Characters / Werewolf: The Forsaken

Auspices

When a Werewolf goes through his First Change, he receives a form of blessing from Luna known as Auspice, matching the moon of the night he changed. This grants him unique abilities among his kind, and establishes his role in Uratha society.

Uratha in General

Tropes applying to all Uratha:

• Berserk Button: Each werewolf has a set of three triggers that can induce Kuruth: a passive trigger that is very difficult to avoid and may not even require that the wolf be aware of its occurence (such as her auspice moon being in the sky), a common trigger that is difficult but possible to avoid (such as seeing her auspice moon in the sky), and a specific trigger that is fairly rare (such as hearing a wolf howl while her auspice moon is in the sky). If the werewolf's Harmony is heavily tilted towards one side or the other, even the passive trigger can set her off, while as her Harmony moves towards the middle it needs first the common trigger, then the specific trigger, then at Harmony 5 none of the triggers can set her off. There are also a few general triggers (like taking damage from silver) that affect all werewolves and apply regardless of Harmony.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Werewolves have one of the most alien morality in the entire World of Darkness; things like revealing themselves to humans or using silver against another werewolf are considered major crimes, while killing a human for no reason is a medium crime at best, and things like theft aren't even considered like crimes to begin with. Starting with 2E, their Karma Meter doesn't even work on a basis of good and evil anymore— it defines how close they are to either their human or spirit side.
• Brown Note: Thanks to Lunacy, seeing a werewolf in one of his hybrid forms usually is this for mortals. Most of them will panic at their sight and block the memory, convincing themselves it either didn't happen or was something else.
• Dire Beast: The Urshul form is a giant, more monstrous-looking version of a wolf.
• Extra-Dimensional Shortcut: As long as they are close enough to a sufficiently powerful locus, werewolves can switch at will between the two worlds, so it isn't uncommon for them to get inside places they shouldn't have access to by entering the Shadow, getting to the location matching their intended destination, and then getting back to the physical world, effectively making it look like they are teleporting to others.
• Functional Magic: In addition to their shapeshifting, wolf-like abilities and Healing Factor, all werewolves have access to Spirit Magic, also known as Gifts, which are spirit-based powers allowing them to channel their "Renown" (the values they embody through their attitudes) to get various effects. Starting with 2e, it can be roughly divided into three types of Gifts:
  • Moon Gifts are abilities granted directly by Luna and based on their Auspices, which improve their ability to play the role assigned by it. There are five of them, each associated with the signature Renown of an Auspice, and increasing said Renown unlock new "facets", abilities granted by it. For obvious reasons, only Forsaken werewolves have access to these ones, as Pure rely on a rite to remove it from their members.
  • Shadow Gifts are abilities taught directly by spirits through engraving their concept into the werewolf's very being. They are by far the most common and varied kind of Gift, covering everything from technology to elements to death. Each of these Gift has one facet per existing Renown, which is required to unlock them.
  • Wolf Gifts are natural abilities which all werewolves can learn through practice, which consist in refining a werewolf's natural abilities to use them in new ways. They exist in three types: Change (which focuses on refining their Voluntary Shapeshifting), Hunt (which improves their abilities as hunters and predators) and Pack (which improves their ability to work collectively). Like for Shadow Gifts, each Wolf Gift has five facets based on the various Renown.
• Gender Bender: While not present in all of them, the Wolf Gift Lunar's Embrace refines their Shapeshifting to allow them to switch gender at will. It's implied the use of this Gift can lead to weird situations such as males getting pregnant.
• Healing Factor: Werewolves passively regenerate bashing damages in seconds and lethal damages in 15 minutes at no cost, and are immune to conventional diseases. In addition to all of this, they can spend Essence to instantly heal 1 lethal damage per point spent. Aside from Beasts (who can only regenerate while inside their Lair), they have the most powerful healing factor of all the supernaturals in the World of Darkness. Exaggerated for the Gauru form in the second edition, who can heal all bashing and lethal damages in seconds.
• Implacable Man: The Gauru form becomes this the Second Edition, where it upgrades the Healing Factor to the point it entirely heals anything short of Aggravated damages per turn. Fortunately for a werewolf's prey, it still has a time limit.
• Kryptonite Factor: Silver causes Uratha aggravated damages, as a curse placed by Luna to punish them for the murder of Father Wolf (or so their myths claim...). Notably, Forsaken only get hurt if it gets in their system, while Pures flat-out cannot touch it.
• Long-Lived: A werewolf's aging considerably slows down after the First Change, so they tend to naturally live longer than regular humans. Theoretically, they could become biologically immortal if they grew powerful enough, though they rarely survive long enough to die of old age anyway.
• Magic Pants: Subverted and justified depending on the situation; in the first edition, a werewolf's clothes get destroyed (or at least damaged) during his transformations in the natural state, but can be enchanted with a Rite so they will instead merge with his new form and return when he switch back to human form. In the Second Edition, this is a natural ability available without any need for a ritual, but only works if the werewolf has a high enough Harmony, making him spirit-like enough that he can include his possession in the shapeshifting.
