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Characters / Werewolf The Apocalypse The Wyrm

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The Wyrmish Factions

Forces of decay, destruction, and entropy, all serving the mad Destroyer Deity known as the Wyrm.

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    The Wyrm itself 

The Wyrm

A god of destruction. Originally, his purpose was to recycle the cosmos into raw materials for the Wyld to create new things. However, the Weaver, dismayed by the thought of her creations being destroyed, trapped the Wyrm in a prison of her webs. Unable to move or act, the Wyrm went insane, bringing rot and entropy into the world.

  • Alien Geometries: A trait of Malfeas, the Wyrm's home in the Umbra.
  • And I Must Scream: Its imprisonment in Weawer's Pattern Web and inability to fulfil its function is extremely painful to it.
  • Breath Weapon: In one Time of Judgment scenario, when the Wyrm takes form and does battle with Rorg, he can breath balefire.
  • Circles of Hell: The Black Spiral Labyrinth in Malfeas represents the tormented mind of the Wyrm. The labyrinth is divided into nine circles, each of which tests and torments visitors until their minds are broken.
  • The Corruption: Wyrm taint, which twists the bodies and souls of living beings if left untreated.
  • Destroyer Deity: The Wyrm's original purpose, which it's still trying to fulfill.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Wyrm is imagined as having a serpent-like or worm-like appearance. The narrator of the first edition Corax breedbook sees this as phallic and understands the Wyrm to be male. "And a cigar is just a cigar. Riiiiight."
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: In one scenario in Time of Apocalypse, Weaver Ascendant if the Garou and Fera manage to free it, it'll finally be released, its madness will end and it'll return to its true role of Balance Wyrm.
  • Eldritch Abomination: The Wyrm is the cosmic force of decay, destruction, and renewal that now finds itself imprisoned in the fabric of reality.
  • Eldritch Location: Malfeas. It's the nerve center of the Triatic Wyrm in the Umbra, ruled by a tyrant named Number Two and inhabited by the Maeljin incarna and their banes. Malfeas is also the "knot" in the fabric of reality in which the original Wyrm of balance is imprisoned.
  • Evil Smells Bad: Gaia Garou Theurges can detect Wyrm taint through the gift Sense Wyrm. Many liken the Wyrm's presence to an odor. Mari Cabra complained that a Wyrm-tainted Umbral location stank of the Wyrm.
  • God of Evil: Played with. In its original state, the Wyrm was the force of decay, destruction, and renewal that kept the universe in balance. Having gone insane from captivity in the Weaver's web, however, he has since transformed into an evil entity who inflicts horrors on Gaia.
  • Gnosticism: The game's cosmology borrows from Gnosticism. The Triatic Wyrm is a demiurge masquerading as the true Wyrm of balance, and much of the suffering in the WTA world can be laid at his feet. The Urge Wyrms and Maeljin Incarna are similar to archons. The true Wyrm of balance, trapped in the fabric of reality and unable to fulfill its original purpose, is not unlike Sophia.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: Said to be more of a force than a physical villain, but most of the physical villains in the game work for him.
  • Hope Spot: According to Garou Saga, the ancient Black Spiral king Mockmaw used vile rites to discover a way to free the Wyrm from the Weaver's web. When Mockmaw descended into the Black Spiral Labyrinth to liberate his god, the Wyrm swallowed him.
  • Mad God: Captivity in the Weaver's web has driven the Wyrm insane.
  • Noodle Incident: How and why the Weaver trapped him is deliberately kept vague, with the books stating there are several In-Universe theories on what exactly happened.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: The Wyrm seeks to corrupt and destroy all of creation in an insane attempt to escape from captivity in the Weaver's web.
  • Ouroboros: In Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth, the Oroboros symbolizes the Wyrm and the cyclical nature of the universe he rules. Book of the Wyrm (2nd edition) discusses the Oroboros as a symbol of the original Wyrm of balance.
    "... the Wyrm understood that the interaction of the other two supernals should remain eternal and universal, but balanced in harmony and wholeness. If one gained too much ground over the other, this could not be. To unite the two in dynamic equilibrium, the Wyrm wrapped itself around all that the Triat had wrought, seizing its tail in its mouth and holding it fast. This primordial Wyrm, the supernal principle of Balance in eternal wholeness, is remembered even in some human traditions as the Ouroboros."
  • Poor Communication Kills: According to Book of the Wyrm (2nd edition), the primordial Wyrm of balance understands that the Triat and its flawed creation must be obliterated so that a new Triat can be reborn. However, it cannot communicate this to the Triatic Wyrms or Urge Wyrms, who are acting independently of their progenitor.
  • Power of the Void: Originally, the Wyrm was the embodiment of destruction and final silence, destroying all things in due time.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: In the Time of Judgment scenario in which the Wyrm takes form, two Anthelios red stars form its eyes.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Or rather, it became evil after being canned.
  • Shout-Out: Eater-of-Souls, one of the three Triadic Wyrms, may be a shout-out to The Illuminatus Trilogy, in which "Eater of Souls" is an epithet for Yog-Sothoth.
  • Split Personality: The Wyrm has splintered into three main aspects: Beast-of-War (violence), Eater-of-Souls (greed and craving), and Defiler (corruption). Some sources suggest that the Triadic Wyrm is an emanation of the original Balance-Wyrm, rather than the true Wyrm itself.
  • Tulpa: The Urge Wyrms were created from the negative emotions and thoughts of the original Balance-Wyrm when it found itself imprisoned in the Weaver's web. According to some sources, the Triadic Wyrm are tulpas of the original Balance-Wyrm. In one Time of Judgment scenario, the Triadic Wyrm actively tries to stop Gaia's forces from liberating the Balance-Wyrm from his captivity.
  • Tortured Monster: The Wyrm's corruption and destruction are its insane attempts to escape from the Weaver's web. Unfortunately, its escape attempts are devastating Gaia and making life horrific for Gaia's lifeforms.
  • Villainous Crush: The 2000 Ananasi breedbook states that Wyrm has always been enamored with Weaver's beauty, and that he was excited when he first witnessed her destroy life. The breedbook claims that the Weaver used the crush to her advantage, wooing and then imprisoning the Wyrm in her web.
    • Wyrm adores Ananasa because she reminds him of the Weaver. He keeps her opal containment cell in Malfeas for this reason.
  • We ARE Struggling Together: The Triatic Wyrm, the Urge Wyrms, and their servants are constantly squabbling among themselves.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: While the Wyrm is considered the main antagonist of Werewolf: The Apocalypse, it is theorized that its actions are not out of malice. According to many sources within the game's canon (and the most generally accepted theory among fans), the Wyrm is a prisoner of the Weaver, who, jealous of the Wyrm's position as final arbiter of reality and angry at its ability to break down the Order established by her, trapped the Wyrm within the Pattern Web. The Wyrm, in its desperation to break free, has gone insane, and, being one of the three universal cosmic ideas, its insanity takes the form of very bad things happening to reality. There are quite a few Garou that believe that, to truly be able to defeat the Wyrm, they actually have to fight the Weaver, who is ultimately responsible for the whole mess, and they fight the Wyrm more out of practicality and the danger the Wyrm poses than out of desire to actually destroy it.

Servants of the Wyrm

    Black Spiral Dancers 

Black Spiral Dancers

The deranged descendants of the White Howlers, a tribe of Pictish Garou who fell to the Wyrm roughly two thousand years ago.

