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: In one Time of Judgment scenario, the Wyrm carries out a genocide of almost all Nuwisha. The Wyrm then uses their corpses to construct the Columns of Flesh, which form gateways into the Near Umbra for bane reinforcements.
• Protectorate: The Umbra, where most Nuwisha live. Nuwisha who serve Coyote's Ptah aspect have been obscuring parts of the Umbra from the Void Engineers, whom they accuse of spreading Weaver taint across the spirit world. These Nuwisha make sure that the Void Engineers only encounter parts of the Umbra that belong to the Wyrm, not places of power and beauty.
• Reconcile the Bitter Foes: A Nuwisha leader named Coyote-Laughs-at-Luna tried this centuries ago. Her plan involved offering a single caern to all the Garou tribes in exchange for peaceful relations with the Nuwisha. The Garou refused to share the caern, succumbing to infighting.
• The Trickster: Nuwisha excel at snark, practical jokes, and in the case of Wyrm minions, deadly pranks. It's also mechanically enforced — all Nuwisha are of the Ragabash auspice, the tricksters of the lunar cycle.
• Trickster Mentor: The Nuwisha see themselves as this for the Garou and other Fera. They consider educational tricks a sacred duty. Judging from the other breedbooks, however, their "lessons" leave others embarassed, confused, or angry more often than enlightened.
  Coyote: The very best pranks are those that make your opponent think. The very best jokes are those that teach the listeners to hear the truth.
• Walking the Earth: Coyote asks that his children travel the Earth and Umbra to better understand the Wyrm.
• You Cannot Grasp the True Form: In the first edition of the game, a Nuwisha's battle form is invisible to normal humans. In later editions, their battle form triggers a milder form of the Delirium.

Ratkin

Wererats who delight in chaos, upheaval, and disease, thanks to their Wyld-taint. Their race suffered considerable losses during the War of Rage, and they share a deep-seated hatred for the Garou.

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• Action Survivor: The Ratkin have been hell-bent on survival since the War of Rage.
• Ax-Crazy: Wyld-taint has left many Ratkin... unbalanced.
• Bold Explorer: The Munchmausen, a group of Ratkin who explore the Umbra.
• Curse: During the War of Rage, the last of the Ratkin bards assembled in the Field of Nettles and cursed their Garou oppressors, promising that the Ratkin would rise up against them someday.
• Explosive Breeder: The Ratkin have been quietly expanding their numbers over the millenia. As a result, a tiny percentage of the human population is now Ratkin kinfolk. Adding to this is that, unlike many other Changing Breeds' animal kinfolk, rats are not suffering a loss in numbers from the side effects of human civilisation, quite the opposite. The Corax breedbook observes that the Garou don't know that Ratkin exist in the numbers they do, and that someday the Ratkin will rise from the sewers and give the werewolves a nasty surprise.
• Genetic Memory: While it's not on the level of the Mokolé's Mnesis the Ratkin do get visions of their ancestors and similar from what they call Blood Memory. This also links living Ratkin together in certain ways; for instance a Ratkin always knows another Ratkin's name even if the two have never met before.
• Humans Are Bastards: Some Ratkin blame humanity's rapid growth for the Weaver's insanity, blaming humans for the current state of their crapsack world. These Ratkin see human deaths as necessary for restoring order to the world. Other Ratkin cast their lot with downtrodden humans and care for them.
• Hypocrite: The Ratkin despise human society and want to bring it down. However, they see no hypocrisy in benefiting from the boons of human society, such as language, firearms, property ownership, and ties with human kinfolk.
• Mandatory Motherhood: Ratkin consider breeding a sacred duty.
• Moral Myopia: The Ratkin see nothing wrong with culling humans or trying to bring down human society. However, they're furious that the Garou tried to cull them and wipe out their society in ancient times.
• Plaguemaster: Some Ratkin specialize in spreading disease.
• Rodents of Unusual Size: In their battle form.
• The Social Darwinist: They state that their Gaia-given role is to kill humans when the human population grows too large.
• Token Evil Teammate: From a human perspective, since they are the most anti human of the Gaian Changing Breeds. Barring extremists like the Red Talons the rest tend to deplore the excesses of human culture but still have a lot of affection for the species that makes up half their nature (with the exception of the Rokea, who mostly don't care about humans at all). By contrast the Ratkin were always created to kill humans as population control and millennia of being prevented from doing so by the Garou has left them to generally despise humans as a whole.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Most Changing Breed blood is like crack to vampires but due to their Blood Memory Ratkin blood is poisonous, causing physical damage and terrifying hallucinations to a vampire who drinks it (and anyone else who tried drink their blood for whatever reason).
• Viral Transformation: The Birthing Plague kills normal humans, but it transforms Ratkin kinfolk into full Ratkin over the span of several days.
• You Dirty Rat!: Their battle form resembles a large anthropomorphic rat. To boot, all Ratkin can assume a rat form.

Rokea

Savage weresharks who guard the oceans.

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• The Ageless: Once a Rokea undergoes the First Change, they stop aging. So long as they're not killed, they can live forever.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Their code of conduct does not resemble human or Garou morality. They are dedicated to eating, mating, swimming, and fighting the Wyrm. In recent years, deciding to live on land has become the big sin in Rokea culture, such that sea-dwelling Rokea will hunt and kill Rokea who decide to do so. The Same-Bito, Asian Rokea who dwell on land and even breed with humans, are relatively safe from this, because they have considerable numbers and the backing of the Beast Courts behind them (though they're still hated by "mainstream" Rokea for this reason, with the main branch declaring the first Same-Bito a traitor).
• Crazy Survivalist: The Rokea's reason for existing, more or less. Their Gaia given duty is to survive, no matter the cost, so even if all the other Changing Breeds die they'll still be at least one Gaian group left.
• Fish out of Water: Almost literally, in the Rokea's case. The breed's isolationism, combined with the fact that most Rokea are shark-born, means that when they first venture on land, they're unfamiliar with how humans do... well, anything. Doesn't help that there's virtually no use for Homid form at sea, since there's nothing Rokea are likely to do in that form that their Glabro form couldn't do better.
• Gonk: Thousands of years with little or no breeding with humans have caused the Rokea's human forms to take on traits from their shark forms. They're not quite at the point of being obviously inhuman but it does make them deeply fugly. Most notably their eyes are often distressingly far apart.
• Mode Lock: A hazard for Rokea that remain away from Sea for too long even if they somehow maintain their Gnosis — if they go for a full year without bathing in a body of salt water, they lose their shapeshifting ability forever. Since so few Rokea even deign to walk on dry land, it's doubtful many (if any) know the exact time limit.
• Shapeshifter Longevity: Of all the Changing Breeds in the game, the Rokea are the only true immortals to be found. On top of being able to take no less than five different forms - including that of a giant shark and an equally giant Shark Man - they are effectively unaging from the moment of their first Change. The only way they can die is violently.
• Threatening Shark: Human-range intelligence, boosted regeneration, magical powers, and shapeshifting. A shark with any of these would be one, and the Rokea have them all.

Lost Gaia Factions

Bunyip

A tribe of Garou who lived in Australia, taking Aboriginal Australians and thylacines as kinfolk. The tribe was exterminated by European Garou during the European colonization of Australia, as described in Rage Across Australia.

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• The Cassandra: A handful of European Garou such as Raymond Love-of-the-Goddess urged their brethren to respect the Bunyip. They were ignored.
• Creating Life Is Bad: Cernonous (a Children of Gaia scientist) is convinced that he can resurrect the Bunyip via cloning. Unfortunately, the resulting Garou are obviously different from their progenitors, being aggressive and secretive. One Apocalypse scenario sees them revealing that he only managed to clone the physical part of the Garou, the body and animal instincts. The spirit wasn't there, and the Empty Shells left behind were taken over by Wyrm spirits. Cernonous is then forced to walk the Black Spiral.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Isolation and primitive technology meant that the Bunyip and their kinfolk were ill-equipped to fight off the European Garou.
• Defector from Decadence: Rage Across Australia states that the Bunyip traveled to Australia to leave behind the other warlike Garou during War of Rage.
• Fantastic Racism: Earl Blaze, a British Silver Fang, believed that the Bunyip's isolation made them inferior to European Garou. Other European Garou saw the Bunyip as weak and therefore unfit to rule Australia.
• Fantasy Conflict Counterpart: The European Garou conquered the Bunyip as European humans were conquering Australia's indigenous population. The more specific parallel is probably to the indigenous population of Tasmania, which was completely destroyed through a combination of killing and interbreeding with Europeans, and is often considered one of the prototypical groups of victims of colonial genocide.
• Final Solution: The Bunyip and their thylacine kinfolk were completely exterminated during the European conquest of Australia. It didn't help that the Bunyip were already on the brink even before European contact, with their thylacine kinfolk close to extinction thanks to the machinations of Australia's Ananasi.
• Hostage Situation: Earl Blaze kidnapped seven Bunyip kinfolk in an attempt to force the reclusive Bunyip to make contact with European Garou. The kinfolk refused to be the European Garou's pawns and killed themselves.
• Insanity Immunity: The Bunyip did not carry out the Impergium on Aboriginal Australian peoples, and thus pure-blooded indigenous people from Australia do not experience Delirium.
• Interspecies Romance: The Bunyip Garou bred with thylacines — which were marsupials, not canines — thanks to secrets the Australian Mokolé taught them.
• Large and in Charge: The Earth Mother revered by the Bunyip is an avatar of Gaia who appears in the Dreamtime Umbra as a giant woman. Also, the enormous Rainbow Serpent was one of the totems of the Bunyip, and it still grieves over the tribe's extermination.
• Let's You and Him Fight: According to Rage Across Australia, a Black Spiral Dancer named Mara the Scream tricked Australia's Red Talons into slaughtering Bunyip. The War of Tears resulted in the Bunyip's complete extermination.
• Lost Tribe: Other Garou tribes thought the Bunyip had died or fallen to the Wyrm. When they discovered the Bunyip in Australia millennia later, they were shocked.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Disgusted by the Garou's War of Rage, the Bunyip quietly left the Garou Nation and took up residence in Australia. Also, unlike the other Garou, the Bunyip were largely peaceful.
• Noble Savage: The Bunyip lived in peace with the Aboriginal Australians and the land.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Instead of being reborn, the spirits of exterminated Bunyip now inhabit Australia's Dreamtime umbra as ghosts. These angry ghosts can manipulate the surrounding Dreamtime to torment enemies, induce harano in Garou, and drain gnosis from caerns once occupied by Bunyip. W20 Umbra: the Velvet Shadow puts a different spin on things: the Bunyip 'ghosts' are what remains of the last living Bunyip, who had withdrawn into the Deep Umbra and discovered that having spent so long there they could no longer return to the material world.
• Perfect Pacifist People: Millennia of isolation from their Garou cousins led the Bunyip to eschew war and cultivate a peaceful tribal culture. When forced to defend themselves against the European Garou, the Bunyip's long-buried rage surprised them.
• Small, Secluded World: Australia was far enough from the other continents that the Bunyip could live there undisturbed for millennia. The Bunyip also sealed the Dreamtime so that Garou could not enter Australia through the Umbra.
• Yowies and Bunyips and Drop Bears, Oh My: Bunyip was the tribe's totem spirit.