• Multiform Balance: Werewolves each have five forms, each with its own advantages and weaknesses:
  • The Hishu (human) form allows them to interact and socialize with mortals, but offers no fighting benefits beyond what a regular human can do;
  • The Dalu (wolf-man) grants increased strength, along with claws, while still keeping a relatively human form (enough that he can be mistaken for one in low light) and speech, and easily scares people out of your way, though it still causes Lunacy to some extent, and is the weakest of the hybrid forms;
  • The Gauru (giant wolf monster on two legs) is the most combat-oriented and insanely powerful form with increased strength and toughness, plus a boosted healing factor making it near-unkillable, but can only be used for a limited time, and is prone to entering uncontrolled fits of Unstoppable Rage. Moreover, it's the most likely form to cause Lunacy;
  • The Urshul (dire wolf) is quite fast and very strong, easier to control than the Gauru (albeit not as powerful) and very good at crippling people, but still causes lunacy heavily (since you're a wolf the size of a horse);
  • The Urhan (normal wolf) blends in easily in a natural environment and offers some limited combat benefits while avoiding Lunacy, as well as the best tracking and chasing skills out of the five, but is the weakest of the wolf forms.
  • There's also two forms unique to specific editions. In first edition, the ultimate of Mother Luna's Gifts was the Primal Form, an incredibly huge (6ft to 8ft tall) wolf; the Predator Kings particularly favored it for hunting other Uratha. In second edition, the Father's Form is another Gift-based form, which essentially allows an Uratha to take on a humanoid wolf-form akin to Gauru without flying into a berserk frenzy; it's a highly divisive gift, but often embraced as most appropriate for spiritual rites.
• No Points for Neutrality: Inverted: The closer a werewolf's Harmony is to 5, the fewer things trigger Kuruth, the longer they can remain in Wasu-Im (the Tranquil Fury stage of Kuruth where they retain some self-control), and the better their control over their shapeshifting.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: They are spirit-mortal hybrids allegedly born from the Union between Father Wolf, the guardian of the Spirit World, and Luna, the Moon Spirit. Being bit by a werewolf does not turn you into one (though they do bite future werewolves as a mean to track them down later), you become one because someone in your family tree was a werewolf, and even then that is no guarantee you'll ever undergo First Change. They can transform at will, and switch between all the archetypal forms werewolves can take in fiction (human, regular wolf, dire wolf, Wolf Man and Man-Wolf), without any side effect from the phases of the moon. They retain control in all their forms, though the Gauru (Man-Wolf) one is prone to Unstoppable Rage. They have a powerful Healing Factor, and silver is their Kryptonite Factor, though it has different effects on the Pure and Forsaken. Finally, they have access to a wide array of Gifts they are taught by spirits, and can travel between the Physical World and the Spirit World.
• Partial Transformation: One of Mother Luna's most basic Gifts, available to all werewolves, allow to only transform part of their body.
• Puberty Superpower: Downplayed; werewolves frequently go through their First Change at puberty, but it's not an absolute; depending on the circumstances, this can also happen later or earlier.
• Super-Senses: Even in human form, a werewolf sees and hears better than the average mortal by default; in addition, whenever they activate their wolf senses (which can be done in human form and are active by default in wolf form), they can see almost perfectly in the dark, ignore vision penalty related to speed, have improved sense of smell and can hear on kilometers.
• True Companions: Werewolves are very social creatures, and members of a pack typically are expected to build mutual trust and solidarity. A lone werewolf is pretty dangerous already, but a fully functional pack where everyone truly trust each other is a force to be reckoned with.
• Unstoppable Rage: Death Rage is the state in which a werewolf enters whenever he gets mad enough. This results in him turning into Gauru form and attacking everything in sight.
• The Virus: Averted in the first edition, where being a werewolf is a genetic condition as described above. Downplayed in the Second Edition, where a werewolf attack can result in a normal human being turned into a Wolf-blooded (and as such potentially becoming a werewolf later) if he made a dramatic failure on his roll to resist Lunacy, but the chances of this happening are thin at best, unless the Werewolf has a really high Primal Urge or if the human has really low willpower.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: While werewolves typically are limited to the five forms described above, all of them are capable of learning the Wolf Gift of Change, which refines their ability to shapeshift, allowing to use it in new, more diversified ways. Applications granted by this Gift include Replicant Snatching, Gender Bender and Partial Transformation.
• Warm Bloodbags Are Everywhere: Downplayed in that werewolves do not actually need to eat humans (weaker ones can survive on normal food, while old ones subsist on meat), and in fact usually avoid it. However, since werewolves have enhanced senses and instinctively tend to perceive the world like a wolf, they tend to unwillingly perceive all the little weaknesses in humans even when they aren't trying, causing them to realize how easy it'd be to hunt them and instinctively classify them as preys. It doesn't make them want to hunt and eat them, but it makes it really hard for them to continue seeing humans as equals.
• Wolf Man: The Dalu form is based on this archetype, being a relatively humanoid form with a few lupine features.