  • Abusive Parents: Metis children are raised with a combination of love and cruelty by the hive's adult metis. Metis adults often teach their wards about the birds and the bees "first hand".
  • Ax-Crazy: They’re a whole tribe of sociopathic, bloodthirsty lunatics with a desire to sow chaos and destruction for their own sake. It truly says something when murder isn’t even punished among their ranks.
  • Beauty Equals Goodness: Most Black Spiral Dancers are repulsively ugly, if not outright misshapen and freakish, as well as evil. To some extent, this is an Enforced Trope, as the Wyrm's corrupting influence causes their deformities. However, there are also some exceptions, with Dancers who are outwardly normal or even attractive, especially in homid form. This minority naturally tends to work better as infiltrators and agents of insidious corruption than their more Obviously Evil cousins.
  • Been There, Shaped History: According to Rage Across Australia, Black Spiral kinfolk were behind the creation of Australia's Aboriginal Protection Board in the 19th century, as part of a strategy to destroy the Bunyip's human kinfolk.
  • Being Tortured Makes You Evil:
    • Black Spiral Dancers may "soften up" a Gaia Garou captive before forcing them to enter the Black Spiral Labyrinth, so that their victim will be more vulnerable to the Wyrm. Black Spirals also torment captive humans and kinfolk to make them more subceptible to bane possession.
    • In Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth, Titus Germanicus is kidnapped by Black Spiral Dancers and subjected to psychological torture in a Black Spiral pit. The Black Spirals kill his fellow soldiers, leave him in a room with their body parts, and then force him to watch (and possibly participate in) the execution of Brennus. His last letter implies that he became bane-possessed after the ordeal.
  • Beneath the Earth: Black Spiral communities live in sprawling underground caverns called hives, which are connected by an intricate network of tunnels. At least one community lives in the viscera of a colossal Thunderwyrm named Grammaw, who slumbers beneath the earth.
  • Big, Screwed-Up Family: Black Spiral Dancers can be very abusive toward their kinfolk, who in turn are often violent and insane — it's possible to save them even if they become werewolves before they Walk the Spiral, but they're never all there due to the abuse they suffered. Rage Across Appalachia illustrates how Black Spiral Dancers deliberately cultivate dysfunction among their kinfolk. W20 Book of the Wyrm modifies the kinfolk's dysfunction: abuse and torment is still a frequent Spiral practice, but modern Spirals have also learned the ways of emotional distance and detachment.
    "The Black Spirals carefully nurture desirable qualities among their unfortunate Kinfolk, seeking to maintain in their breeding stock a barely contained — and often expressed — violence and savagery along with a lack of will to change their way of life."
  • Body Horror: After generations of exposure to balefire, some Black Spiral Dancers are born with physical mutations. To boot, Black Spiral gifts include bat-like ears, patagium, horns, and venom dripping from the mouth. These gifts, while unsettling, bestow special abilities. For example, patagium allow a Black Spiral Dancer to glide down safely from great heights, bat-like ears enhance hearing, etc.
  • Bondage Is Bad: The tribe nurtures its members' unorthodox and often extreme sexual practices, minus the "safe, sane, and consensual" part.
  • Cannibalism Superpower: The 20th anniversary edition features a Black Spiral gift called Feast of Man-Flesh, which allows its user to gain knowledge by eating an opponent's flesh.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: The occasional odd exception aside, almost all Black Spiral Dancers are sociopathic monsters who delight in destruction and corruption.
  • Cultured Badass: Professor W. Richard MacLish (a.k.a. Writlish), a Black Spiral Dancer scholar and a walking repository of Wyrm history.
  • Dysfunction Junction: All Black Spiral Dancer hives and packs qualify. A community that abuses its metis children, treats violence and depravity as normal, and compels its members to traverse the sanity-blasting Black Spiral Labyrinth will be brimming with dysfunction.
  • Due to the Dead: In Book of the Wyrm (2nd edition), Nhaukh honors his fallen Metis packmate with a prayer.
    Nhaukh: From the loins of the Defiler you sprang, child of Corruption. Though a sterile seed, you grew into poison in the throat of the World-Bitch. Be damned with you, and swift be your journey.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: The Valkenburg Foundation mentions heart daggers, which Black Spiral Dancers use in their marriage rites. Later materials make it clear that the Black Spirals do not marry, as they find concepts such as love and monogamy alien, and conceive children rather promiscuously.
  • Enfant Terrible: Many Black Spiral Dancers exhibit cruel and violent tendencies as children. Several of the Black Spiral Dancer characters in Warriors of the Apocalypse did terrible things before their first change. The first edition of Book of the Wyrm states that murder is not unheard of (and rarely punished) among the tribe's metis children, who are raised collectively underground.
  • Equal-Opportunity Evil: The Black Spiral Dancers accept (and forcibly assimilate) Garou from all over the world. Race, gender, and breed are no object, unlike some of the Gaia Garou tribes. To boot, the Black Spiral hold metis members in high esteem, unlike many Gaia Garou. Guardians of the Caerns states that metis who have been mistreated or exiled by intolerant septs sometimes find refuge among the Black Spirals.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Black Spiral Dancer kinfolk can be devoted to their Garou relatives, and vice versa. For example, in Kinfolk, Iolani Darkmoon is loyal to her new Black Spiral Dancer family, and they in turn treat her far better than her estranged Uktena husband.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: The 20th anniversary edition of Book of the Wyrm includes advice from a Black Spiral Dancer on how to convert Gaia Garou to the Wyrm's cause. The Black Spiral narrator clearly does not understand the Garou's devotion to Gaia, thinking that they can be converted with trifles.
  • Evil Counterpart: To the Gaia Garou. Black Spiral Dancers retain some aspects of Garou culture, such as lunar auspices, preservation of the Veil, and a Wyrm version of the Litany.
  • Evil Welcomes Defectors: The Black Spiral Dancers woo Gaia Garou who have the potential to fall to the Wyrm. When they take Gaia Garou as war captives, they invite their captives to traverse the Black Spiral Labyrinth and join their tribe if they survive.
  • False Friend: According to Werewolf: The Dark Ages, medieval Black Spiral Dancers would befriend and comfort lepers who lived on the margins of society. They would then use the lepers as breeding stock and bane hosts.
  • Feathered Fiend: Whippoorwill is the tribe's totem spirit.
  • Go Mad from the Revelation: All Black Spiral Dancers pass through the Black Spiral Labyrinth as a rite of passage. The ordeal renders all of them mentally unhinged.
  • 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 divide their worship between multiple totems. Insufficient worship from the Black Spiral Dancers leaves him vulnerable before Grandfather Thunder, who destroys him and absorbs his gnosis.
  • Hellfire: Balefire is a common feature of hives.
  • Hypocrite: The Black Spiral Dancers are described as such in the W20 version of Book of the Wyrm. The Black Spirals insist that the Wyrm has already won the war against Gaia, but they're still fighting tooth and nail against the Gaia Garou. The Black Spirals claim that they enjoy true freedom, but in reality they're slaves of the Wyrm and bound by the rules and hierarchies of their tribe.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: They cannibalize their dead Garou opponents, as well as unfortunate humans.
  • In the Blood:
    • Some sources claim that werewolves of Black Spiral parentage, even those raised by Gaia Garou, are touched by the Wyrm. For example, the W20 edition of Book of the Wyrm describes the Garou child of a Wendigo kinfolk woman and a Black Spiral Dancer who attracted banes during her First Change.
    • Other sources claim that descendants of Black Spiral Dancers can choose to serve Gaia. For example, Caerns: Places of Power describes an abandoned metis adopted by the Get of Fenris, Hugin, who resembles a Black Spiral Dancer and is probably of Dancer heritage.
  • Intangible Theft: Black Spiral Dancers have stolen gifts from Gaia Garou tribes, including Resist Toxin, Shroud, and Kneel.
  • Irony: The Black Spiral Dancers imagine themselves as powerful and free, but in reality, they're twisted slaves of the Wyrm. The 20th anniversary edition of Book of the Wyrm makes this clear.
    The Black Spiral Dancers are broken, twisted things imagining that they stand tall. They’re slaves marveling over the gilding of their chains. They’re the worst excesses and mistakes of the Garou once the urge to do or be something better is taken away.
  • Join or Die:
    • When the Black Spiral Dancers capture Gaian Garou, they give their captives the choice of traversing the Black Spiral Labyrinth or facing execution.
    • In the Time of Judgment scenario in which the Shadow Lords fall to the Wyrm, Grandfather Thunder kills Whippoorwill, leaving the Black Spiral Dancers bereft of a tribal totem. The Shadow Lords demand that the Black Spirals either join their tribe or face execution.
  • Mind Rape: What they experience during their rite of passage in the Black Spiral Labyrinth.
  • Psychological Torment Zone: In the Black Spiral Labyrinth, all of one's innermost thoughts and feelings are laid bare before the Wyrm.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Sexual violence is rampant among the Black Spiral Dancers.
    • Adult metis often teach metis children under their care about the birds and the bees "first hand".
    • The Black Spiral Dancers use sexual abuse as one means of asserting dominance during power struggles.
    • Black Spiral breeding practices with kinfolk, captive humans, and captive wolves frequently involves this.
    • Some Black Spiral rites, such as the Rite of the Vengeful Spider, involve sexual violence.
  • Really Gets Around: Sex among Black Spiral Dancers is fairly indiscriminate. Hives take part in orgies to create metis Garou.
  • Red Right Hand:
    • Many Black Spiral Dancers have mutations and disfigurements. Some look so grotesque that they can barely pass as human while in homid form.
    • Subverted with Black Spiral Dancers with Pure Breed 5, who look like White Howler throwbacks. The Caerns: Places of Power book describes the leader of the Trinity Hive Caern, a handsome Black Spiral Dancer with high Pure Breed who is normal-looking enough to pass as a Gaian Garou.
  • Religion of Evil:
    • Black Spiral Dancers revere the Wyrm, and over two millennia, they have developed a sophisticated theology.
    • The Trinity Hive shows deep reverence toward a former nuclear testing site in Alamagordo, New Mexico, and for the colossal thunderwyrm who burrows near the impact crater, Grammaw. The Hive carries out rites for navigating Grammaw's viscera and earning the favor of the Green Dragon totem.
  • Revenge Before Reason: They are really bitter about the other Garou not protecting the White Howlers, and revenge is a big motivator for Walking the Spiral.
  • Sanity Has Advantages: One of their biggest tribal liabilities is their insanity. In several scenarios from the Apocalypse: Time of Judgment book, the Black Spiral's insanity allows fallen Garou tribes to assert leadership over them, displace them from their role as the Wyrm's chosen, or absorb them.
  • Son of an Ape: Chuck fumes that Black Spiral Dancers called him a "monkey" in Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth.
  • The Sociopath: They perpetrate horrors in the Wyrm's name without remorse. The W20 edition of Book of the Wyrm emphasizes how immoral and fallen the Dancers are.
    The Black Spiral Dancers are monsters. Not heroic monsters, not ferocious avenging angels of nature unbound to seek retribution for the rape and plunder of the Earth, not implacable warriors driven by righteous anger, they’re just monsters. That is both their purpose and their self-justification for not trying to be anything more. They torture, maim, and ruin because doing those things is easy and satisfying on a childish, simple level, and they’ve lost or given away whatever part of them once aspired to something more.
  • Soul Power: Book of the Wyrm 20 reveals that some particularly demented Dancers have created a blasphemous Rite that allows them to hollow out spirits and effectively wear them as coats, turning their war forms into absurdist nightmares. Such spirits have ranged from corrupted bears to Garou ancestors to, in one particularly screwed-up Dancer's case, their own soul.
  • Take Our Word for It: In Garou Saga, Ryn Ap Bleidd chooses not to write down a Black Spiral Dancer war chant he heard, but assures readers that it is chilling.
  • Utopia Justifies the Means: They're convinced that perpetrating atrocities and destruction will destroy the web imprisoning the Wyrm, thereby restoring balance to the cosmos. The W20 edition of the Book of the Wyrm says that this is a load of crock — whatever noble purpose they have in freeing the Wyrm is ultimately secondary to their endless quest for revenge and power.
  • Villainous Incest: The Black Spirals engage in this to preserve mutations, and as a result of their culture's loose sexual mores. Rage Across Appalachia states that incests preserves genetic mutations among Appalachian Black Spiral Dancers and their kinfolk. In Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth, Chuck (Charles Manson) calls them "inbred".
    Banes 