Croatan

Along with the Wendigo and Uktena, one of the three Garou tribes who inhabited North America before European colonization.

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• Heroic Sacrifice: The entire tribe sacrificed itself to prevent Eater-of-Souls from besieging the Americas.
• Living Emotional Crutch: The Croatan were this on a cultural level to the Uktena and the Wendigo, being wise enough to alleviate the other two tribe's more negative qualities. Without them around the Uktena are getting deeper and deeper into forbidden knowledge and the Wendigo are becoming increasingly lost to their cold fury.
• Loved by All: You'd have a hard time finding any Garou with a bad word to say about the Croatan. Their sacrifice impressed every other tribe so much that even those that tend to be pretty racist about the other two Native American tribes have nothing but respect for the Croatan.
• My Greatest Failure: The Wendigo and Uktena regret that their ancestors did not intervene in time to save the Croatan.
• Seers: Werewolf: The Wild West begins with a prophesy from Voice-of-Winter, the last Croatan theurge. Voice-of-Winter had visions of the conquest of the Pure Lands and the supremacy of Weaver and Wyrm there.

White Howlers

An ancient tribe of Pictish Garou from what is now Scotland. They went on campaign against the Roman invaders, seeking to drive them out, only to discover they had left their homeland and Kinfolk vulnerable to the Wyrm and its servants. Out of duty, vengeance, and pride, they ventured into Malfeas to confront the Wyrm in its lair, and were corrupted. Their descendants are the Black Spiral Dancers.

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• Brave Scot: Brave Picts, but the trope still holds, since the Picts make up about half of the ancient ancestry of the Scots.
• Broken Bird:
  • The atrocities of the Roman conquerors were traumatizing enough for the White Howlers. The aftermath of a large-scale formori siege on their kinfolk left many White Howlers emotionally scarred.
  • Lion became this after his beloved White Howlers fell to the Wyrm.
• The Cassandra: Morag warned her tribemates not to break through the barrier leading from the Great Pit into Malfeas.
  Morag: How can you consider entering that passage now, when the rest of our people know nothing of what we have found here? What if our entry breaks the bonds on that portal? Would you unleash whatever lies beyond onto the rest of the world? Have our Kin not suffered enough? Would you grant the Wyrm itself entry into our lands, all because you are too impatient to think with your heads, not your claws? Have you learned nothing from your battle in the south?
• Character Narrator: The W20 White Howler tribebook is narrated by Morag, a metis Galliard who was instructed by Lion to recite her tribe's history to the night.
• Doomed by Canon: Their tribebook is set the night before they ventured into Malfeas.
• Face–Monster Turn: According to the White Howler tribebook, the Black Spiral Dancer totems Green Dragon and G'louogh were once Gaian totems for the White Howlers. They presumably fell to the Wyrm after the White Howlers did so.
• Fallen Hero: They were once a heroic tribe of Garou who fought against Wyrm, but were transformed into Wyrm werewolves after storming Malfeas.
• Fate Worse than Death: When the White Howlers discovered the Great Pit leading into Malfeas, they charged in hoping to destroy the Wyrm. Instead, they were transformed into the first Black Spiral Dancers.
• Fire Keeps It Dead: The Rite of the Bone-Fire prevents the souls of the dead from returning as ghosts and the bodies of the deceased from being used for necromantic purposes.
• Fisher Kingdom: In Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth, Titus Germanicus' letters indicate that the White Howlers and their kinfolk were small, diseased and misshapen from the Wyrm's influence in their homeland. The corruption of their Kinfolk comes up again in their tribebook, but it's not really brought up for the Howlers themselves, even when suggesting flaws for Howler characters to take.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: At least one Theurge went insane when the White Howlers discovered a portal into Malfeas.
• Heartbroken Badass: The White Howler Garou collectively became this after formori slaughtered, ravaged, and corrupted their kinfolk.
• King of Beasts: Lion was the tribe's totem spirit. When the White Howlers fell to the Wyrm, Lion joined Griffin's brood and now extends patronage to Red Talons.
• Last of His Kind: The first edition of Book of the Wyrm mentions Cororuc, a White Howler who escaped the Wyrm's clutches and warned other Garou about the Black Spiral Dancers. He was killed by Black Spirals while he slept. (According to W20 Umbra, his ghost still survives in the Dark Umbra.) Titus Germanicus' letters in Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth describe Brennus, the last White Howler chieftain. After his warriors fell in battle, he was tortured and beheaded in a Black Spiral Dancer pit.
• Macho Masochism: Members of the Boderia camp engage in extreme body modification, such as scarring and amputation of minor body parts.
• Mercy Kill: The White Howlers were forced to kill many of their beloved kinfolk who had been transformed into formori after a Wyrm siege.
• The Migration: During the Ice Age, many of the tribe left their home for fairer climes, returning when it finally ended.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth, Brennus admits to Titus Germanicus that he once summoned Wyrm spirits to fight Roman invaders. His short-sighted empowerment of Wyrmish forces may have contributed to the fall of the White Howlers.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Much like the Silent Striders, the White Howlers had extensive contact with ghosts. The Boderia camp specialized in dealing with ghosts of the dead.
• Protectorate: The White Howlers were devoted to protecting Caledonia from Roman and Wyrmish invaders.
  • The Toutates camp was devoted to protecting White Howler kinfolk.
• Rape, Pillage, and Burn: While the White Howlers were launching a coordinated attack on the Romans, fomori attacked kinfolk villages en masse. White Howler kinfolk who weren't slaughtered were ravaged or converted into formori themselves.
• Resurrective Immortality: How tribal hero Eubh the Ever-Living got his name; every time he died, he'd return from death. In the end, he was buried under an avalanche during the Ice Age and never came back; tribal legend held he was waiting to be resurrected, but apparently he never came back before their fall.
• Retcon: Prior to W20 Book of the Wyrm and the Howler Tribebook, the Howlers' fall was pretty much a result of their own hubris. In the W20 core, they discovered a path into Malfeas, and being Blood Knights of the highest order, charged in to confront the Wyrm in its lair. In the original run, they would venture into Malfeas for their rites of passage, resulting in a good number of the tribe getting Wyrm-corrupted, until eventually they killed the non-corrupted and took over, dragging the surviving Howler elders into the Labyrinth (it's this version Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth ties into).
• Scheherezade Gambit: According to White Howler legend, Tearlach Talespinner ended the ice age that oppressed her people by telling stories to Helios.
• Shout-Out: The White Howlers are a collective shout-out to the historical fantasy writings of Robert E. Howard, who included the ancient Picts in several of his stories.
  • References to the stone age history of the White Howlers, the small and twisted bodies of Wyrm-tainted White Howlers and kinfolk, and evil lurking in subterranean quarters are all familiar to Howard's fans.
  • Cororuc, the White Howler who warned the Fianna about the Black Spiral Dancers, is a shout-out to "The Lost Race".
  • The letters of Titus Germanicus in Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth are full of references to "Worms of the Earth". The appendix of Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth mentions Titus Sulla and links Brennus with Bran Mak Morn, two characters who appear in "Worms of the Earth". The Pictish warrior's warning to Brennus about the Wyrm creatures he once summoned — "You called them and they will remember" — is a line that Atla delivered to Bran Mak Morn after he summoned chthonic beings to capture Titus Sulla.
• Similar Squad: Like the Red Talons, the Mactire camp was almost entirely lupus, wary of humans, and dedicated to protecting wilderness and caerns.
• What the Hell, Hero?: According to the 20th anniversary edition of Book of the Wyrm, the White Howlers requested help from the other tribes after discovering the Black Spiral Labyrinth. None of the tribes answered their pleas for help. After the White Howlers fell to the Wyrm, the Get of Fenris and Fianna were more interested in assimilating their kinfolk than stamping out Wyrm activity in White Howler lands. The Howler Tribebook goes into deeper detail on why the other tribes didn't answer: some were focused elsewhere (Black Furies, Bone Gnawers, Children of Gaia, Fianna, Red Talons, Shadow Lords, Silent Striders), some had taken positions at odds with the Howlers' (the Glass Walkers and Silver Fangs, who sided with the Romans over the Picts), some were too divided to mount a united response (Get of Fenris), and some were isolationist (Bunyip, Croatan, Uktena, Wendigo). The Stargazers were prepared to respond, as they foresaw great harm coming to all Garou if they did not intervene... but then their omen changed, and the Stargazers saw that if they joined the Howlers, both tribes would be lost. They still debate their choice not to help even today.

Apis

An ancient race of were-aurochs who provided the inspiration for the Minotaur legend. Exterminated by the Garou during the War of Rage.