Rahu

The Full Moon Auspice. Rahu are warriors and tacticians; they take the lead in battles, and reflect every aspect of the warrior archetype.

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• Absurdly Sharp Claws: The third Strength Gift (Wisdom facet in 2E), Iron-Rending/Rending Claw, can make their claws sharp enough to cut through iron, steel and concrete.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Their Auspice ability in 1E, Warrior's Eye, allows them to figure out how dangerous an opponent is just by looking at him for a moment. They also have access to the Attunement Gift, which allows them to perceive every subtle move of their opponents and use that knowledge to anticipate their moves.
• Battle Aura: Their Rage Armor Gift is described as something in this vein, causing their eyes to glow deep amber and air to distord around them. In term of game, this grants them a temporary armor against all non-silver attacks.
• The Berserker: All Werewolves technically can become this, but of all the Auspices, Rahu are the most prone for becoming this on the battlefield. In the first edition, they had a Gift named Luna's Fury, which is specifically designed to make them vessels of Luna's wrath. In the second edition, their Auspice Ability allows them to temporarily ignore penalties and conditions caused by wounds.
  • Exaggerated with the fact that some Strength gifts in 2nd edition are automatically used for free in Basu-im, turning a Rahu who has atleast 4 out of 5 of the facets into a super fast, even more super strong, incapable of being bound by any means whatsoever rage monster that can tear metal like wet tissue.
• The Big Guy: By virtue of being the most combat-oriented of the Auspices, most Rahu fit this.
• Blood Knight: They are the warriors of the Forsaken, after all. Rahu tend to be very confrontational as a result, constantly looking for a fight, no matter the form.
• Compelling Voice: They have access to Dominance Gifts, which allow them to impose their authority over others. At the first level, it's fairly weak and just allows them to make people reluctant to attack them at full power, but later levels make them capable of forcing people to actually follow their will, with the final level even pushing them to do things they would usually never do.
• Competition Freak: A frequent flaw for Rahu; they tend to frame every interaction as a conflict, so they will constantly try to win even when that's not the point, meaning they can be more concerned with having the last word in a conversation rather than coming to consensus, and rarely hold back even in "friendly" brawls. That said, they tend to be more reasonable toward their pack, as they realize conflict is the last thing needed to keep a group coherent.
• Coup de Grâce: Their role during the Hunt. Other Auspices are in charge of making sure the various aspects of the Hunt pursue their course. Rahu are in charge of ending it.
• Genius Bruiser: It's entirely possible for a Rahu to be both a powerful opponent who can kill you with his bare hands and a master tactician. This is reflected in their Gifts, which include abilities to improve their fighting prowess, and their first edition Auspice ability, which allows them to carefully analyze the opponent in order to get the advantage.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Both their Rage Armor and Luna's Fury Gifts cause their eyes to glow.
• Pure Is Not Nice: Their primary renown is Purity, but the purity they seek is the purity of combat.
• In a Single Bound: The second Strength Gift(Glory facet in 2nd ed), Mighty Bound, allows them to leap high enough to effortlessly jump from rooftop to rooftop.
• Status Buff: A lot of their Gifts are oriented toward increasing their stats in order to make them more effective fighters. Most notably, two of their level one Gifts boost Initiative and Defense respectively.
• The Strategist: Rahu cover every aspect of war, including tactics and strategy.
• Super-Strength: They have an affinity for the Strength Gifts, which grant them superhuman strength even by werewolves standards. The most basic Gift of this list allows them to kill humans with bare hands even while in Hishu form.
• Super-Toughness: In 2E, the second dot on their Moon Gift permanently adds their Purity Renown to their Health, potentially granting a full-time +5 Health bonus in addition to the ones offered by the various forms (for reference, the average human Health in this game is 7). Even in Hishu form, a Rahu can survive blows that would instantly kill a human being.

Cahalith

The Gibbous Moon Auspice. Cahalith are storytellers, vision-questers and lorekeepers. They are seers providing visions on the Hunt, and try to make the hunts glorious so they can create tales about it.