Banes

Spirits that serve the Wyrm. Most reside in the Umbra, but some possess fetishes or living beings.

  • As Long as There Is Evil: Banes feed off of negative human emotions. Their presence in the Umbra is correlated with some form of environmental harm or trauma in the material world.
  • Demonic Possession: Banes can possess vulnerable humans, animals, and shape-changers, resulting in fomori. Fomori are slowly corrupted in body and soul due to the possessing Bane's influence.
  • Our Demons Are Different
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Banes can possess inanimate objects, transforming them into bane fetishes.
  • The Unfettered: Banes are single-minded about feeding on negative human energies and spreading the Wyrm's corruption. Little else matters to them.
    Fomori 

Fomori

Humans, animals, and shape-changers who have been possessed by Banes.

  • Appropriated Appellation: According to the Fianna the Formori's name comes from them, as Bane possessed humans first started appearing in numbers around the same time the Fianna were fighting the Formorians alongside the Fae. The early Fianna mistook the two and the name stuck.
  • Big, Screwed-Up Family: A few families of multigenerational fomori exist, often near Hellholes (locations of great Wyrm power). For example, Rage Across Appalachia has the Bledsons, a squalid family living near a polluted pond. All Bledson males are compelled to enter the pond as a rite of passage, infecting them with banes.
  • Body Horror: Often, Fomori exhibit hideous physical deformities as a result of Bane possession.
  • Brainwashed: The possessing Bane slowly corrupts the host's mind.
    • Some Uktena believe that fomori can be controlled by Bane Tenders, and that such brainwashed fomori can make useful spies against the Wyrm.
  • Demonic Possession: Fomori are living beings who have been possessed by Wyrm spirits.
  • Empty Shell: Fomori become this when they exhaust their Autonomy score.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: The ferectoi, offspring of creatures known as breeder banes and humans (which is exactly as consensual as it sounds). They're born fomori and as such have a number of natural advantages (ferectoi are more powerful than normal banes, can more easily conceal their nature, and don't have to argue about who's in charge of the body), and are more or less the aristocracy of the fomori world. However, their human nature constantly asserts itself as a nagging conscience.
  • Hellish Horse: According to Werewolf: The Dark Ages, medieval Black Spiral Dancers used aughisky (horse fomori) as steeds.
  • Hillbilly Horrors: Wyrmish pollution in wilder areas results in the locals being exposed to the worst of it, resulting in monstrous clans of inbred and Bane-possessed rednecks who bathe in Hellholes as an Initiation Ceremony, becoming even more hideous in the process.
  • Humanoid Abomination: More powerful fomori qualify as this, especially the ones who can disguise their inhuman nature in some way - most prominently the Hollow Men.
  • Meat Puppet: The bane compels its host to carry out its wishes. The lower the host's autonomy and willpower, the more influence the bane can exert.
  • Mercy Kill: Most Garou kill fomori to free them from the terrifying influence of the Wyrm, since there is no way to remove the possessing bane.
  • Monstrosity Equals Weakness: Some of the most disgusting and openly monstrous fomori tend to suffer serious health problems as a result of their possession, sometimes to the point of purchasing the "Doomed" taint. More subtle fomori capable of disguising their deformities tend to live longer - to the point that Hollow Men have been known to live for millennia.
  • Multiple Headcase: One of the Taits fomori can possess is "second head," resulting in another head sprouting on the victim's body - and not necessarily on the shoulders either. This is a major drawback as the secondary head despises the original with a passion and will do everything possible to sabotage its host, even if it leads to their mutual death.
  • Naked Nutter: The Normalites; the results of Homogeneity Incorporated preying on insecure LGBTQ individuals, every single Normalite has been subjected to a Bane-based treatment purported to "cure" homosexuality. The final stage of the treatment involves the newly-created Normalite degenerating into an insentient Fomori pack animal easily distinguished by its lack of eyes, lack of genitals, irrational hatred of anything even remotely different from the norm, and - of course - constant nudity.
  • Possession Burnout: Bane possession is not good for one's health.
    • Some of the more powerful and self-aware Banes can eject from their hosts and exist in the physical world, killing the host in the process.
    • Freak Legion reveals that some fomori possess a trait simply known as "Doomed," leaving them with a dramatically shortened lifespan that will usually end with their Bane-warped bodies breaking down in some uniquely horrific fashion. The absolute maximum of this lifespan is five years. The minimum? One month.
  • Powers via Possession: Bane possession equips fomori with a range of abilities. However, as Freak Legion demonstrates, some of these are pretty disgusting.
  • Super Sex Organs: One of the powers they can have is called Savage Genitalia. It allows them to use their reproductive organs as weapons. Spikes, poison, and teeth are among the possibilities.
  • Tortured Monster: For some fomori, bane possession and everything that comes with it is a horrific experience.
  • Tragic Villain: Not all fomori started off as evil. Some beings became fomori because traumas made them vulnerable to bane possession, while others were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Meanwhile, those who were born to it never even had a chance of not being what they are.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting: Some formori can exhibit shapechanging abilities at varying levels of strength, with the only drawback being that almost all of the shapes they assume are hideously ugly so it's useful solely for combat rather than disguise.
  • Was Once a Man: In the case of human formori.
  • The Worm That Walks: The Hollow Men are possessed by Scavenger Pack Banes, and as such, are little more than walking colonies of spiders, snakes, or rats concealed by the host's hollowed-out skin.
    Pentex 

Pentex

A global mega-corporation in the service of the Wyrm's Eater-of-Souls aspect. Pentex companies pollute the landscape and sell products that taint the bodies and minds of consumers. Two Pentex projects — Project Illiad and Project Odyssey — focus on creating human fomori for its twisted pursuits.