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• Babies Ever After: Something they specialized in. Their most powerful rite involved taking a blood or semen sample from two participants, and using them to create a child, conceived in the earth itself. This baby would always be a shifter if one of the parents was. They had other Gifts, one that would cure any type of infertility for a day (or keep fertility if there was a pregnancy), and others that would increase the chance to breed true, even giving a Human-Human pairing a 1 in 4 chance to be an Apis.
• Been There, Shaped History: Or shaped mythology. Not only was the last Apis the source of many minotaur legends, but their knack for matchmaking and fertility made the bull the symbol of fertility for many ancient cultures, such as the Egyptian goddess Hathor, or how Hera was also known as Boopis, the Cow-eyed.
• Berserk Button: The Apis only went to war with the Garou when they insinuated that the Apis would not defend children in their care from the Wyrm.
• Cannibalism Superpower: With a simple Gift, the Apis could eat the body of a fallen foe and replenish Rage, Gnosis, or Willpower.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The Apis were wiped out as they defended the Near East from Garou forces.
• Mama Bear: Since they were so close with children, they were immensely protective of their charges. Woe befell any who messed with an Apis's brood.
• Man on Fire: One of their Gifts turned the Apis's hooves to flame, and let them breathe fire.
• The Matchmaker: The Apis served as matchmakers for the changing breeds.
• Our Minotaurs Are Different: In their battle form, Apis resemble the Minotaur of legend. The very last known Apis was actually the Minotaur of Crete.
• Seers: They had a Gift that let them see omens of the fate of themselves or their loved ones.
• Someone to Remember Him By: On rare occasion, if a man lost his wife young, he would take a lock of her hair, and take it to an Apis. They would use their strongest ritual to give the man the baby his wife would have borne.

Camazotz

Werebats who served as covert spies and messengers for the forces of Gaia (as compared to the overt Corax). Devastated in the original War of Rage, they were finally exterminated by the Shadow Lords, who saw them as resembling Tzimisce vampires far too closely for comfort, during the conquest of the Americas.

W20 Changing Breeds adds an addendum: there was a surviving Camazotz population in Australia, but the genocide of their South American cousins — and Bat's foresight of the Garou's future Australian massacres — pushed Bat into the clutches of the Wyrm. With Bat corrupted, the Camazotz creation rites failed, dooming the surviving werebats to be the last of their kind.

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• Bat Out of Hell: The Garou certainly thought so. In truth, they were not.
• Bat People: They took the form of humanoid chiropterans when in war form. They were no more evil and no less loyal to Gaia than any other of the Changing Breeds, but their appearance convinced the werewolves that they must have been Wyrm-tainted and led to their eradication.
• Casting a Shadow: A common Gift gave the Camazotz the ability to wrap himself in shadow, muffling footsteps and even making him tougher.
• Dark Secret: What they specialized in finding. They had a Gift that would let them determine it.
• Giant Flyer: In their megachiropteria form, they resembled bats with a 15-foot wingspan.
• Invisibility: They had a special fetish made that could turn an unwilling victim almost completely invisible. Even brandishing a gun in a bank could only cause a 1 in 5 chance of being seen.
• Merger of Souls: Camazotz were not born like most of the other Changing Breeds. Like the Corax, they were created via a ritual bonding an infant human or bat with the spiritual component that made a Camazotz. Once Bat fell, any surviving Camazotz found the ritual corrupted, dooming their people to extinction.
• Odd Friendship: They got along well with the Bunyip, despite the fact that the Garou nearly slaughtered all the Camazotz.
• Polar Opposite Twins: Their relationship with the Corax was described this way - the Camazotz were extreme introverts and the Corax are extreme extroverts. As they were both flying messengers they would meet often at dusk and dawn to exchange information. Though the two species respected each other they also didn’t mesh well with the Corax coming off as frighteningly friendly and pushy and the Camazotz seeming curt and stand-offish.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Camazotz were quite often very short, and the guidebook notes that most take the Short flaw.
• Stealth Expert: Similar to the Corax, they were messengers for Gaia. But while the Corax were loud and shared openly, the Camazotz spied. And they were good at it.
• Super-Scream: Could use their echolocation as a weapon with a Gift.
• Super Spit: A Gift let a Camazotz blind people with spit.
• The Swarm: The microchiropteria form, a swarm of tiny bats, with a few "leaders" that hold the Camazotz's memory.
• Weakened by the Light: Although Camazotz don't suffer physical pain, they can't enter the Umbra in bright light. Even those with a special gift can only do so with a penalty.

Grondr

An ancient race of wereboars who served as Gaia's cleansers. Exterminated by the Garou during the War of Rage.

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• Ambiguous Situation: It’s noted that all modern swine seem curiously unrelated and divorced from whatever species the Grondr were a part of and there is some implication that they might have actually been Were-Entelodonts instead of Wereboars, explaining how they were so thoroughly wiped out despite their Kin supposedly flourishing.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: Their most powerful Gift involved marking an area of land. A Bane representing that land's ecological damage would appear (the larger the area, the more powerful the Bane), and if the Bane was destroyed, the land would recover within a year.
• Cast from Hit Points: Not the Grondr themselves, but they had a powerful Charm that forced a Bane to lose extra Essence when it tried to activate a Charm (or was hurt by a Garou)
• Evil Counterpart: The Skull Pigs, at least that's what is believed.
• Extreme Omnivore: Able to eat almost anything — and with the aid of a common Gift, they could even devour Wyrm-taint without being corrupted. Unfortunately, the other Fera — the Garou in particular — couldn't believe they were immune to Wyrm-taint, suspecting they must have been corrupted somehow... and when the Grondr stood up for the Gurahl against the Garou, the werewolves wiped the Grondr out, having convinced themselves they'd fallen to the Wyrm.
• Green Thumb: They could make plants grow to astonishing speed, causing great redwoods to grow in just one year, with a powerful but common Gift.
• Light Is Good: When their tusks glowed white, their horns were so powerful, they could purge banes from fomori and other corrupted hosts.
• Use Your Head: Charging with their tusks is a common form of Grondr battle, and they have Gifts to enhance this.

The Drachids

Not technically a Changing Breed, the Drachids were a race of reptilian humanoids that served as the dominant species of the planet before the rise of mammals. They also served as the Kinfolk and "Hominid" form for all pre-Paleogene Period Changing Breeds.

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• Beast of Battle: In wartime, they sent their tamed sauropods into battle with flame cannons on their backs.
• A Day in the Limelight: Their culture is touched upon in Shattered Dreams, as one of the featured possible time-travel settings.
• Domesticated Dinosaurs: They used sauropods as beasts of burden, and during times of war they also fitted them with enchanted flame cannons.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Their society was stratified, with Changers at the top and Kinfolk at the bottom.
  • The Anasani and Rokea could shapeshift into them but rarely did, being too proud (since the form looked so much like the Dragon Kings). Presumably the other prehistoric Changing Breeds (the ammonites, anemones, bees, hornets, ants, termites, locusts, moths, and bristlecreepers) also had them as their humanoid form.
• Human Aliens: Supposedly, humans are Gaia's attempt to re-recrate the Drachids with whatever was left after the Wonderwork.
• Humanoid Female Animal: In one of the few official pieces of art depicting them, there's clearly a "female" that's gracile and more humanoid than the "males" — who in turn have scutes and horns for beards.
• Lizard Folk: They are an ancient race of reptilian humanoids that predate humans.
• Precursors: They were the original rulers of the Earth.
• Retcon: Originally they were just a lost form of the Mokolé. They were later stated to be the pre-human shapeshifter form for all prehistoric shapeshifters because without humans there'd be nothing for them to shapeshift ''into''.
• Ultraterrestrials: The original dominant species that predated humanity.

The Triat

The Triat

The Triat consists of the three primal forces of the universe: the Wyld (change and chaos), the Weaver (order and stability), and the Wyrm (decay and destruction).

The Wyld

• Action Survivor: The Wyld is hell-bent on surviving the Wyrm and Weaver's predations, according to Book of the Wyld.
• Almighty Idiot: To a certain extent. Out of the three members of the Triat, the Wyld is the one with the least personality, or possibly consciousness. Being the cosmic concept of Chaos and Creation, it does not think beyond its function, and rarely has any initiative of its own. Indeed, the Wyld has been distressingly (to the Fera) mute on the conflict between the Weaver and the Wyrm. While the Fera count the Wyld as an ally, they have no illusions of it being their FRIEND, and indeed a Wyld infestation can be VASTLY more dangerous than a Weaver or Wyrm infestation because of its unpredictability.
• Apocalypse How: According to the Book of the Wyld, some supernatural beings believe that the Wyld will destroy the world if Gaia dies. For example, the book contains a Red Talon myth in which Gaia took the Wyld as her mate. The Wyld's sister and brother (Weaver and Wyrm) conspired to trap the Wyld in a cage so that they could kill Gaia and rule over the cosmos. Wyld swore that if Weaver and Wyrm killed his mate, he would exact vengeance upon them. If Gaia dies, all life will perish under his wrath.
  • Also in Book of the Wyld, a Ratkin named Jez likened the Wyld to a father who curb-stomps anyone who threatens his daughter, Gaia. Should the Weaver or Wyrm kill Gaia, the Wyld will "unleash a beatin' like the world has never seen."
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Wyld cares about nothing except performing its cosmic role and surviving the depredations of the Weaver and Wyrm.
• Chaotic Neutral: Invoked Trope. The Wyld is pure chaos.
• Cloudcuckooland: Flux, the Wyld's Umbral home, is a realm of absolute, terrifying chaos.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Wyld is the cosmic force of change and chaos, with no permanent form and alien goals.
  Wyld (to Ananasa): Weaver cannot hold me, little sister. I am chaos, and I have no form.
• The Gods Must Be Lazy: By some accounts, the Wyld has done little or nothing to reign in the Weaver's madness or the Wyrm's unbridled destruction. The narrator of the first edition Corax breedbook snarks that the Wyld was off "picking his toes" when the Weaver ensnared the Wyrm in her web.
• The Maker: By some accounts, the Wyld created nearly everything in the universe.
• Only Sane Man: A very odd example, given that it's actions (if that's even the right word) are far from what would seem sane in a mortal being. However the Wyld is the only one of the Triat that is still, more or less, doing what it's supposed to while the other two have gone way off track.
• Order Versus Chaos: The Wyld embodies chaos and change, opposite the order and stasis embodied by the Weaver.
• The Power of Creation: The Wyld is the force of creation and change.
• Primordial Chaos: The Wyld is the primal force of change and chaos in the universe.
• Pure Is Not Good: The Wyld is the pure energy of dynamic change. However, an excess of Wyld energy can cause personality changes, physical transformations, madness, and even death.
• Swirly Energy Thingy: Charybdis, an Umbral "black hole" that sucks up any nearby energy and matter for absorption and recreation by the Wyld.