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• Attention Whore: A common flaw among them, as part of their Glory Seeker tendencies; Cahalith want to be the center of attention, to become famous. Because of this, they tend to get somewhat jealous toward Rahu, who they see as the true "hero" of the story.
• The Bard: Strongly associated with this, being in charge of telling stories and keeping lore. One should not mistake them for Quirky Bards, however, as described below.
• Genre Savvy: As storytellers and lore-keepers, Cahalith specialize in drawing knowledge from both fictional stories and actual events, then applying that knowledge practically. Some of their Gifts, such as "End of Story" or "This Story is True", explicitly makes use of this knowledge to the advantage of the Pack.
• Glory Seeker: Cahalith typically are looking for tales to tell, and usually will seek to get enough glory for their stories to be remembered. To reflect this, Glory is their primary renown. This is particularly emphasized in the Second Edition- Cahalith rarely have a subtle way to hunt, because they want their prey to see them coming.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: Their Auspice ability allows them to have prophetic dreams whenever they sleep well enough. Unfortunately, these dreams usually are metaphorical and confused, making it difficult to properly interpret them.
• Dream Walker: In 2E, one of their Gift, Dream Hunter, allows them to form a connection with a prey and enter said prey's dreams. This can be used to collect informations on the prey's location... or to attack her in her dream.
• Face Death with Dignity: Cahalith see their own life as a long-running saga, and they know every proper saga typically has an end. As such, they expect to die at some point, and typically accept it as part of their fate— what really matters to them is if they will be remembered.
• Feel No Pain: Their Resist Pain Gift allows them to do Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Being in charge of storytelling and moral support doesn't sound that exciting compared to the more active roles of the other Auspices, but they have some really useful abilities that you wouldn't suspect.
• Hope Bringer: Their Rallying Cry Gift allows them to bring hope to their packmates even in the darkest times, and the Pack Awareness Gift can be used to restore wilpower for a packmate in case of exceptional success.
  • Inverted so much if they have the Screaming Moon Gift, good news! it only applies to their prey and/or anyone that pisses them off and just even more bad news for the aforementioned prey and/or anyone that pisses them of
• Large Ham: Part of their storyteller aspect; Cahaliths wish to live and make exciting tales to tell to the posterity, so they tend to be very bombastic in both their stories and their actions, trying to make hunts as memorable as possible. This is reflected in their Auspice Gift, which covers a lot of abilities related to howling and war cries.
• Power Perversion Potential: The Psychic Link Gift described below allows them to know what their packmates are doing at the moment, which explicitly includes having sex.
• Psychic Link: In 1E, their Pack Awareness Gift allows them to be aware of where every member of the pack is, what they are doing, which form they are in and in which state of mind they are. One of their higher rank Gifts, Unspoken Communication, creates a stronger version of this by allowing the entire pack to communicate telepathically and act as one.
• Seers: They are the oracles of Luna, who grants them visions of the future through their dreams.
• The Storyteller: Explicitly their role inside the tribes. A Cahalith's main function is to take part in tales so they can remember them, preserve their memory and narrate it to the posterity.
• Team Mom: Frequently expressive and passionate, Cahalith tend to be the emotional core of their packs.
• Warrior Poet: They are lorekeepers and storytellers with some bardic elements, but they are still pretty good at kicking ass.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: The final Screaming Moon facet literally allows you to scare people so much their soul falls off.

Elodoth

The Half-Moon Auspice. Elodoth have the reputation of being ever-changing, and as such are frequently trusted as judges and arbitrators.

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• The Chessmaster: Many Elodoth become this, carefully directing their various allies as part of the Hunt to weaknen or trick the prey. This attitude is often seen as disturbing by their packmates.
• Guile Hero: Elodoth are highly sociable, frequently forming connections and contacts with everyone everywhere (including spirits of multiple types) so they can play on different influences according to the situation. During the Hunt, they frequently rely on their various connections, using them as support to bring the prey down.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Seeing how they are mediators and negotiators, you wouldn't expect them to be that great in a fight... except that one of their Gifts, Fuel Rage, allow them to maintain the Gaurou form for longer periods of time. And another, Bind of Sunder, not only allows them to do it for other werewolves, but also to reduce the time they stay in Gauru form. Comes 2E, their Auspice ability allows them to either halt or trigger Death Rage once per chapter — meaning that they can single-handedly prevent or provoke a fight.
• The Kirk: Usually trusted as the most adapted to balance everyone's opinion and come up with the right decision.
• Living Lie Detector: The very first Gift reserved to them allows them to tell when someone is lying, including by omission. The next one on the same list, Snarl of Command, allows them to force someone to spit out the truth.
• Jack of All Stats: In 1E, they tend to be the most balanced Auspice of the splat in term of abilities. Less so in 2E, where emphasis is put on their social aspect.
• Martial Pacifist: An Elodoth is supposed to act as a mediator and negotiator to avoid conflict, but as noted above, they can be pretty devastating if a fight is inevitable.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Their specialty; Elodoth frequently have connections with either spirits or the authorities, which they put to good use during the Hunt by using their various contacts and resources to bring the quarry low.
• The Social Expert: Frequently act like this inside packs, since their balanced attitude make them adapted to understand the other Auspices' point of view, and their Auspice ability in 1E grants bonus for social rolls against Spirits.