  • Always Second Best: Not one of Pentex's many companies are actually industry leaders. Most of the Pentex higher ups prefer it this way; if they were topping lists they'd attract too much attention to their Wyrm plots. Being successful but not too high profile generally suits them better.
  • Corporate Conspiracy: Publicly a respectable MegaCorp, Pentex and its subsidiaries secretly plot to spread the Wyrm's corruption through their products and hasten the end of the world.
  • The Corrupter: Pentex uses its products to spread toxic ideas and Wyrm taint among humans.
  • Crossover: With Mage: The Ascension. Pentex has a long standing association with elements within the Syndicate Convention from the Technocracy, something that is doing neither side any good in the long term due to their conflicting philosophies.
  • Dystopia Justifies the Means: The Omega Plan. Pentex's long-term goal is to engineer the collapse of civilization. Once society has crumbled, the corporation will rule over the remaining humans with an iron fist.
  • Equal-Opportunity Evil: Possibly the best example of this in the entire World of Darkness, at least in terms of the diversity in the types of supernatural beings in its employ. Pentex employs humans, fomori, Black Spiral Dancers, and the occassional kindred. Mage: Book of the Fallen confirmed that Pentex is indeed infested by Nephandi (as was suspected by the Technocracy), and one employee, Jimmy Farrington, is all but stated outright to be possessed by one of the Fallen. However, it has rather traditional and family-oriented views when it comes to women, though one still made it to the Board of Directors.
  • Evil, Inc.: Pentex is a global mega-corporation carrying out the Wyrm's agenda.
  • Green Aesop: The game designers use Pentex as a vehicle for social commentary about pollution, toxic products, and the corporate corruption that gives rise to them.
  • Hive Mind: In one Time of Judgment scenario, a City Father spirit congeals out of Pentex' spiritual energies. The spirit becomes powerful enough to possess every single Pentex employee, whom it speaks and acts through.
  • Laughably Evil: Let's not kid ourselves; many of Pentex's subsidiaries and methods are patently absurd. Anybody want an evil baneburger from O'Tolley's? Despite the zaniness of many of their schemes, they still manage to be existentially threatening, because the problems they create even through their most ridiculous plots aren't easily solved by pointing angry Garou at them.
  • May Contain Evil: Many of their products contain Banes, or make the customer more susceptible to Banes.
  • MegaCorp: Pentex controls countless subsidiaries around the world, allowing it to corrupt many corners of human society.
  • Polluted Wasteland: Pentex factories turn the nearby landscape into this.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: Pentex avoids collaboration with the Seventh Generation to preserve its facade of respectability. To boot, the Seventh Generation's "bad habits" serve no purpose in the company. They're also fairly restrained when it comes to shoving Banes in products — the head of Pentex's computer subsidiary found out the hard way what happens when you stick spirits of decay and entropy in complex electronic systems. As a whole, they swing between this and Stupid Evil, depending on which parts of the Wyrm are currently influencing them.
  • Predatory Big Pharma: Their pharmaceutical subsidiary Magadon's operations include Wyrm-tainted drugs that spread addiction and Bane possession, genetic research to weaken the werewolf population, and Fantastic Drugs to enhance other Pentex agents.
  • Right Hand Versus Left Hand: One of Pentex's biggest weaknesses is that there's very little central organization. Many of its subsidiaries don't even know they're part of Pentex, let alone who the other subsidiaries are. As such, there's massive inter-company strife that greatly slows and weakens the corporation's actions.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Some of their products contain Banes.
  • Self-Deprecation: As if the name isn't indicative enough, the entire chapter for the Black Dog Games Company is pretty much White Wolf making fun of themselves, their products and the gaming industry as a whole, including the players.
  • Take That!: Pentex seeks to indoctrinate children with Wyrmish values through pop culture. According to Subsidiaries: A Guide to Pentex, Pentex owns companies that profit off toys, television shows, and other forms of childhood entertainment. The toys and shows are suspiciously similar to 1980s and 1990s pop culture staples such as Pokémon, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and G.I. Joe. There is even a Wyrm-tainted Mokolé named Deep-Purple-Dark in their employ whose Archid form is that of a purple dinosaur and is used as a children's television phenomenon when in reality Deep-Purple-Dark lures child spirits to him to torture and eat them. His name on TV though? Braney.
    • The idea that evil entities seek to corrupt children through entertainment shows echoes the belief among some 1980s Evangelicals that popular toys and TV shows were of Satanic origin (i.e., the book Turmoil in the Toybox).
  • Tampering with Food and Drink: Pentex has several subsidiaries devoted to alcoholic beverages, including King Beer, Ruskaiya Distilleries, and Dragon Valley Wines. King Beer is more likely than other beer to bring out the worst behavior in its drinkers. King Spirits occasionally contains teratogens and Banes. Thaw Beverages' soda potentiates any Banes clinging to its drinkers. Dragon Valley wines are carcinogenic, and its Pyrrus line of wines turns the drinker into a beacon for nearby Banes and increases their vulnerability to possession. There's also O'Tolley's, a fast food restaurant chain that serves cheap comfort food, which is produced in some of the most appalling conditions imaginable. Just as an example, items on their "special, limited-time items menu" frequently comes from roadkill, and that's some of the freshest ingredients.
  • You Have Failed Me: If you screw up while working for Pentex, don't expect a slap on the wrist. The guy mentioned under Pragmatic Villainy who decided to load delicate electronics with Banes? The going rumor is that at his replacement's welcome dinner, he was the main course.
    The Seventh Generation and the Pretanic Order 

The Seventh Generation and the Pretanic Order

Two human cults that serve the Wyrm. The Pretanic Order has produced Wyrm mystics such as Frater I.I. (a Black Spiral kinfolk man who compiled the 20th century edition of Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth) and the Laird of Demborough (the occultist who founded Phelegma Abbey).

The Seventh Generation is an ancient cult that serves the Wyrm's Defiler aspect. Its members are divided into five castes (snatcher, government, warrior, medical, and business) that infiltrate and corrupt human society. Their modus operandi is to abuse women and children in the hopes that they will fall prey to the Wyrm due to their trauma.