The Weaver

• Control Freak: Many Garou and Fera insist that the Weaver has gone insane, imprisoning the Wyrm in her web and seeking total stasis in the universe.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Book of the Weaver indicates that the Weaver's madness was triggered by doubts in her cosmic purpose. In a universe of constant change, in which all of her creations were altered or destroyed by the other Triat members, she wondered what the point of her labors was.
  Weaver: "What is the point ... in making pattern and form if Wyld changes it and Wyrm destroys it constantly?"
• Eldritch Abomination: The Weaver is the embodiment of form and stasis whose realm and motivations are alien.
• Eldritch Location: The Weaver's Umbral home is in perfect stasis, offering visions of technology yet to be and the names of everything known and unknown in the cosmos. Every location in the cosmos can be accessed from her Umbral home.
• Femme Fatale: According to the 2000 Ananasi breedbook, Weaver told the Wyrm that she wanted to learn from him, so that he would let his guard down. When Wyrm tried to embrace her, she ensnared him in the Pattern Web.
• God Is Inept: She thought it would be a good idea to imprison the Wyrm, which has had devastating consequences for the cosmos.
• Greater-Scope Villain: While the details vary most accounts of where things went wrong with the Wyrm agree that it was the Weaver's fault and she is repeatedly confirmed to be currently the most powerful of the Triat and as much an enemy to Gaia as the Wyrm. The only reason why the Garou generally focus on fighting the Wyrm is because he is actually trying to destroy everything and might succeed soon whereas the Weaver's plan to calcify all of reality is still rather more long term.
• I Know Your True Name: Naming is one of her inventions and a means by which she extends her influence.
• Jerkass Gods: According to the Ananasi, Weaver destroyed moth spirits because they refused to live in multitudes and build structures in her name.
• Knight Templar: The Weaver is the protector of humanity and life, who upset the cosmic balance because it wanted to save them from death and the Wyrm, the personification of entropic decay. However, it can go to very extreme lengths to do so, and has itself become insane over the endless millennia of conflict.
• Ludd Was Right: Book of the Weaver states that the Weaver invokedis driving human civilization.
• Mad God: The Weaver has gone insane, seeking to suspend the universe in eternal stasis by imprisoning the Wyrm, shoving the Wyld aside, and spreading her influence throughout the world.
• Magical Underpinnings of Reality: The Weaver's Pattern Web is a living lattice that holds reality together.
• Magic Music: Onesong, the Weaver spirits' means of communication.
• Magitek: WeaverTech.
• Masquerade Enforcer: A major reason why the Garou must hide themselves in the modern world is that the Weaver has turned human civilization and techology against the werewolves. The Book of the City reveals it even has its own version of The Men in Black, which here are Drone spirits.
• Obsessively Organized: As the cosmic embodiment of order, the Weaver is obsessed with arranging the universe into patterns.
• The Perfectionist: On a cosmic scale. Her vision of perfection involves locking the universe into perfect stasis, untarnished by the Wyld's change or the Wyrm's destruction. As the 2000 Ananasi breedbook points out, however, this is a dangerous ambition.
  Ananasa: What Weaver formed should not fall apart — in Weaver's mind. Weaver wanted perfection, and that could never exist in a universe of change, but Weaver could not understand this, would not understand because the notion was not appealing.
• Spiders Are Scary: The Weaver is imagined as a giant spider, and the fabric of reality she creates is likened to a web. Also, she is served by pattern spider spirits, and her once-assistant, Ananasa, created spiders.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: According to the revised Silver Fang tribebook, Weaver was the patron of early humans. Weaver grew jealous when ancient wolves mentored humans and cursed the wolves by locking them into human form. The wolf-men sought the aid of Luna, who told them that they had to hunt down the human they once taught in order to undo the Weaver's curse.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: For eons, the Weaver watched in frustration as the Wyld altered her creations and the Wyrm destroyed them. Her despair and hunger for purpose are familiar to anyone who has experienced an existential crisis. However, her actions have thrown the universe out of balance and endangered all living beings.

The Wyrm

See the faction page for the Wyrm.

Servants of the Weaver

Shinzui Industries

A Weaver-tainted corporation with headquarters in Japan.

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• Deal with the Devil: Shinzui's board of directors directly serve the Weaver in exchange for power.
• Diabolus ex Nihilo: Though Shinzui first appeared in the original Book of the Weaver, they never really played any major role in the metaplot before appearing in the Weaver's Apocalypse scenario... where they suddenly play a very prominent part instead. To be fair, the book does recommend that the Storyteller put a bit more foreshadowing into other adventures before using it.
• Dystopia Justifies the Means: In one Time of Judgment scenario, it spreads the Machine's influence by absorbing Pentex and waging war against the Garou and Fera.
• Evil, Inc.: An up-to-no-good corporation.
• Evil Versus Evil: In one Time of Judgment scenario, Shinzui takes over Pentex.
• MegaCorp: Like Pentex, Shinzui is a global megacorporation with its fingers in many pies.

The Machine

A powerful spirit that embodies the Weaver's mad obsession with perfection and control.

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• Control Freak: The Machine seeks absolute control over Gaia.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Machine is the Weaver's self-aware "id", embodying the Weaver's madness.
• Ludd Was Right: Human civilization, especially the Industrial Revolution and computer age, helped the Machine to manifest.

The Patriarch

An incarna of unwavering obedience who masqueraded as the Abrahamic god in ancient times, the Patriarch is a Weaver creation who has become Wyrm-tainted. The Black Furies loathe him with a passion.

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• Blind Obedience: What he demands and encourages in humans under his sway.
• Control Freak: He seeks to control everything and everyone in his sphere of influence.

Science

The incarna representing the Weaver's drive to explore and find knowledge for the sake of knowledge, Science is the most sane and least corrupted of the Weaver's main three lieutenants. Naturally, it is being increasingly choked out by its far more amoral younger sibling, the Machine.

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• Science Is Bad: Nope. Science, defined as the urge to learn and evolve, is actually the Weaver's most positive aspect, and a Friendly Enemy (slash-occasional-ally) of the Garou. It's really too bad the Machine is eating it alive.

Channel-Spiders

Weaver spirits that feed off of xenophobia and intolerance, described in Book of the Weaver.

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• Irrational Hatred: They amplify bigotry in humans under their influence.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Humans under their sway quickly become these.

Covenant Spiders

Conformity spirits described in Book of the City. They use their powers to enforce conformity among anyone living in their domain.

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• All of the Other Reindeer: They prompt those living in their domain to ostracise or even attack those who rebel.
• Apathetic Citizens: Humans under their influence turn into this.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: They look like bland, harmless creatures made of porcelain. However, they will attack anyone who poses a threat to the conformity of their territory.
• Our Demons Are Different
• Stepford Suburbia: Their influence in the Umbra can transform areas in the material world into this.

Drones

Humans, shape-changers, and other sapient beings who are under the direct control of the Weaver.

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• The Ageless: In keeping with the Weaver's drive towards total calcifications, Drones do not age.
• Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence: The Weaver can choose to permanently calcify drones into her pattern.
• Creepy Cleanliness: Suffice it to say that Drones remain as clean and obsessively neat as they were the moment they emerged from their cocoons.
• Demonic Possession: Drones are sentient beings who have been permanently fused with a Weaver spirit through a process known as Clarification.
• The Evils of Free Will: The Weaver overrides the drone's free will and compels them to carry out its wishes. Because of the Weaver's stasis, drones cannot learn or evolve as people.
• Humanoid Abomination: Though they remain outwardly human, the newfound power of the Drones is subtly evident in everything they do; they no longer age, scar or change in any way, and are capable of feats that can shut down Lupines at will.
• Obsessively Organized: Many Drones demonstrate an obsessive drive towards cleaniness and order, sometimes even before being selected for Clarification.
• Pupating Peril: Those accepted as servants of the Weaver herself are guided into the Umbra and cocooned deep within her domain. Inside, the subject is remade by being permanently merged with a Weaver spirit, their beings intertwined so thoroughly that no distinction exists between the two. What ultimately emerges from this cocoon is a powerful embodiment of stasis that Werewolves sometimes find more disturbing than even the Wyrm's Formori.
• The Men in Black: Book of the City reveals that there are Drones, literally called the Men in Black, that serve this role to the hilt.

Pattern Spiders

Spider-like spirits who serve the Weaver and patrol the pattern web.

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• Our Demons Are Different: Pattern spiders are spirits that serve a Mad God and help it extend its influence.
• Spiders Are Scary: In addition to resembling spiders, Pattern Spiders fiercely defend the pattern web from any threats.

Servants of the Wyld

Gorgons

Animals or inanimate objects under the control of the Wyld.

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• Demonic Possession: Gorgons result when creatures are possessed by Wyld spirits.
• Our Monsters Are Weird: Gorgons look and act odd by human standards.

The Nameless

Wyld spirits described in Book of the Wyld that refused to be limited by a name.

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• I Know Your True Name: A name imposes definition and limit on something, so these Wyld spirits refuse to have names.
• No Need for Names: They have refused them and the limits they bring.
• Stuff Blowing Up: When facing defeat, the Nameless can use the charm Taking the Name, which steals an opponent's name. The process pulls apart the internal spiritual forces that hold the being together, resulting in explosion in both material world and Umbra.