Ithaeur

The Crescent Moon Auspice. Ithaeur are the occultists, the ones who learn about Spirits and their secrets.

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• All of the Other Reindeer: Downplayed; Werewolves do strongly respect Ithaeur as shamans and valuable packmantes, and they are fairly good at socializing with spirits. However, they tend to feel apart from society, as they feel too close to spirits to actually fit in human society, and spirits frequently are happy to remind us they are not truly spirit either.
• Elemental Powers: They are the only Auspice with an affinity for the Elemental Gifts, which grant the ability to manipulate the four elements.
• Dressing as the Enemy: In 2E, one of the facets offered by their Auspice Gift allows them to disguise themselves as Spirits.
• Functional Magic: Their Auspice ability in 1E grants them affinity for Rites, the Uratha equivalent of magic.
• I Know Your True Name: Part of an Ithaeur's duty is to learn about the various spirits, their names, Bans and Banes.
• Invisibility Cloak: The Gauntlet Cloak Gift allows them to wrap themselves with the Gauntlet itself, which doesn't really make them invisible per say, but makes it harder to spot them. It can even evade supernatural means of detection.
• Item Crafting: Because of their affinity with Spirits, Ithaeur usually are masters in the art of crafting Fetishes, the Werewolves' magic items.
• Magic Knight: They might be occultists and shamans with the most spell-like Gifts and whose main ability is based on Rituals, but they still are werewolves, and as such have access to all five forms, with the killing machine potential this involves.
• The Medic: One of their Auspice skills is Medicine.
• No Social Skills: Because of their proximity with Spirits, Ithaeur tend to feel closer to spirits than to beings of flesh, and behave strangely even by werewolf standards. As a result, they tend to not be that good with social skills. Notice that this applies only to the world of Flesh— they tend to get along very well with Spirits.
• The Smart Guy: They are the most oriented toward knowledge and Rites, and generally are a Pack's expert when it comes to Spirit-related topics, in particular their weaknesses. They are usually considered as the expert in the matter during the Hunt.
• Stat-O-Vision: Their Read Spirit Gift allows them to learn about the name, rank and type of a spirit they are watching, as well as at least one stat.
• Teleportation Spam: In 1E, the Between The Weave Gift improves their mastery of Extradimensional Shortcut to the point it becomes a reflexive action, effectively making them capable of things like appear next to an enemy to hit him before immediately retreating, escape an fatal injury by slipping to the other world at the last second or just make repeated slips between the two worlds to attack an opponent in multiple directions, confusing him. When in proximity to a powerful locus, Ithaeurs with this Gift effectively are among the most dangerous members of the pack.
• True Sight: All werewolves have the ability to see in the Spirit World when they are in the physical world and vice-versa, but they can only look in one at once. Ithaeur have a Gift named Two-World Eyes allowing them to see one with each eye, effectively making them capable of seeing both at the same time.

Irraka

The New Moon Auspice. Irraka are scouts and stalkers, the cunning hunters who elude the worst threats only to strike at the vulnerable spots.

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• Astral Projection: A variant in 1E; their Ghost Step Gift doesn't really detach them from their body, but actually turn them into a spirit form.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: A slightly different variant than Rahu; Irraka tend to constantly analyze everyone and everything around them, looking for weaknesses, trying to figure out the most effective way to break or kill what they are looking at, even when they don't intend to. Other Uratha who catch an Irraka watching them for too long frequently mutter them to stop thinking about murdering them. The Sense Weakness Gift allows them to uncover someone's personal weaknesses in mind and body just by observing them for a moment. This grants information such as a character's flaws, derangements or Vice.
• Back Stab: In 2E, the most basic facet of their Moon Gift grant them the Rote action on any surprise or sneak attack, allowing them to inflict huge damages whenever they catch their opponent by surprise.
• Combat Pragmatism: Their favorite fighting style. Irraka tend to carefully look for every weakness around them that they can exploit to kill someone fast. A lot of their Gifts are oriented toward things like striking the opponent's weaknesses or rely on distractions.
• Crazy-Prepared: Irraka are expected to make the right preparations to get out of any situation, and tend to test and analyze everything to make sure they will know how to break or kill if needed. In 2E, this is reflected by their Auspice ability, which allows them to always be one step ahead of their prey in some form, allowing them to either act faster, be close enough to immediately engage melee combat, or dominate their target socially.
• Distraction Tropes: The Distraction Gift, which allows them to, well distract an opponent.
• Escape Artist: Their Slip Away Gift allows them to get out of any grapple, bound, trap or similar restrain with ease.
• Guile Hero: A different variant than Elodoth; whereas Elodoth specialize in politics and negotiations, Irraka specialize in trickery and subterfuge, deceiving opponents or giving false trails.
• Perception Filter: Their Blend In Gift doesn't allow them to become invisible per se, but it cause people to not find them particularly noticeable, effectively making it harder to pay attention to them.
• Stealth Expert: They mostly have Gifts oriented toward moving around unnoticed.