  • Ancient Conspiracy: Both groups have a long history, and their members can be found in many levels of society.
  • Astral Projection: According to Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth, devotees of both cults walk the Black Spiral Labyrinth by projecting their consciousness into the Umbra, instead of physically traveling to the labyrinth.
    • In Chuck's case, his consciousness was spontaneously shunted to the seventh circle of the labyrinth with no warning. Frater I.I. had to talk him through the ordeal and perform a human sacrifice on the spot to bring Chuck back to his body.
  • Been There, Shaped History: According to Rage Across New York, the Seventh Generation was behind several historical calamities. When Socrates discovered Seventh Generation activity in Athens, the Seventh Generation orchestrated his trial and execution. When Freud discovered that childhood abuse was pervasive among his patients, the Seventh Generation forced him to revise his theories and claim that his patients had overactive imaginations. According to Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth, Charles Manson was a Seventh Generation devotee, and his murders were in service of the Wyrm.
  • Being Tortured Makes You Evil:
    • The Seventh Generation kidnaps and abuses children so that they will be vulnerable to the Wyrm's influence and grow up to be Wyrm servants. Several Seventh Generation characters in Rage Across New York were abused as children.
    • Excerpts from The Pretanic Keys indicate that Pretanic Order rites can involve torture.
  • Blasphemous Boast: In Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth, Louis de Fif (the Black Monk) identified with Eater-of-Souls and shouted one while being burned at the stake.
    "I am the worm, the great dragon of all life, beside which your God and your devil are but a bickering father and son..."
  • Card-Carrying Villain: You don't get much more villainous than two cabals of abomination-worshiping, society-controlling, human-sacrificing cultists.
  • The Corrupter: Like other servants of the Wyrm, they seek to spread the Wyrm's corruption through society. Seventh Generation devotees spread the Wyrm's influence in politics, business, the military and the medical field. Additionally, they seek to corrupt children and thus make them vulnerable to the Wyrm's influence.
  • The Dark Arts: Chronicles Of The Black Labyrinth has extensive passages on "Wyrm mysticism," which is like Paracelsian alchemy or Enochian magic, only with the four elements swapped out for the elements of the Wyrm (smog, balefire, sludge, and toxins).
  • Deal with the Devil: The Wyrm grants cultists magical powers and access to the Umbra in exchange for vile rites involving human sacrifice.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?:
    • When Seventh Generation figures speak in public, they use the language of right-wing conservatives as code for their machinations. Their devotees throw around coded terms such as "states' rights", "traditional values", and "religious persecution".
    • In Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth, Pretanic Order treatises are written in a style reminiscent of the writings of the real-life Order of the Golden Dawn.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: Other Wyrm servants avoid or dislike the cults. Pentex refuses to collaborate with the Seventh Generation to preserve its facade of respectability. Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth suggests that, with a few exceptions, the Black Spiral Dancers look down on human Wyrm servants.
  • Glamour Failure: While Seventh Generation devotees look normal in the physical world, their true selves become visible in the Umbra. For example, in Rage Across New York, Gunther Draggerunter becomes a ranting high priest in robes, Jabez Holloman appears as a jack-booted stormtrooper, and Lord Akbright's clothes leak oily filth while in the Umbra.
  • Guilt-Free Extermination War: One of King Albrech's first projects after ascending the throne was to organize an orchestrated Garou attack on the Seventh Generation. As a result, the Seventh Generation was completely wiped out.
  • He-Man Woman Hater: Almost all Seventh Generation members are men. Since the group seeks to destroy the bonds between men, women, and children, misogyny is part of their M.O. Most of the Seventh Generation characters in Warriors of the Apocalypse had malevolent attitudes toward women.
    • Men are conspicuously overrepresented in Pretanic Order history, suggesting that this trope may be in effect for them as well.
  • Hero-Worshipper: In Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth, the Laird of Demborough refers to Black Spiral Dancer Garou as "True Dancers", suggesting that Pretanic Order rites for traversing the Black Spiral Labyrinth pale in comparison. Pretanic Order rites and theology also borrow heavily from Black Spiral Dancer tradition.
    • Averted with Chuck (Charles Manson) in the "On the Road with Chucko the Monkey Boy" chapter. He scorns the Black Spiral Dancers as arrogant and "inbred" during his conversation with Frater I.I.
  • Human Sacrifice: The rites of both cults involve this. In Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth, both the Black Monk and Frater I.I. performed human sacrifices to the Wyrm.
    • Targeted Human Sacrifice: Seventh Generation rites involve the sacrifice of children. Pretanic Order rites can require the sacrifice of a man, woman, or child, depending on the Urge Wyrm served by the devotee.
  • I Just Want to Be You: Pretanic Order rites borrow heavily from Black Spiral Dancer traditions. For example, the Rite of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Maeljin Incarna and of the Evocation and Union of the Urge from Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth mimics the dance of the Black Spiral Labyrinth. The chapter even ends with a plea from its human authors to the Black Spiral Garou, beseeching the Garou to respect them as fellow servants of the Wyrm.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: Pretanic Order rites in honor of the elemental Wyrms involve human sacrifice, after which the devotee devours part of the victim's body.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The Seventh Generation unwittingly created its greatest opponent: the Order of the Rose. The Order is composed of former Seventh Generation victims who are very traumatized, VERY angry, and hell-bent on revenge against their tormentors.
  • Powered by a Forsaken Child: Their rites involve depraved acts against innocent victims.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Seventh Generation rites involve this, along with human sacrifice.
  • Really 700 Years Old: Wyrm magic can extend the lives of devotees (although this is never reconciled with the claim that Wyrm influence subverts their bodies). For example, Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth places Gunther Draggerunter at an 1897 meeting.
  • Religion of Evil: Both cults worship the evil Wyrm and spread its influence.
  • Serial Killer: Members of both cults kidnap and sacrifice innocent victims.
  • The Sociopath: Every devotee without exception.
  • Squishy Wizard: While devotees can use gifts and enter the Umbra, they're still biologically human, making them much weaker than fomori, Garou, or Fera. For example, in The Silver Record, King Albrecht makes quick work of Gunther Draggerunter after he and his pack defeat Draggerunter's bane guards.
  • This Is Your Brain on Evil: According to Rage Across New York, the Wyrm's influence sickens their bodies and souls. The more Wyrm power they cultivate, the sicker and more spiritually polluted they become. Members of the Medical Caste can heal grave wounds with Wyrm magic, but such magic corrupts the mind and soul of the target and weakens their free will.
    "Their growing disconnection from the natural world makes them grow ill. They have an aura of unhealthiness and sadness about them. As the Wyrm subverts their natural systems, they slowly become immune to real healing, and can only rely on drugs to mask the pain and anesthetize them from the symptoms of their increasingly terrible ills ... When they finally die, they die in agony."
  • Underground Railroad: A Silver Fang named Loba Carcassone created an underground railroad to rescue the Second Generation's victims.
  • We Are Everywhere: Members of both cults members have secretly risen to powerful places in society, such as business and government.
  • We ARE Struggling Together: The Seventh Generation is brimming with internal strife, backstabbing, jealousy, and hatred. Rage Across New York describes them as "a squabbling, backbiting mob of bitter, miserable creatures with stunted spirits and no love for each other or themselves."
  • Would Hurt a Child: Their entire modus operandi is child abuse (with a side order of misogynistic violence).
    Skin Dancers 

Skin Dancers

Garou kinfolk who have transformed themselves into Garou using vile rites. The group was founded by Samuel Haight, a disgruntled Children of Gaia kinfolk man.

  • The Corruption: The act of becoming a Skin Dancer afflicts them with Wyrm taint, unless the pelts required for the rite were given willingly.
  • The Dog Bites Back: Ongoing mistreatment by the Garou can drive some kinfolk to become Skin Dancers.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Unlike other creatures tainted by the Wyrm, there is nothing that requires a Skin Dancer to be evil. A Kinfolk could very easily slay five Wyrm-tainted Garou, complete the rite, and hunt the Wyrm as a werewolf following it's completion. If the pelts were given willingly, the werewolf would not even have Wyrm taint.
  • Driven by Envy: Some Skin Dancers are motivated by jealousy and resentment toward their Garou kin.
  • Evil-Detecting Dog: While Garou cannot sense Skin Dancers, spirits will often detect a Skin Dancer, and refuse to teach them Gifts. Skin Dancers usually need to force the spirit into combat to help, or gain Minotaur as a totem.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: The process of becoming a Skin Dancer transforms a kinfolk human into a formidable werewolf.
  • He-Man Woman Hater: As with the Get of Fenris, downplayed. Minotaur, their totem, looks down on women, but women who work hard and earn respect are respected by him. Minotaur requires from his servants that they harass followers of Pegasus (who are usually, but not always, women).
  • I Just Want to Be You: Skin Dancers are often disgruntled kinfolk who want to be Garou.
  • In-Universe Catharsis: An interesting variant: Many of the Kinfolk who perform the ritual actually lose the blinding rage they have against the Garou, as they have finally attained the First Change. Some scholars suggest that this calm is Gaia's revenge against Samuel Haight, the creator of the rite.
  • Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: The second-class status of kinfolk in Garou society can motivate some kin into this.
  • Our Minotaurs Are Different: Their totem is Minotaur, represented as the man who became the beast.
  • Targeted Human Sacrifice: Would-be Skin Dancers must sacrifice five Garou in order to transform into a werewolf. However, these Garou needn't be aligned to Gaia. The only specification is that all of the Garou must be slain within the same auspice.
    Zmei 

Zmei

Wyrm dragons described in Rage Across Russia.