Spirits

Totems

Garou Totems

Rat

The tribal totem of the Bone Gnawers and of the Ratkin.

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• Action Survivor: Rat is a cunning survivor.
• Ambiguous Gender: Rat has two different aspects. Rat God, the totem's masculine aspect, is a spirit of war. Mother Rat, the totem's feminine aspect, expects her followers to care for those in need.

Pegasus

The tribal totem of the Black Furies.

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• Does Not Like Men: Possibly due to hatever the real events surrounding the Anicent Greek myth where he was tamed by Bellerophon. Whatever the initial reason he/she champions the all female Black Fury tribe.
• Gender Flip: The source material isn't consistent about Pegasus' sex. Most books refer to Pegasus as a male, but Wild West and Caerns: Places of Power refer to Pegasus as a female. The Revised tribebook explains in a sidebar that Pegasus can choose to be male, female or neither as it sees fit.
• Pegasus: His/her form is the classical winged horse.

Unicorn

The tribal totem of the Children of Gaia.

• Technical Pacifist: Unicorn champions peace among all Gaia's creatures and spirits but recognises that the Wyrm and it's minions are beyond negotiation and need to be killed.
• Unicorn: Naturally that is the form of him and the spirits that serve him. The Children of Gaia are divided on if there were ever physical unicorns in the world but if there were they're gone.

Stag

The tribal totem of the Fianna.

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• Death Is Cheap: According to the W20 White Howler tribebook, Lion killed Stag in order to feed his children during the Ice Age. How Stag returned to life is unclear, but he seems to be no worse for wear.
• Fertility God: One of his more focussed on aspects is as a spirit of fertility
• The Marvelous Deer: He is the archetypical embodiment of deer and anything that has ever been mystically associated with them.

Great Fenris

The tribal totem of the Get of Fenris.

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• Distressed Dude: In the Time of Judgment scenario in which the Get fall to the Wyrm, Fenris is dragged into Malfeas by the Nameless Angel of Despair and kept in chains.
• Defiant to the End: In the Time of Judgment scenario in which the Get fall to the Wyrm, he's subdued by the Maeljin Incarnae, chained with silver, and dragged bodily into Malfeas. He fights his captors every step of the way, killing several in the original battle, and remains steadfastly defiant even when imprisoned in the pit. Should the Wyrm stand triumphant in the Apocalypse, Fenris strains at his bonds and snaps at his jailers until the universe ends.
• Savage Wolves: He's a mighty wolf spirit who embodies war and savage dominance.
• War God: He is described as a being war itself in a wolf's form.

Cockroach

The tribal totem of the Glass Walkers.

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• Action Survivor: Cockroach is determined to survive in any environment. In Time of Judgment, this works against the Garou when he decides that the Wyrm is going to win the Apocalypse War and that the only way for him to survive is to join the winning side.
• Creepy Cockroach: To the other tribes. While most accept Cockroach as an ally they find him far too Weaverish for their tastes. Averted for the Glass Walkers themselves, who usually find him quite comforting.
• It's All About Me: In one Time of Judgment scenario, the Cockroach totem willingly joins the Wyrm so that he will survive after the Apocalypse. The Glass Walkers fall soon thereafter.
• Pet the Dog: In the W20 version of the game, Cockroach is trying to help the the Samsa were-roaches and lead them to Gaia.

Griffin

The tribal totem of the Red Talons.

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• Nature Is Not Nice: Griffin embodies the ferocity of nature.
• Our Gryphons Are Different: This one is a spirit of predatory violence.

Grandfather Thunder

The tribal totem of the Shadow Lords.

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• The Night That Never Ends: In the Time of Judgment scenario in which the Shadow Lords fall to the Wyrm, Grandfather Thunder blankets the sky, plunging the world into darkness.
• Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum: In the Time of Judgment scenario in which the Shadow Lords fall to the Wyrm, the tribe fails to complete the task that would have elevated Grandfather Thunder to Celestine status. Grandfather Thunder is so enraged that he falls to the Wyrm, blankets the world in darkness, and attacks the sun.
• Thunderbolts and Lightning: He's a spirit of lightning storms.
• Total Eclipse of the Plot: In the Time of Judgment scenario in which the Shadow Lords fall to the Wyrm, Grandfather Thunder blankets the sky, plunging the world into darkness. Later, he attacks Helios, causing the sun to repeatedly eclipse.

Owl

The tribal totem of the Silent Striders.

• The Owl-Knowing One: He encourages the Silent Striders and any other Garou that follow him to seek knowledge.

Falcon

The tribal totem of the Silver Fangs.

• Noble Bird of Prey: He embodies the sense of nobility (in both senses of the word) that the Silver Fangs centre around.

Chimera

The tribal totem of the Stargazers.

• Mix-and-Match Critters: As the classic Chimera they are made of parts of a lion, a goat and a dragon.

Great Uktena

The tribal totem of the Uktena.

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• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: In the Time of Judgment scenario in which the Uktena tribe falls to the Wyrm, Great Uktena is tortured by Wyrm minions until he falls to the Wyrm.
• Dark Secret: Great Uktena once served the Wyrm before the Wyrm went insane. When the Wyrm became evil, Great Uktena defected to the Wyld.
• Deadly Gaze: According to the Revised Uktena tribebook, Great Uktena's gaze will cause one of the target's loved ones to die. However, Great Uktena does not inflict this curse on Uktena Garou.
• Jerkass Gods: In the revised Uktena Tribebook, the Great Uktena spirit devoured deer across the land, leaving little food for the Garou and their kinfolk. When a Garou studied him, two members of that Garou's family died as a result of Great Uktena's curse. When the Garou drew near to the sleeping Great Uktena and threatened to kill him, Great Uktena promised his tribe power and secret knowledge if the would honor him. The Garou agreed, but this resulted in the death of the tribe's previous totem, Skyhawk.
• Liminal Being: Great Uktena's appearance has elements of both reptiles (his serpentine shape) and mammals (horns); he lives on both land and in water; he's a Wyrm-created being who now serves the Wyld; and he safeguards knowledge that is simultaneously known and unknown (secrets). The Uktena tribal glyph depicts Great Uktena lying on a boundary, perhaps as a reminder of his liminal nature.
• Odd Job Gods: Secrets, liminality, and strategies for breaking down the Weaver's web are all part of his portfolio.
• Snakes Are Sinister: Great Uktena appears as a massive serpent with antlers, a jewel upon his head, and poison-drenched fangs. While Great Uktena is firmly on the side of Gaia, he and his spirit brood are terrifying to behold, dangerous to be around, and prone to eating people.

Great Wendigo

The tribal totem of the Wendigo.

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• Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: In ancient times, Wendigo was known as Sasquatch by the Garou who revered him.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: A Wyrm-tainted spirit masquerading as Wendigo possesses Garou and compels them to commit acts of cannibalism and murder. As a result, Wendigo became a monster in human folklore.
• An Ice Person: Wendigo embodies the cold of northern climates. When the Wendigo tribe settled in the Americas, they remained in northern regions so that Wendigo's icy cold would not freeze the land.
• Rage Breaking Point: The death of Morning Sun, a legendary Wendigo warrior, overwhelmed Sasquatch with rage, transforming him into Wendigo.
• Wendigo: In Werewolf his tribe are the source of Wendigo myths.

Turtle

The tribal totem of the now-extinct Croatan.

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• And I Must Scream: Uktena theurges fear that Turtle is calcified in some remote part of the Pattern Web for all eternity, according to Book of the Weaver. W20 Umbra, however, has Turtle slumbering in the Croatan tribal homeland.

Bunyip

The tribal totem of the now-extinct Bunyip.

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• Hollywood Drowning: Bunyip asks his devotees to drown an enemy in his honor at least once per year.
• Yowies and Bunyips and Drop Bears, Oh My: He and his tribe were the Bunyip of Australian Aboriginal folklore.

Lion

The tribal totem of the White Howlers, before they fell to the Wyrm and became the Black Spiral Dancers.

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• Heartbroken Badass: The Lion totem was devastated when the White Howlers fell to the Wyrm. Lion would have succumbed to despair had Griffin not challenged him to combat and accepted him into his brood.
• I Did What I Had to Do: According to the W20 White Howler tribebook, Lion killed Stag in order to feed his followers during the Ice Age. White Howlers consider it bad form to discuss the incident in front of the Fianna.
• Kingof Beasts: Lion was the tribal totem of the ancient White Howlers. When the White Howlers fell to the Wyrm, Lion joined Griffin's brood and now extends patronage to Red Talons.

Whipporwill

The tribal totem of the Black Spiral Dancers.

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• Feathered Fiend: While possibly a natural bird spirit once he is now a devoted servant of the Wyrm.
• God Needs Prayer Badly: In the Time of Judgment scenario in which the Shadow Lords fall to the Wyrm, Whipporwill has grown weak, since the Black Spiral Dancers had spread their devotion between multiple Wyrm totems. Grandfather Thunder kills the weakened Whipporwill and absorbs its gnosis.
• Pet the Dog: Despite being a servant of the Wyrm who extends patronage to a tribe of depraved psychopaths, Whipporwill forbids his followers from harming birds.
• Shout-Out: The use of Whipporwill in association with a cosmic evil is likely inspired by The Dunwich Horror.

Fera Totems

Ananasa

The queen, goddess, and progenitor of the Ananasi.