Tribes

Forsaken Tribes

The various tribes of the Forsaken, each has the blessing of a member of the First Pack which carries a ban all members must follow.

2nd Edition also gave each tribe a preferred type of prey to hunt.

Forsaken in General

Those werewolves who have chosen to take up Father Wolf's duty as protector of the boundary between flesh and spirit. Blessed by Luna with Auspices.

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• Anti-Hero: They are the closest thing to good werewolves, aim at redeeming themselves and genuinely want to ensure spirits won't abuse humans. However, the majority of them don't care that much about humans (as in, they don't hate them, but do see their lives as having less worth than their own unless they are packmates), and won't hesitate to kill some of them if it's needed to help fix a problem in the Shadow (though it never quite reaches the genocidal extremes Pure are capable of).
• Arch-Enemy: Sort of, though "Arch-Prey" would be more appropriate; starting with 2E, each Forsaken tribe has an assigned type of prey they consider as their personal duty to hunt:
  • Blood Talons hunt other werewolves, most frequently the Pure and Bale Hounds, but also sometimes Forsaken they see as renegade;
  • Bone Shadows hunt Ephemeral beings, primarily spirits and ghosts;
  • Hunters in Darkness hunt the Hosts;
  • Iron Masters hunt humans, as well as urban supernaturals in general (such as vampires);
  • Storm Lords hunt cases of Demonic Possession, primarily the Ridden and Claimed;
• The Atoner: Their ancestors were responsible for killing Father Wolf, leaving the Spirits out of control and causing the situation the Spirit World currently is in. They are trying to make up for it by taking up Father Wolf's duty so they can fix their mess.
• Elite Army: Compared to the Pure; Forsaken Werewolves are outnumbered one to two by them, and their unpopularity with most of the Shadow leaves them with much fewer allies and Totems among the Spirits. However, they are much less vulnerable to silver, and Luna's Blessing grants them unique Auspice Gifts and abilities that make them much better at their respective roles, giving them an edge.
• Good Is Not Nice: Their motives are heroic, and they do want to protect both humans and spirits from each other. They also don't care that much about humans, have a bizarre culture that makes it really easy to offend them by accident, and still live constantly on the verge of going into Unstoppable Rage.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: And how. Granted, they aren't exactly straight good guys, but they are the closest thing to a heroic werewolf faction. Yet most spirits despise them on the same level than other werewolves, the Pure want them dead, and there is even an entire faction of Hunters who believe they are the "evil" werewolves.
• Lunacy: Since they agreed to take Luna's offer of redemption, she has forgiven them for their crime and granted them a reduced weakness to silver, as well as Auspice Blessings granting them various abilities.
• Shoot the Dog: Their role is to protect both the Shadow and the World of Flesh from each other— which sometimes means doing morally dubious things, such as killing innocent humans solely because they could cause the wrong spirits to spread or become candidates for Claiming.
• Take Up My Sword: What they've decided to do for Father Wolf.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: A variant- since their ancestors killed Father Wolf, they inherited his duties as the guardians of the Shadow; the variation is that they took the duty as a mean to atone for this murder.

Blood Talons

The Tribe of Destroyer Wolf, Blood Talons are warriors, favouring a physical approach and looking for worthy opponents to fight. Infamously, their preferred prey is other werewolves. Their addition to the Oath of the Moon is "Offer no surrender you would not accept".