  • Association Fallacy: Probably unintentional (although likely not an unwelcome outcome) but the Zmei has caused the Garou to associate dragons with the Wyrm, making it that much harder for them to get on with the Mokole.
  • Been There, Shaped History: The 1908 Tungusta blast occurred when Trevero briefly broke free from his magical bindings.
  • Blood Knight: Trevero, the largest and strongest Zmei, delights in destruction.
  • Breath Weapon: Goluko can breathe radioactive balefire.
  • Bright Is Not Good: Several Zmei are vividly colored. Rustarin's scales are a shimmering sapphire blue. Trevero's scales are blood red. Illyana's scales sparkle with all the colors of the rainbow. According to Garou Saga, Sharkala was red, blue, and violet, colored like the sunset sky.
  • Face–Monster Turn: The Zmei were originally Wyld creatures who were transformed into Wyrm minions.
  • Giant Flyer: All Zmei have wings and are capable of flight.
  • The Leader: Rustarin, the matriarch of the Zmei and the first to answer Baba Yaga's call.
  • Master of Illusion: During their battle with the Nosferatu Absimiliard, the vampire created illusions of himself to confuse the Zmei. Each Zmei chased an illusion of Absimiliard to a different corner of Russia.
  • Meaningful Name: Zmei means "serpent" in Russian. The Zmei dragons are long and serpentine in appearance.
  • Our Dragons Are Different: The Zmei are fearsome dragons who tormented Russia before the Garou bound them into slumber.
  • Our Wormholes Are Different: Zmei can tear a hole in the fabric of reality and escape to Malfeas. Any creature who follows the Zmei into this portal acquires a permanent derangment and runs a high risk of insanity.
  • Poison Is Corrosive: Trevero can spew poison, which deals aggravated damage to opponents.
  • Rule of Seven: Baba Yaga summoned seven Zmei to attack Absimiliard. Sharkala was killed by Yuri and Sophia Tvarivish and their pack in medieval times, leaving six remaining dragons.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Medieval Garou killed Sharkala and sealed five of the six remaining Zmei in the earth throughout Russia. Shazear laid low among humans in his humanoid form, escaping the fate of his siblings. In the 20th century, paradox created during a battle between mages destroyed the magical bindings holding Gregornous. He has since helped Illyana escape as well.
  • Seers: Sharkala, who was defeated by werewolves in Garou Saga, spoke prophesies about his opponents before fighting them.
  • The Storyteller: Illyana is the lore keeper of the Zmei, collecting stories of her sibling's achievements. She will happily share these stories with anyone who asks.
  • Summon Bigger Fish: Baba Yaga summoned the Zmei to defeat Absimiliard, her sire.
  • Summoning Ritual: The Black Spiral Dancers can release Zmei from their magical binding through the Rite of Draconian Liberation. Fortunately for the rest of the world, only two Black Spirals know the rite.
  • Super-Scream: Gregornous' Hex Scream devastates life and trigger calamities as far as his voice will carry.
  • Token Good Teammate: Shazear, who adores humans and who has walked among them in humanoid form for many years. Rage Across Russia states that he is the most likely Zmei to be turned away from the Wyrm back to the Wyld.
  • Tortured Monster: Ancient Garou bound Goluko in Russia's Taimyr Peninsula, where humans performed nuclear testing in the 20th century. As a result, Goluko is dying of radiation poisoning and mad from pain.
  • Undying Loyalty: Gregornous is deeply loyal to Baba Yaga and considers her his mother.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting: Shazear can shapeshift into humanoid form. He uses this ability to walk among humans
  • Walking Wasteland: Goluko was rendered radioactive from nuclear testing near his binding place. Anyone standing within 10 feet of him must make a Stamina roll or sustain radiation damage.
  • Words Can Break My Bones: Illyana can speak the Combustion Word, which causes everything in a 20 yard radius to burst into flames.

Fallen Breeds

The Garou aren't the only Changing Breed who can fall to the Wyrm. The Buzzards (Corax) and Kumo (Ananasi) have been ever-present since their introductions, while the Hellcats (Ceilican Bastet) were a metaplot development that got retconned out by the 20th anniversary edition. Book of the Wyrm 20th, in addition to covering the Buzzards, also introduces a new type of fallen Ananasi (Antara), along with fallen Bastet (Histpah), Mokolé (Mnetics), Nuwisha (Nokhomi or Bitter-Grins), Ratkin (Mad Destroyers), Rokea (Balefire Sharks), and Camazotz (Xibalan). W20 Kumo can be found in W20 Changing Breeds.

Fallen Ajaba (Ozuzo) were introduced in an official blog post.

    Corrupted Changing Breeds 
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: When a metis Kumo is born, it eats its way out of its mother. Kumo consider the birth of a metis a joyeous occasion, but must petition for the right to bear one, because every metis Kumo born kills a fertile Kumo and replaces her with a sterile one (thus they need to limit such births to maintain a stable population).
  • Evil Counterpart:
    • Hellcats were Ceilican Bastet who fell to the Wyrm when that tribe was destroyed in Revised (W20 retconned the Ceilican back into existence).
    • The Histpah are Bastet who fall to the Wyrm and in the process become unable to reveal the truth of any secret; to do so means their death. Given that the Bastet role is to discover and reveal secrets, this essentially means they've sold out their purpose.
    • Buzzards are created when Wyrm minions take a Corax spirit egg to Malfeas and bind it to a human infant through the Rite of the Broken Wing. Buzzards are all deformed and permanently insane.
    • The Ananasi have two fallen counterparts: Kumo, Wyrm-tained Ananasi despised by others of their kind, and Antara, Ananasi who seek freedom by following the Wyrm. The difference is that the Kumo still serve Ananasa's ends, while the Antara don't, seeking true freedom. To other Ananasi, however, the two look identical, which is a sore spot for the Antara.
    • The Mnetics are Mokolé who have fallen to the Wyrm and now use their connection to Mnesis, the Mokolé's collective memory, to rewrite it.
    • The Mad Destroyers are extremist Ratkin who'd happily watch the world burn or destroy all of humanity, and join the Wyrm in order to do so.
    • Balefire Sharks are Rokea who find themselves dying from radiation, and are offered the chance by agents of the Wyrm to survive by embracing the radiation that kills them. Some few agree, and are reshaped by balefire elementals, marked permanently with a deformity. They find themselves dependent on radiation in order to survive.
    • The Xibalan were in denial about their fall to the Wyrm; they believed they served Bat as his true followers, heralding his eventual return to the Wyrm. When Bat did finally fall, the Xibalan flew ahead of him into the Wyrm's Umbral strongholds, never to be seen again.
    • Up until Black Tooth's genocide, the Ajaba weren't known to fall, as the Ajaba culled any of their own who would fall prey. Following the genocide, however, the Ajaba have come to loathe themselves for being weak, for losing their homelands and fleeing rather than fighting, and the Wyrm has taken full advantage. Susceptible Ajaba receive an offer: debase themselves, admit defeat, and sacrifice their strongest trait. Those who accept become Ozuzo, hunters of strength rather than weakness, who draw those of Ajaba blood to them and kill the strong ones, who must devour another shapeshifter's strength every lunar month or lose their own.
  • The Mole: Ozuzo have a Gift allowing them to conceal their Wyrm-taint from Ajaba and non-enemies.
    Created Changing Breeds 

Anurana

Wyrm-tainted werefrogs created by Pentex who debuted in the 20th anniversary edition of Book of the Wyrm.

Kerasi

Wyrm-tainted wererhinos created by Pentex who debuted in the 20th anniversary edition of Book of the Wyrm. Unlike virtually every other shifter, the Kerasi have no Homid form — they can do humanoid, but not human.

  • Dying Race: Not the Kerasi themselves, but their actions in being fully fertile with both the white rhinoceros and the black rhinoceros. Kerasi / mundane rhino pairings are particularly fertile resulting in more pregnancies, more Kerasi, and far less white rhino or black rhino.
  • Rhino Rampage: As the youngest Changing Breed, and fully lacking a human side, they have only just begun to learn how to use humanoid intelligence and are more brutish.