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• Bittersweet Ending: In one Time of Judgment scenario, both Ananasa and the Wyrm escape from captivity and proceed to restore balance to the fabric of reality. Ananasa reweaves the world in such a way that the cosmic balance is restored, but changing breeds are eliminated and some of the majesty of Gaia is lost.
• The Cassandra: Ananasa worried that the original balance of the universe would be lost, but failed to impress this on the Triat.
• Fantastic Caste System: The werespiders divide themselves into aspects and factions that mimic the roles of the Triat.
• A Fate Worse Than Death: Ananasa may inflict these on Ananasi who turn from her, or simply to make a point. The carnage at Krapina was an example of the latter. The Ananasi also inflict horrible punishments on spies, such as a Nuwisha who tried to infiltrate a gathering of young werespiders and their mentors, or so they thought, as said Nuwisha let an unfortunate Ananasi take the fall.
• Final Solution: The Ananasi claim that in ancient times, Weaver-aligned insect shapeshifters grew too prolific and threatened the balance of the universe. On Ananasa's orders, the Ananasi carried out a genocide of the insect shapeshifters, capturing their spirits so that they could not take physical form again.
• Have You Seen My God?: Played with. Ananasa is AWOL because the Wyrm is holding her prisoner in Malfeas. After Ananasa's inprisonment in the opal cell, the Wyrm held her silent for centuries. The Ananasi incorrectly believed that their goddess had abandoned them.
• Informed Ability: Because of her ancient proximity to the Weaver, the Ananasi see Ananasa as a wise goddess with a long-term plan for escaping from Malfeas and restoring order to the universe. Under Ananasa's orders, however, the Ananasi have made mistakes that have empowered the Wyrm and weakened Gaia's forces, suggesting that Ananasa may not know what's she's doing. For example, different sources state that the Ananasi were indirectly responsible for the War of Rage, the fall of the White Howlers, and the genocide of the Bunyip.
• Jerkass Gods: Thousands of years ago, Ananasa summoned all the regional Ananasi to Krapina and compelled them to slaughter all the people in the city. When the humans were devoured, the Ananasi turned on each other and died in a cannibalistic feeding frenzy. Ananasa did so to teach her children than "the will of the Mother is greater than the frailty of the Children".
• The Maker: Ananasa created diversity among Gaia's lifeforms and brought spiders and werespiders into being.
• Tailor-Made Prison: When Ananasa tried to stop the Weaver from cleaving the physical and umbral worlds apart, the Weaver punished her by imprisoning her in an opal and throwing her to the Wyrm. The opal cell protects Ananasa from the Wyrm's corruption but prevents her from moving, forcing her to delegate tasks to her Ananasi servants.
• Villainous Crush: The Wyrm nurses a crush on the Weaver, and adores Ananasa because she reminds him of the Weaver. He keeps her opal containment cell in Malfeas for this reason.
• We Used to Be Friends: Eons ago, Ananasa was on friendly terms with the Triat. The Weaver's obsession with order and the Wyrm's insanity have destroyed two of those three friendships.

Bat

The totem of the Camazotz, who fell to the Wyrm when the Garou exterminated his people.

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• Face–Heel Turn: When his children were hunted by the Garou, Bat went mad with grief and fell to the Wyrm.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Bat served the Wyrm originally, when he was a force of Balance. After the Wyrm went insane, Bat fled to Gaia. The slaughter of the Camazotz drove Bat insane and sent him back to the Wyrm. A few hundred years later, the descendant of the Shadow Lord that slaughtered the last Camazotz paid pennance to Bat, causing an aspect of him to become redeemed.

Coyote

The totem of the Nuwisha.

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• Creation Story: According to the Nuwisha, Coyote created the world and its lifeforms. When he created humans, the animal spirits all took some for themselves, thus creating the changing breeds.
• I Have Many Names: Coyote has taken many shapes and names across the world, including those of Pan, Xochipilli, Oghma, Ptah, and Kishijoten. All Nuwisha serve one of these facets of Coyote. Coyote may be the Wyld under a different name.
• Jerkass Gods: Coyote's Ti Malice aspect seeks to make civilized life so unpleasant that humans flee the cities and question their old ways.
• Magic Music: Coyote sang creation into being, according to the werecoyotes' creation story. Some Nuwisha gifts also use singing.
• The Maker: The Nuwisha credit Coyote with creating the world.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: According to the Nuwisha creation story, the Wyrm wanted some of the humans that Spider (Weaver) claimed for herself. When he tried to take humans out of her web, he became ensnared. Coyote refused to help him, convinced that the greedy Wyrm needed to learn a lesson. Had Coyote helped the Wyrm escape, he could well have averted his insanity and the ensuring Apocalypse War altogether.

Celestines

General Tropes

• Archetypal Character: The Celestines embody classic archetypes such as the trickster, the mother, the warrior, the king, etc.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Most of the Celestines take many forms.

Gaia

Gaia is known to be a spiritual form of the Earth itself, and many tales differ as to what she truly is. She is actually a Celestine, believed by many to be the first Celestine and the most powerful. She is sister to Luna and Helios. Others claim she was the first of the Wyld's children. She is revered as the mother of the Garou and most of the other Changing Breeds.

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• All Your Powers Combined: Gaia is said to be of the Wyld, but she allowed Weaver to touch her, so that she may gain form and function. Wyrm also touched her so that parts of her could decay and new things could be made.
• Gaia's Lament: In the Time of Judgment Scenario where she can be found, she can become sickened by Wyrm Taint.
• God Is Good: The Garou and most other Fera see her as such. The Ananasi, as children of the Weaver, have a less virtuous view.
• Mama Bear: In one Time of Judgment scenario, she takes the form of the World Serpent to defend her children.

Sokhta / Phoebe — Celestine of Luna, the Moon

• Disabled Deity: In one Time of Judgment scenario, one of Rorg's asteroids collides with Luna, flinging large lunar fragments onto Earth. Afterwards, Sokhta is an incarna rather than a celestine, having lost a great deal of power after the catastrophe.
• Ghibli Hills: In the umbra, Sokhta's realm is a lush garden full of silver plants and pastel flowers.
• Make an Example of Them: According to the Ananasi, Weaver made an example of Luna, locking her surface into perfect silence and order. In the process, Weaver killed the ancient life on Luna's surface.
• Mood-Swinger: Her temperament varies with the phases of the moon.
• Odd Job Gods: She is a major patron of the Garou and the source of their supernatural rage. She has also mentored other Fera.
• Take It to the Bridge: She is the only source of Pathstones, which are required for the creation of moon bridges between caerns.
• Taking the Bullet: In one Time of Judgment scenario, Luna prevents one of Rorg's asteroids from smashing into Gaia. With the help of a high-level Garou rite, Luna moves slightly out of orbit, into the path of the asteroid. The resulting impact send fragments of Luna into space and reduces her to Incarna status.
• Weird Moon: Luna appears much larger in the Umbra than it does in the physical world. Sokhta's realm takes the form of a silver garden instead of a rocky lunar surface.

Hyperion / Katanka-Sonnak — Celestine of Helios, the Sun

• Big Fancy Castle: Hyperion's fortress takes two forms: a blazing white tipi, and a citadel with spires and torrets. The latter sits atop a lake of fire and features tapestries of living fire, lava pools, and a magnificent ruby throne lit from within by flame.
• Everything Is Trying to Kill You: Fire elementals, aetherial storms from sunspots, and radiation from solar flares are among the dangers of his realm.
• Evil Counterpart: Anthelios, the Red Star of the Wyrm.
• Fantastic Racism: With the exception of the Wendigo and the Children of Gaia, he does not like Garou. He was angered by the War of Rage, during which Garou killed shape-changers who were loyal to him.
• Magical Native American: One of his forms is that of a regal Native American warrior, and his citadel resembles a blazing white tipi.
• Odd Job Gods: He is the patron of the Mokolé and Corax.
• Super Gullible: Several sources depict him as easily deceived. According to the Corax, when Hyperion retreated from the world out of pique, Raven tricked him into returning by telling him that another sun had taken his place. According to the W20 White Howlers tribebook, Tearlach Talespinner used a Scheherezade Gambit to trick him into ending the last ice age.
• Total Eclipse of the Plot: In the Time of Judgment scenario in which the Shadow Lords fall to the Wyrm, Grandfather Thunder blankets the sky, plunging the world into darkness. Later, he attacks Helios, causing the sun to repeatedly eclipse.
• The Quest: According to Rage Across Egypt, he traveled through twelve umbral realms before fighting Apophis (the Wyrm).
• Weird Sun: In the Umbra, his realm is fiery but habitable and guarded by solar spirits. The realm also emits solar winds that umbral travelers can ride to deeper parts of the aetherial realm (but not without risks).
• What the Hell, Hero?: According to Rage Across Egypt, in his manifestation as Re, he prompted the Simba queen Sakhmet to launch a mass slaughter of humans in ancient Egypt.

Hakahe — Celestine of Vulcan

• Artistic License – Space: "Vulcan" is said to be a planet that shares Mercury's orbit but is always on the opposite side of the Sun, and is completely black making it impossible to see. There is a hypothetical planet dubbed Vulcan that was thought to be closer to the Sun than Mercury and was thought to explain pecularities in Mercury's orbit, but no such planet has ever been found, and its existence has since been disproven through general relativity.
• Body Horror: Visitors who touch the flame in Hakahe's kiln receive mutations.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Vulcan is a planet of obsidian land and volcanoes. Hakahe himself is dark-skinned and clothed in dark leather.
• Deader than Dead: The emberblack near his kiln will completely disintegrate anyone who touches them. Beings who die this way have been physically and spiritually unmade and will not be fashioned into living beings again.
• Face Your Fears: To reach Vulcan, characters must walk the Road of Embers, during which they face their deepest fears and weaknesses.
• The Maker: He fashions the soul of every Garou and knows many secrets about them.
• Ultimate Blacksmith: He forges the souls of Garou and Fera for Gaia's use.

Mitanu — Celestine of Mercury

• Fantastic Drug: Mitanu may choose to give visitors Mercurial Powder, which sharpens their mental abilities.
• Loveable Rogue: Mitanu is a patron of thieves and tricksters.
• Secret Path: To locate Mitanu's manor, visitors must find and tread Mercury's Path. The path can appear as a rural lane, tracks in desert sand, a stream with stepping stones, or any number of walkways.
• Secret Test: Mitanu may test a character by sucking them into an ash pit and subjecting them to a dream challenge. If the character succeeds, he gives them Mercurial Powder. If the character fails, they suffocate in the ash.
• Shattering the Illusion: In the umbra, Mitanu's realm looks like a barren, brown and gray wasteland... at first. When visitors reach the surface, they discover both beautiful and hellish landscapes, such as emerald forests and meadows, azure lakes, and blasted deserts.
• The Trickster
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Mitanu appears to visitors as a handsome man, a ferret, a gray wolf, or a bird of prey.