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• Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: Averted and invoked; Blood Talons not only actively hunt other werewolves, it's also their preferred prey. This trope is the reason they are perceived as somewhat unnatural by other werewolves, since while killing someone of your own kind is one thing, no predator in nature actually hunts his own kind.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Their special merit in 2e is Weakest Link, allowing them to instantly know who is the weakest one in the group is, though weak in what way is dependent on the situation.
• The Berserker: They have access to both Rage and Strength gifts in 2nd ed, both of which have powers that activate for free (and will be used instinctively) by Uratha in Basu-im.
• Blood Knight: Tend to be the most inclined of the tribes toward fighting. As far as they are concerned, their kind always is at war.
• Expy: Of the Get of Fenris from Werewolf: The Apocalypse, both being Proud Warrior Race Guys. Destroyer Wolf's name is even Fenris-Ur.
• Genius Bruiser: Make no mistake; Blood Talons might be warriors and Blood Knights, but they are not dumb brutes; their recruits are expected to be ruthless and calculating tacticians who will know how to take advantage on the opponent's weaknesses.
• Hunter of Their Own Kind: As already stated, Blood Talons hunt other werewolves. This naturally makes other Forsaken wary around them.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: They are the most warlike of the Forsaken Tribes, and aim to achieve perfection of the warrior ideal. To them, The Hunt is the most important part of a werewolf's life.
• Psycho for Hire: Other Tribes frequently tend to see them as such, but this actually is a false stereotype; Blood Talons are soldiers first, and while they do use Rage to their advantage, they consider it important to channel it, since otherwise you are useless to your pack.
• The Spartan Way: The Blood Talons' indoctrination usually involves some sort of physical conflict or test, and they are generally trained to keep their body in good physical shape.
• Worthy Opponent: They feel this way toward the Pure, who they describe as their "worthiest and most fearsome foes". This also is how they defend their choice to hunt werewolves to the other tribes; as far as they are concerned, it's a sign of respect.

Bone Shadow

The Tribe of Death Wolf, Bone Shadows are occultists and explorers of the Spirit World, traveling to the deepest, darkest depths of the Hisil to discover more lore about spirits — meaning they are the best-versed at using that knowledge in a fight. Predictably, their preferred prey is ephemeral beings, primarily spirits and ghosts. Their addition to the Oath of the Moon is "Pay each spirit in kind".

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• Adventurer Archaeologist: A supernatural variant; Bone Shadows like to explore the darkest and most dangerous parts of the Shadow to collect lost lore and learn more about it.
• Badass Bookworm: They are mostly interested in studying the Spirit World and uncovering its greatest mysteries, and they usually are wise men and shamans. As for the badass part, well, aside from being werewolves, they get all their knowledge on the Spirit World by adventuring in the deepest, most hostile parts of the Shadow, and getting out alive.
• Creepy Good: In addition to the Dark Is Not Evil, Necromancer and Skeletons in the Coat Closet parts described below, Bone Shadow generally tend to look somewhat creepier than other werewolves, their travels through dangerous and deprived areas causing them to become wiry and gaunt with shadowy Gauru forms.
• Dark Is Not Evil: They tend to be pretty sinister-looking, wear fetishes made out of bones, specialize in necromantic-like Gifts, are named the Bone Shadows and have a patron known as Death Wolf, but they are on the side of the Forsaken. The reason they are so much associated with darkness is because they dare venture in the darkest corners and shadows of the Spirit World in an attempt to learn more about it.
• Elemental Powers: In 2nd ed, they have access to Elemental gifts, which grants them control over the four elements.
• I See Dead People: One of the best-known abilities granted by the Death Gifts in both edition is to see ghosts. As well as interact with them and fight them, for that matter.
• Necromancer: Their Death Gifts have something of a necromantic vibe, including abilities such as collecting memories from a dead body, seeing and harming ghosts, or passing themselves for undead.
• Occult Detective: A big part of their way to hunt; when Bone Shadows go to hunt Ephemeral beings, they have to take time to investigate and figure out, not only what sort of being they are facing (nobody wants to go prepared to fight a spirit when you are actually facing a machine-angel), but also the right Ban and Bane to use against it.
• Playing Possum: In 2E, one of the Death Gift's facets allows them to stop all their vital signs and play dead. In an interesting variant, they can actually still move and act while doing so (albeit with more difficulty), allowing them to pass themselves for undead if needed.
• Seeker Archetype: They spend most of their time trying to find and uncover mysteries about the Spirit World.
• Skeletons in the Coat Closet: Frequently making fetishes out of human bones.

Hunters In Darkness

The Tribe of Black Wolf, Hunters in Darkness are wild, stealthy werewolves who feel more at ease in rural environment, specializing in clever tricks and using the field against their opponents. Also infamous for being absolutely ruthless and terrifying on the hunt. Their preferred prey is the Hosts. Their addition to the Oath of the Moon is "Let no sacred place in your territory be violated".