Samsa

Wyrm-tainted werecockroaches created by Pentex who debuted in the 20th anniversary edition of Book of the Wyrm.

  • Creepy Cockroach: Their breed hat. Have we mentioned their "war form" is an 8-foot-tall bipedal cockroach?
  • Gone Horribly Wrong: Pentex wanted a swarm-based shapeshifter, like the Ananasi. What they got were humans who can turn into eight-foot tall bipedal cockroaches, all of whom have shattered minds and are afraid of the dark.
  • Infectious Insanity: Can temporarily transfer their derangements to others.
  • Kryptonite Factor: Insecticide deals aggravated damage to Samsa.
  • Shout-Out: The Samsa are a shout-out to Gregor Samsa from Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, who mysteriously transforms into a giant insect.

Yeren

Wyrm-tainted wereapes created by Pentex who debuted in the 20th anniversary edition of Book of the Wyrm. Yeren are wealthy businessmen and administrators who call the corporate world their home.

  • Always Chaotic Evil: Quite literally. If a human has any motivation other than greed, the Shadow of the Ape rite doesn't work on them.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: Yeren seek out power in the corporate world.
  • Evil Counterpart: To the Glass Walkers.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: A frustrated Yeren will often kill or eat a human adversary.
  • Killer Gorilla: In their battle form.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Yeren are powerful businessmen with the money to push their agendas.
  • Was Once a Man: Yeren do not reproduce sexually, but rather convert humans into more of their kind through mystical means. The Shadow of the Ape rite, which involves four days of partying and brutish activity both within the normal world and the Umbra, transforms a human into a Yeren.

Recurring Wyrm Characters

    Zhyzhak 

Zhyzhak

A Black Spiral Dancer ahroun. She serves as warder of the Trinity Hive Caern.

  • Arch-Enemy: To Jonas Albrecht, who is (probably) the "Last Garous king" she is supposed to be destined to slay.
  • Because Destiny Says So: Her Theurge packmate, Nhaukh, prophesied that she would crush the last Garou king under her heel. She would very much like to do so.
    • This is zig-zagged in at least one version from the Apocalypse: Time of Judgment book. In that it's revealed that she is destined to complete this prophesy (and is functionally invincible until she does) but only because Nhaukh made said prophesy, his fervant belief and twisted Wyrmish magic making that future come true. If the PCs manage to kill Nhaukh before Zhyzhak defeats Albrecht she suddenly loses much of her strength and the Silver Fang king is able to kill her relatively easily.
  • Blood Knight: Being an ahroun, she delights in battle. Her write-up in Warriors of the Apocalypse states that she's heavily invested in "smashing skulls and drinking blood".
  • Breath Weapon: As a devotee of the Green Dragon totem, she received the ability to spew balefire at opponents.
  • Bullying a Dragon:
    • In the revised edition of Book of the Wyrm, Pirog tried to force himself on Zhyzhak and thereby gain control of her pack, knowing full well that she had a reputation as a badass. She quickly overpowered him and killed him. Keep in mind, Pirog was in Crinos while Zhyzhak was in homid at the time.
    • In the 20th anniversary edition of Book of the Wyrm, Rhaos Dream-slayer attacked Zhyzhak, despite the tales of her ferocity. She promptly beat him within an inch of his life.
  • Butch Lesbian: Her Rage game card shows her in homid form with a woman fawning on her.
  • Characterization Marches On: She began as a borderline gag character — the loud warder of the Trinity Hive Caern who strutted around in dominatrix apparel — but evolved into the most ferocious Black Spiral Dancer in the game.
  • Children Are a Waste: According to Warriors of the Apocalypse, her tribal elders want her to reproduce and pass on her strength to the next generation, but Zhyzhak refuses to bear children. According to her logic, the Black Spiral Dancers have the might to win the war against Gaia now, and the next generation of warriors is irrelevant.
    • Subverted in the Time of Judgment scenario in which the Glass Walkers fall to the Wyrm. Zhyzhak arrives on a battlefield, and to everyone's shock, she is visibly pregnant with the Perfect Metis' child.
  • Dark Action Girl: She's an evil woman who relishes battle.
  • Dark Messiah: For the Black Spiral Dancers, for whom she embodies the fury of Beast-of-War as the Apocalypse approaches.
  • Depending on the Artist: In the official art, she either looks like a musclebound brawn hilda or an attractive amazonian beauty.
  • Dreadlock Warrior: In the Apocalypse: Time of Judgment book, she's depicted with dreadlocks.
  • Egocentrically Religious: She believes that she understands Grammaw (the colossal thunderwyrm revered by the Trinity Hive) better than anyone else, and resents the deference that other Trinity Hive leaders receive.
  • Expy: She brings to mind Queen Brunhild from Nibelungenlied. Both are proud, physically mighty women who brutalize men who try to violate them.
  • Flat Character: Her character development is sparse. She's an unrelenting killing machine, and that's about it.
  • Hell-Bent for Leather: She wears black leather dominatrix outfits, even in battle.
  • I Call It "Vera": Zhyzhak wields a devilwhip named Btk’uthok.
  • The Mentor: As the warder for Grammaw, she is responsible for training and leading the Black Spiral Dancers who defend the enormous thunderwyrm.
  • Mission from God: In one Time of Judgment scenario, Zhyzhak receives a mission from the Wyrm during a dream, and urgently awakens her packmates afterwards. She tolerates no resistance, killing a packmate who complains. Readers never learn what the dream involved, but it filled her with terror and urgency, and involved slaughtering a town full of people in order to lure King Albrecht into battle.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Her name stirs dread among every Gaian Garou. Its origin is that it's the sound she made when she danced the Black Spiral, the sound of her jaws snapping shut.
  • No Indoor Voice: One of her derangements is that she cannot control the volume of her voice, so she's constantly shouting.
    • Possibly something like "Sh-shak!", as it's the sound of jaws snapping shut.
  • Odd Friendship: With Nhaukh, her reserved, devout packmate.
  • Pregnant Badass: In the Time of Judgment scenario in which the Glass Walkers fall to the Wyrm, she arrives on the final battlefield with the Perfect Metis. To everyone's surprise, she is massively pregnant.
  • Smug Super: Zhyzhak's strength, battle prowess, and favor with the Green Dragon have made her insufferable. Her character descriptions in Caerns: Places of Power and Warriors of the Apocalypse state that she makes sure everyone knows that she is the "baddest of the bad". In Book of the Wyrm, after she killed Pirog in a dominance struggle, she told her packmates that Pirog's pack had better fawn over her. In the W20 edition of Book of the Wyrm, she devises plans but expects her packmates to hammer out the plan and details.
  • Stripperific: Most of the official art depicts her in leather dominatrix outfits. In Apocalypse: Time of Judgment, her outfit exposes a lot of skin.
  • Super-Strength: Thanks to the influence of the Green Dragon totem, she is unusually strong. Her Apocalypse: Time of Judgment write-up states that she has level 7 strength in homid form. She's been able to kill Garou in Crinos form while she's in homid and without even breaking a sweat.
  • Targeted Human Sacrifice: In one Time of Judgment scenario, her death in battle was necessary for Beast-Of-War to anchor itself in the Near Umbra.
  • Testosterone Poisoning: A female example.
  • War God: She worships the Green Dragon, a Wyrm totem of power. The Green Dragon favors Zhyzhak and has invested a great deal of his power in her.
    Writlish 

W. Richard MacLish (a.k.a. Writlish)

A Black Spiral Dancer scholar and expert on Wyrm history and theology.