Tambiyah — Celestine of Venus

• Babies Make Everything Better: She can give characters stones that enhance fertility.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Packs under her patronage gain extra points of appearance.
• Does Not Like Men: Tambiyah is not welcoming toward men, especially misogynist men.
• Friend to All Children: Tambiyah is protective of children and asks that packs under her patronage do the same.
• Ghibli Hills: Her umbral realm is a beautiful, lush wilderness.
• Miracle Food: In Tambiyah's realm grows a fruit that tastes like what the eater most desires.
• Mysterious Mist: Visitors to her realm may find themselves in the Veiled Lands, in which strange lights and sounds emerge from thick mist.
• Nature Is Not Nice: Her realm, while gorgeous, also contains dangerous creatures that may attack visiting Garou.
• Secret Test of Character: Characters who enter the Veiled Lands may find themselves in life or death scenarios. If the characters choose to preserve life in these scenarious, Tambiyah rewards them. If they choose death, Tambiyah admonishes them not to throw away life so quickly.
• Signature Scent: She smells like fresh apples and newly turned earth.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Tambiyah can appear to visitors as a voluptuous woman, a warrior maiden, a golden wolf, an insect with jeweled wings, or a great flowering tree.

Eshtarra — Celestine of Gaia, the Earth

• Gaia's Lament: Eshtarra's realm contains visions of both Gaia's natural beauty and the horrors that will come if the Wyrm subjugates Earth.
• I Have Many Names: On the rare occasion that she extends patronage to a pack, she does so in her aspect of Danu/Dana. Also, according to Rage Across Australia, Earth Mother is one of her avatars.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: She can assume any natural form in her realm, and might disguise herself as a tree, rock, or sea.

Nerigal — Celestine of Mars

• Everything Is Trying to Kill You: Ice, dust storms, and a dearth of liquid water serve as tests for visitors in his realm.
• Informed Ability: Nerigal is revered as a warrior, but he failed to protect Turog from the Wyrm, much to Rorg's dismay. In one Time of Judgment scenario, the Wyrm materializes in the Aetherial realm, but Nerigal is among the Celestines who are too frightened to attack it.
• War God: Nerigal is a fierce warrior god who favors ahrouns.

Rorg — Celestine of Turog, now the Asteroid Belt

• And I Must Scream: Rorg is in constant physical and psychological agony, and his cries of pain greet visitors.
• Artistic License – Space: There was never a planet "Turog", and the Asteroid Belt is matter that never formed as a planet on its own due to the gravitational effects of Jupiter. However, in the Science Marches On sense, more recent studies by astronomers theorize that the Asteroid Belt is the remnants of several minor planets that formed early in the formation of the Solar System.
• Asteroid Thicket: Rorg's realm takes this form in the Umbra.
• Attack of the Killer Whatever: Book of the Wyld has the Hungry Children, servants of Rorg whom he sent to Earth. Hungry Children are giant boulders with mouths full of sharp teeth that eat people and machines.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: In one Time of Judgment scenario, the Wyrm materializes in the aetherial real and makes a beeline for Earth. Rorg attacks the Wyrm and not only fails to injure his opponent, but is blinded in the process.
• Death from Above: At least two Time of Judgment scenarios involve one or more of Rorg's asteroids striking Earth.
• Despair Event Horizon: Rorg's constant howl of pain can induce harano in Garou who visit his realm.
• Driven to Madness: The destruction of Turog left him deeply traumatized and angry.
• Eye Scream: In the Time of Judgment scenario in which the Wyrm takes form and rampages through the Aetherial Realm, Rorg is the only Celestine who attacks it. The Wyrm breathes balefire in Rorg's face, blinding him.
• Mad God: Rorg is emotionally scarred, enraged, and dangerously unpredictable around visitors in his realm.
• Make an Example of Them: Rorg's domain was utterly destroyed by a Wyrm spirit in ancient times, and its remains scattered as a reminder to the other Celestines.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: One of his forms is that of a huge, snarling wolf.

Zarok — Celestine of Jupiter

• The Beautiful Elite: Zarok is crowned with golden light. His court consists of beautifully dressed humanoids and magnificent animals who represent Jupiter's moons.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Zarok is warm and jovial, but those who offend him are horrified when they see his unstoppable rage.
• Large and in Charge: Zarok, his court, and his abode are immense.
• The Patriarch
• Too Dumb to Live: Several members of Zarok's court believe that it's possible to ignite Jupiter (a brown dwarf) into a fully-fledged star, thereby bringing greater prestige to Zarok. They ignore the fact that this would plunge the solar system into chaos.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Zarok appears as a king in splendid robes, a silver wolf, or an enormous white hawk.

Lu-Bat — Celestine of Saturn

• The Heart: Lu-Bat advocates for peace and cooperation among the Incarnae.
• Pacifist: Lu-Bat only uses violence as an absolute last resort. He supports non-violent ways of solving problems.
• The Stoic: He and his abode exude calmness.

Ruatma — Celestine of Uranus

• The Chessmaster: Ruatma hopes to manipulate visitors into directing the Perfect Metis to her so that she can mentor the prophesied Garou. In doing so, Ruatma hopes to secure higher standing in the cosmic hierarchy.
• Samus Is a Girl: She cultivates a male alter-ego.

Shantar — Celestine of Neptune

• Gadgeteer Genius: The Loom Maker favors invention and the Glass Walkers.
• Supernatural Suffocation: Although Shantar is generally associated with creating and crafting, she is still the Celestine of Neptune and her most powerful Gift allows Garou to drown their victims on dry land.

Meros — Celestine of Pluto

• Achilles in His Tent: In the 20th anniversary edition of Umbra: Velvet Shadow, Meros is crestfallen when Pluto loses planetary status. He abandons his station, causing his realm to be overrun by rogue spirits.
• Science Marches On: Created before the reclassification of Pluto as the first of several dwarf planets. Come the 20th anniversary editions, Meros is actually affected by the reclassification and abandons his post as a Celestine.
• Walking the Earth: Meros is one of the few Celestines who leaves his realm to explore new regions.

Maeljin Incarna

General Tropes

• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: One of the few breaks the Garou get is that the Maeljin loathe each other so much that they actively sabotage everything the others are doing at every turn. Note that in one Time of Judgement scenario, where each Maeljin is assigned a tribe to corrupt, two of them expend all of their energy backstabbing the other rather than proactively attempting to actually corrupt their assigned tribes, ensuring both are completely unaffected and able to mount a reorganization effort.
• Demon Lords and Archdevils: Each Maeljin Incarna oversees a duchy in Malfeas and is responsible for spreading the influence of the Urge Wyrm it serves.
• Embodiment of Vice: Each Maeljin Incarna is a representative of an Urge Wyrm and the embodiment of that Urge Wyrm's vice.
• Was Once a Man: All of them were once mortals, who has become so corrupted by their Urge, that they become powerful banes.

Number Two

The tyrant who rules Malfeas.

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• Attack Reflector: A modified version of this trope. When an opponent attacks Number Two, the damage is deflected onto his guards.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: Number Two lives in Castle Cthonus, a bleak tower in Malfeas' Central Duchy.
• Gender Flip: Number Two is male in earlier editions but female in the W20 version of the game.
• I Know Your True Name: Number Two, the tyrant who rules over Malfeas, can only be defeated by those who know his true name. Book of the Wyrm and Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth hint that he is Flavio the Questior. Another fan theory is that Number Two is really the legendary Black Spiral Dancer Mockmaw. The Black Spiral scholar Writlish is rather reticent about Mockmaw in Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth and Garou Saga...
• The Purge: Number Two regularly orders purges of those who displease him.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Number Two appears as a glabro-form Garou, a Scrag bane, or a Psychomachia bane.

Lord Steel

Maeljin Incarna of Abhorra, the Urge Wyrm of Hatred.

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• Blood Knight: He leads armies of banes in war.
• The Faceless: His face is hidden by a contorted mask of steel.
• Hellish Horse: Lord Steel rides a winged metal steed, a Wyrmish parody of his enemy Pegasus.
• The Power of Hate: He embodies this trope.

Lady Aife

Maeljin Incarna of Angu, the Urge Wyrm of Cruelty.

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• Cold-Blooded Torture: Her realm in Malfeas is a torture complex filled with every torment imagineable.
• Evil Redhead: Shards of glass are embedded in her bright red hair.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: "Nobody" is probably too strong a word, but Aife is usually a background character rather than the major threat to Gaea. Yet, in the Time of Judgement scenario in which the Uktena are corrupted to the Wyrm's service, Lady Aife is the only Maeljin to successfully subvert her assigned tribe, and in that scenario, she becomes the true final threat of the Apocalypse, and does a good turn as the dark chessmaster leading the hosts of the Wyrm.
• Hellish Horse: She rides a steed made of rusted metal.
• Odd Friendship: With Empress Aliara. She consults Aliara on what her victims desire, so as to optimize their torment.
• Sadist: Her raison d'etre.
• Secret Identity: Lady Aife may also be Weoena, Number Two's chief torturer. The two women resemble each other and have never been seen in one another's company.
• Torture Technician: According to the W20 edition of Book of the Wyrm, she tortured victims of the Spanish Inquisition.
• Whip of Dominance: Her weapons of choice are two jagged glass whips, which is a suitable weapon for a Sadistic and cruel Torture Technician.

Hellbringer

Maeljin Incarna of Ba'ashkai, the Urge Wyrm of Violence.

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• Blood Knight: He serves the Urge Wyrm of violence, after all.
• General Ripper: He's the savage general of the Wyrm's armies.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: According to the W20 Book of the Wyrm, Hellbringer can only be destroyed by placing him in a situation in which he is completely alone. With no other targets, he can be enticed to attack himself with his own weapon.
• Hate Plague: Bolts from his crossbow can ignite mindless violence in their targets.
• Who Needs Enemies?: According to Book of the Wyrm, Number Two sealed the gateway to Duchy Hell. To avenge this slight, Hellbringer commands his armies to attack the Central Duchy from time to time.

Empress Aliara

Maeljin Incarna of Karnala, the Urge Wyrm of Desire.

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• Big Fancy Castle: Her abobe in Malfeas is a magnificent architectural specimen filled with pleasures and addictions.
• Crapsaccharine World: Despite its many promises of pleasure, Aliara's abode in Malfeas offers only insatiable longing, never fulfillment.
• Evil Smells Bad: Her abode in Malfeas reeks of rot, which all her incense and perfume cannot cover up.
• Expy: Aliara is suspiciously similar to Slaanesh from Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000. God of hedonism and sexual depravity? Check. A shapeshifter who appears in whatever form an onlooker finds most beautiful? Check. A being whose spirit-world home is brimming with pleasures and temptations that doom anyone who partakes? Check.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: She appears in whatever form the viewer finds most appealing.

Knight Entropy

Maeljin Incarna of Khaaloobh, the Urge Wyrm of Consumption.

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• Hellish Horse: Knight Entropy rides a fanged black horse.
• Swamps Are Evil: Knight Entropy's territory consists of swamp lands that lie between the Central Duchy and the other Duchies in Malfeas.
• Walking Wasteland: Its touch turns people and objects to dust, and its gaze rots whatever it's looking at.

The Honorable Maine duBois, Esquire

Maeljin Incarna of Pseulak, the Urge Wyrm of Lies.

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• Amoral Attorney: His motif.
• Consummate Liar: It comes with being the Maeljin of lies.
• My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours: According to the W20 edition of Book of the Wyrm, the only way to destroy him is to make him sign a contract that requires him to relinquish his title if he fails to uphold it. If he cannot fulfil the contract, he ceases to exist.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: He runs Duchy duBois like a labyrinthine courthouse, in which the truth is buried under piled of paperwork and visitors are directed to one kafkaesque office after another.
• Slimeball: Literally and figuratively. He's a grinning, manipulative man who is drenched in slime.

Doge Klypse

Maeljin Incarna of Sykora, the Urge Wyrm of Paranoia.

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• Bad Boss: During his fits of insanity, he attacks anyone around him, including his servants and allies.
• Bizarrchitecture: Duchy Klypse is a labyrinth of twisting corridors, stairs leading nowhere, windows opening up to brick walls, and doors that open to new rooms every time they are used.
• Sinister Minister: His official title is the Archbishop of Madness. He wears a slimy purple tumor on a ring and forces others to kiss it, in a twisted parody of Catholic tradition.

The Nameless Angel of Despair

Maeljin Incarna of Gree, the Urge Wyrm of Despair.

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• Despair Event Horizon: What it cultivates among living beings.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": In the Time of Judgment scenario in which the Wyrm's horde devastates Earth, the Wyrm's minions address the Nameless Angel as "General Sir".
• Hope Crusher: It draws strength from the despair of living beings.
• No Need for Names: It has no name.
• Shout-Out: The Maeljin's name is a shout-out to Enchanted Ground, An Episode In The Life Of A Young Man by Harry James Smith. In the book, Georgia's father wrestled with "some nameless angel of despair in the solitude of night".
• Thirsty Desert: Book of the Wyrm describes the Nameless Angel's territory as a barren, sweltering desert.
• The Voiceless: The Nameless Angel never speaks, communicating through waves of sorrow instead.
• Weird Sun: A colossal black sun hangs over the Nameless Angel's desert abode.

Thurifuge

Maeljin Incarna of Lethargg, the Urge Wyrm of Apathy.

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• Apathetic Citizens: He encourages people to stop caring about the horrors around them.
• Mad Scientist: Thurifuge conducts horrific experiments on slaves and prisoners in his laboratory complex.
• Plaguemaster: He cultivates illness and pollution wherever he goes.

Lord Choke

Maeljin Incarna of Hoga, the Essence of Smog.

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• Fog of Doom: Toxic smoke follows him everywhere.
• Large and in Charge: He's described as large, bulbous, and billowing.

Lord Kerne

Maeljin Incarna of Furmas, the Essence of Balefire.

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• Atomic Superpower: He embodies radioactive balefire. Nuclear disasters empower him, and his realm glows with radiation.
• Fire and Brimstone Hell: His realm in Malfeas resembles this.
• Kill It with Fire: His essence and his weapon are balefire.
• Lean and Mean: He appears as a frail, thin creature with lava for flesh and atomic fire for breath.
• Walking Wasteland: He spreads radiation wherever he goes.

Lady Yul

Maeljin Incarna of Wakshaa, the Essence of Toxin.

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• Alien Sea: Her realm in Malfeas is a multicolored sea of poisons.
• Battle Couple: In one Time of Judgment scenario, she and Collum form the rear of the Wyrm's horde.
• Mad Scientist: She is a master of biological engineering and uses her talents to create blasted Wyrm creatures.
• Master Poisoner: She has extensive knowledge of poisons.
• Mother of a Thousand Young: Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth describes her as pregnant with Wyrmish horrors.
• Sinister Nudity: In Book Of The Wyrm, she's depicted naked and heavily pregnant. Also, she's up to her waist in filth, splattered with blood, wearing an absolutely repulsive looking grin, and sporting a tiny handprint pressing against her belly from the inside.
• Technicolor Toxin: Her realm in Malfeas is a multicolored ocean of toxins.
• Unholy Matrimony: With Collum, her consort. According to some sources, Collum fertilizes some of her eggs and extends patronage to some of her creations.
• Weaponized Offspring: She gives birth to horrific Wyrm creatures that fight for the Wyrm's cause.

Lord Collum

Maeljin Incarna of H'Rugg, the Essence of Sludge.

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• Battle Couple: In one Time of Judgment scenario, Collum and Lady Yul bring up the rear of the Wyrm's horde.
• The Corrupter: According to the W20 edition of Book of the Wyrm, he tries to corrupt Ratkin, Nosferatu, and other sewer-dwelling creatures.
• Evil Smells Bad: He's made out of sewage. What did you expect?
  • His realm in Malfeas is a mountainous landscape carved out of frozen filth.
• Knowledge Broker: His influence extends through the sewers of the world, where he gathers secrets for the Wyrm.
• Odd Job Gods: According to Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth, Pretanic Order devotees call to Collum when they wish to reach out to Urge Wyrms who have no Maeljin Incarna representative.
• Talking Poo: He appears as a humanoid creature made of sewage.
• Unholy Matrimony: With Lady Yul, his consort.

Ammit

A fallen Maeljin Incarna described in Rage Across Egypt. After losing her exalted status, she became the ruler of the Field of Grain, an isolated corner of Malfeas.

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• Cold-Blooded Torture: Banes torture any living being or spirit unlucky enough to fall into her realm.
• Eldritch Location: Her realm is an umbral "sink" into which many travelers fall but few escape. The realm is also mystically isolated from the rest of Malfeas. Ammit believes that she can burn down the barrier between her realm and the rest of Malfeas by stoking a toxic fire high enough.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: She appears as a crocodile-lion-hippopotamus monster.
• The Power of Hate: She is driven by a hatred of the Maeljin Incarnas and of living beings in general.

Other Groups

Other Groups

Order of the Rose

A secret order described in Rage Across New York, dedicated to fighting the Seventh Generation. Its members are former victims of the Seventh Generation seeking revenge against the cult.

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• Best Served Cold: The order's members are adults who seek revenge against the Seventh Generation for abuse they survived as children.
• The Dog Bites Back: Order members were helpless victims as children who now visit bloody revenge on their tormentors as adults.
• Good Is Not Nice: All of its members were deeply traumatized by the Seventh Generation's abuse, and as a result they can be very angry, hardened people.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Members risk becoming consumed by their anger, hatred, and pain.
• Serial-Killer Killer: They hunt down Seventh Generation members.

Kami

Humans and animals possessed by benevolent Gaian spirits.

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• Heroic Host: Kami are willingly possessed by Gaian spirits and serve Gaia faithfully.
• Symbiotic Possession: Gaian spirits possess humans and animals who are already attuned to Gaia and sympathetic to her cause. The resulting Kami devotes itself to serving Gaia.
• Willing Channeler: Gaian spirits will only possess consenting hosts. The two become one being for the duration of the host's natural life.

Recurring Characters

Recurring Gaian Characters

Old Man Manyskins

A Nuwisha elder.

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• Break the Haughty: In the introductory comic to the Nuwisha breedbook, a young Manyskins snarks at a racist white man. The man tries to kill Manyskins by pinning him to a railroad track as a train approaches. Manyskins turns the tables and escapes as the train kills his tormentor. The narrator of the Nuwisha breedbook recites a story in which Old Man Manyskins (disguised as a frail old woman) knocked him to the ground repeatedly to rid him of his violent cockiness.
• Cool Old Guy: Age has not stopped him from traveling the world, infiltrating secret gatherings, and teaching hilarious "lessons".
• He Knows Too Much: According to the Nagah breedbook, the Nagah have marked him for death for stealing secrets from the other Fera. In one Time of Judgment scenario, the Nagah successfully assassinate him. The first edition Gurahl breedbook hints that he stole the secrets of their resurrection rite, thereby creating tensions for the Gurahl and Nuwisha ever since.
• Master of Disguise: He wears the skins of humans, animals, and changing breeds to infiltrate all levels of supernatural society.
• Spirit Advisor: In one Time of Judgment scenario, after he is assassinated by the Nagah, Old Man Manyskins appears to his fellow Nuwisha in their dreams and shares the secrets of other shape-changers with them.
• Trickster Mentor: Naturally, since he's a Nuwisha.

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