  • Affably Evil: Ryn Ap Bleidd, one of the commentators in Garou Saga, was kidnapped by Black Spiral Dancers and held captive by Writlish. Writlish treated him well and released him after two days.
  • The Corrupter: In the midst of a war between Gaia and the Wyrm in which no quarter is given, Writlish persuaded Ryn Ap Bleidd to stay in touch with him and share information on Garou Ur-legends. (This claim comes from Greid Powell, so take it with a grain of salt.) When the Fianna learned about Ryn's secret friendship with Writlish, they condemned him to the Hunt.
  • Friendly Enemy: With Ryn Ap Bleidd, a Fianna scholar whom be briefly held captive. During Ryn's captivity, the two scholars compared notes on Garou history. When Writlish released Ryn, the two agreed to share any information they unearthed on the Garou's Ur-legends. However, this information comes from Greid Powell, a kinfolk scholar with an axe to grind against Ryn.
  • Guilty Pleasures: Writlish loves Cloven Hoof Magazine, a 19th century occult publication.
  • The Professor: He's a professor of comparative anthropology at the University of Edinburgh.
  • Religion of Evil: Writlish is well-versed in Wyrm theology, as his quote in Book of the Wyrm suggests.
    Writlish: In its primordial state, the Wyrm maintained the equilibrium of order and chaos through the processes of creation or obliteration. If chaos threatened to overwhelm the universe with its boundless energy, or if order had bound up too much of the free energy of the world, the Wyrm would stretch wide its maw to swallow up the excess and remove it from existence, or aim its tail at the deficiency and bestow upon the world the added mass of its own excretions.
  • Secret-Keeper: Book of the Wyrm states that he knows the true name of Number Two, the tyrant who rules Malfeas.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: He's reticent on the subject of Mockmaw, an ancient Black Spiral Dancer king. In Garou Saga, Writlish tells a fellow scholar that the Black Spiral Dancers have little memory of any Garou by that name. In Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth, he tells Frater I.I. that "Moch Maugh" refers to a personal name and is associated with Eater-of-Souls, but little more. Writlish appears to be withholding this piece of Black Spiral Dancer lore from those who are not entitled to learn about it.
  • Villainous Friendship: With Frater I.I., a Pretanic Order devotee. Writlish helped Frater I.I. research Wyrm lore for Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth.
    White-Eye-Ikthya 

White-Eye-Ikthya

A former Uktena Wyld Chyld, now a Black Spiral Dancer sage who belongs to the Trinity Hive Caern. He witnessed the explosion of the Trinity atomic device, which blinded him but also gave him insight into the Wyrm.

  • Blind Seer: Frater I.I. believes him to be this. In Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth, Frater I.I. is about to seek out White-Eye-ikthya so that he can ask him about the coming age of the Wyrm.
  • Deep Cover Agent: Caerns: Places of Power leaves it up to the storyteller whether White-Eye-ikthya is a true Black Spiral Dancer, a Uktena deep cover agent, or a madman lost in his own delusions.
  • Evil Old Folks: Which category he falls into depends on whether one believes that he is a Black Spiral Dancer or a Uktena deep cover agent. He welcomes visitors into the McDonald ranch house and happily talks to them.
  • Go Mad from the Revelation: He witnessed the Trinity atomic bomb explosion, which blinded him but also gifted him with mystical knowledge of the Wyrm. The experience may have turned him toward the Wyrm or driven him mad.
  • Hermit Guru: He lives a life of meditation in the McDonald farm house near the Trinity test site. He has a reputation for Wyrmish wisdom that has earned him the respect of Black Spiral Dancers and human Wyrm servants. In a poorly transcribed transcript in Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth, Frater I.I. describes White-Eye-ikthya as "that most ainchint and reveerd seeyer the one from trinity hive who has witnist with his own i the opening of the i of the werm itself into our world."
  • Prophet Eyes: His eyes are white and blind from witnessing the Trinity explosion.
  • Religion of Evil: He is a Wyrm mystic who expounds on Wyrmish theology. In a quote from Book of the Wyrm, White-Eye-ikthya describes the Wyrm as a fatherly figure who willingly entangled himself in the Weaver's web so that he could guide his earthly children.
    White-Eye-ikthya: Would you believe our Father to be so weak that he could be bound in a spider's web? Would you believe the lies passed down by those tribes that will not face the truth? Hah! The Wyrm is no insect to be snared so easily, and could not have come to his present state were it not his intention all along. The Weaver and the Wyld could never abide the balance which our Father kept between them, and went mad each in their frenzy to overcome the other. Our Father, in his wisdom, understood that only by entering into the world himself, by allowing himself to be caught up in the spreading Web of Pattern, could meaning be brought to creation and grasped by its creatures. And that is why were are here, to carry out the will of our Father who has sacrificed his exalted station that he might live closer to his children.
  • Rousing Speech: He is an impressive public speaker. Black Spirals from around the world travel to the Trinity impact crater to listen to his speeches about the Wyrm.
    Gunther Draggerunter 

Gunther Draggerunter

A Seventh Generation leader. His civilian career is that of a psychologist and public commentator.

  • Beauty Equals Goodness: Up close, he's as unattractive as he is evil, with bad teeth and discolored eyes.
  • Character Death: King Albrecht tears him to pieces in The Silver Record.
  • Glamor Failure: According to Rage Across New York, he looks like a normal old man in the physical world, but transforms into a ranting high priest in robes in the Umbra.
  • Guardian Entity: In The Silver Record, his cane contains a powerful bane. Draggerunter snaps the cane to unleash the bane against King Albrecht and his tribemates.
  • Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: He's a psychologist who works diligently to cast doubt on the experiences of abuse survivors.
  • Really 700 Years Old: Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth places him at at 1897 meeting, suggesting that he is at least 150 years old.
  • Talk Show: In Rage Across New York, he appears on a talk show to cast doubt on the claims of childhood abuse survivors. The player characters must sway the audience against him.
  • Would Hurt a Child: He's a Seventh Generation leader, so it's a given that he has sacrificed children to the Defiler Wyrm.
    The First Metis 

The First Metis

The first metis ever born, also known as the First Ronin. He attacks Garou who travel alone or who abandon their packs.

    The Perfect Metis 

The Perfect Metis

A metis baby devoid of deformities, the child of two metis Garou. The Perfect Metis' birth is a portent of the Apocalypse, according to many Garou traditions, but the destiny of the Perfect Metis is up to the storyteller.

  • Dark Messiah:
    • In Rage Across the Heavens the Hive of the Wyrm's Eye (led by Eeyarlagh Twice-Born) sees the Perfect Metis as a Wyrmish messiah.
    • In one Time of Judgment scenario, the Perfect Metis is a servant of the true Wyrm of Balance who unites the Black Spiral Dancers against the Weaver.
  • Face–Monster Turn: In one Time of Judgment scenario, the Perfect Metis undergoes his first change while still a child, enters Thrall of the Wyrm, and seriously injures one of his guardians. Both the Perfect Metis and his caregivers are horrified that the Wyrm has a hold on the child's soul. The Perfect Metis also feels an irresistible urge to travel to a nearby Black Spiral Dancer hive, where he is later sacrificed to the Defiler Wyrm.
  • Horned Humanoid: In Apocalypse: Time of Judgment, the adult Perfect Metis is depicted in crinos form with ram horns, an effect of the Black Spiral Dancer Gift Horns of the Impaler.
  • I Did What I Had to Do: In one Time of Judgment scenario, the Perfect Metis grows to adulthood and becomes a prophet of the true Wyrm of Balance, leading the Black Spiral Dancers in war against the Weaver. While not evil per se, the Perfect Metis is ruthless in his efforts, killing those who endanger his mission.
  • Protectorate: Various scenarios feature individuals and groups who have vowed to protect the Perfect Metis so that they can fulfill a greater destiny. The player characters, the celestine Ruatma, the Hive of the Wyrm's Eye, and a ferectoi all take on this responsibility in various scenarios.
  • Rescue Arc: One Time of Judgment scenario involves the player characters rescuing the Perfect Metis' soul from the Atrocity Realm and purifying it in the silver lake of Erebus. If the pack is successful, the Perfect Metis' redemption negates the Black Spiral Dancers' sacrifice and ejects the Defiler Wyrm back into the Deep Umbra.
  • Targeted Human Sacrifice: In one Time of Judgment scenario, the Perfect Metis is forced to walk the Black Spiral and tortured in numerous horrific ways, then executed by the Black Spiral Dancers in order to cement the Defiler Wyrm's presence in the Near Umbra.
  • Unholy Matrimony: In the Time of Judgment scenario in which the Glass Walkers fall to the Wyrm, the (now adult) Perfect Metis accompanies Zhyzhak to the final battlefield. To everyone's surprise, Zhyzhak is massively pregnant. The Perfect Metis is strongly implied to be the father of her unborn child.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Some factions see the Perfect Metis as dangerous and seek to kill it at all cost. The Hive of the Broken Star and the Protectors of Gaia are two examples.

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