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• The Beastmaster: Their tribal gifts Nature, allows them to command and even control other animals.
• Berserk Button: If you value your life, do not pollute or otherwise despoil a Hunter in Darkness' territory.
• Creepy Good: Bones Shadows might be creepy in their aesthetic, but Hunters in Darkness are creepy in the very way they fight, using tactics comparable to Slasher Movie villains to isolate their preys while picking them one by one. They still aren't any more evil than the other Forsaken Tribes.
• Combat Pragmatist: Hunters in Darkness are known to be spectacularly ruthless with their prey and opponents, stalking them from a distance while using clever tricks to lure them into traps, scaring them and picking them one-by-one, starting with the weakest. The 2e book flat-out compares them to slasher movie killers in that regard.
• Elemental Powers: They are the only Tribe with an access to the Elemental Gifts in 1e. In 2e, this is now an affinity of the Bone Shadows.
• Green Thumb: The Nature Gift can be used to create and control large areas of vegetation.
• Headbutting Heroes: Often butt heads with Storm Lords, since it can be difficult at times to tell the difference between the Host and a Spirit-Claimed.
• Homefield Advantage: By far the most territorial of the Forsaken, they tend to ruthlessly defend their domain and use it to their advantage against intruders. A Hunter In Darkness is expected to familiarize himself as much as possible with his territory, so he can move freely around it and place clever traps all around it to catch his prey. This is particularly refected in their affinity for the Warding and Nature Gifts, which allows them to entirely control their prey's environment, isolating them in areas where they can easily expose and watch them. It also is a primary reason they are experts at fighting the Hosts; the Hosts usually are nearly impossible to kill because of their ability to discorporate, but a Hunter in Darkness can close all the issues on the field and make sure not a single of the critters freed upon discorporation gets out alive.
• Mook Horror Show: Their hunts tend to operate entirely like a Slasher Movie, with them stalking their preys from a distance and picking them one by one while using fear to get them exactly where they want.
• Nature Hero: They tend to be the most concerned about unspoiled wilderness and endangered wild species. They also have access to the Nature Gifts.
• Stealth Expert: There is a reason they are known as the Hunters In Darkness.
• Terror Hero: Their preferred method of dealing with humans adventuring on their territory; rather than killing them right away, they will usually first stalk them and leave subtle warnings (piles of human teeth, clawmarks on trees, destroyed equipment...) to let them know they are not welcome or safe, in the hope it will scare them away. Only when this fails to they resort to killing.

Iron Masters

The Tribe of Red Wolf, Iron Masters believe in adapting with the change of the world in order to survive. This has resulted in them gaining affinity with an urban environment, and in particular using new technologies. Their preferred prey is humans, although they also extend most urban supernaturals to their juridiction. Their addition to the Oath of the Moon is "Honor your territory in all things".

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• Beat Them at Their Own Game: How they generally hunt humans, as killing them is a sin against Harmony. According to them, what makes humans dangerous prey is how unpredictable they are — a human serial killer or corrupt councilwoman won't last against a werewolf in a direct fight, but the former can poison the Resonance in an entire city if not taken care of, and the latter can easily destroy a Pack's locus just by ordering the destruction of the right place. So Iron Masters specialize in using these same methods against them, infiltrating human society and gaining influence in a city so they can then use it against their enemies.
• Crossover: As an extension to humans, and because they tend to live in urban environment, Iron Masters frequently claim other supernaturals hiding among humans as their prey as well, making the most likely to meet or clash with protagonists from the other games.
• Expy: Of the Glass Walkers from Werewolf: The Apocalypse, both being a werewolf tribe who chose to embrace modern technology and prefer to live in urban areas rather than rural ones.
• Fantastic Racism: Notably downplayed compared to other Forsaken Tribes; many Iron Masters recruits are werewolves who still care for their human lives, and as such tend to have many humans whose lives they genuinely care about.
• Fast Tunnelling: In 2E, one of the Shaping Gift's facet grants them the ability to grow mole-like claws that can be used to dig through anything and impressive speed.
• Fur Vs Fang: Take humans and the supernaturals who live among them as their favored prey, and have an especial rivalry with vampires.
• Gadgeteer Genius: They have a reputation of being innovators and more comfortable with new technology out of all the tribes. One of their signature Gift lists is even based around technology.
• Humans Are Special: Downplayed, but they are the Forsaken Tribe who has the most respect for humans, and acknowledge their potential to fill the role of lords of Earth the Uratha once had. This is both a good and bad thing for humans, as on one hand, they tend to be significantly less racist toward them and care more deeply about their human families and friends, but on the other hand, they consider humanity enough of a Worthy Opponent to make them their preferred prey.
• Post-Modern Magik: Iron Masters believe in adapting to survive, and as such have focused on adapting to learn how to survive in urban environment. Thanks to this, they have an affinity for the Gift of Technology, spirit abilities meant to control and manipulate modern tech.
• The Power of Creation: They have an affinity for the Shaping Gift, which grants them the ability to mold, assemble and disassemble objects.
• Technopathy: the Gift of Technology allows them to tamper with and control anything technological. All an Iron Master needs is a whisper to cause a device to shut down or turn against its user.

Storm Lords

The Tribe of Winter Wolf, Storm Lords are the alleged Alphas and leaders of the Forsaken. Perfectionists and cold, they fight in ruthless environments and weather, defeating stronger enemies by enduring where their opponents cannot. Their preferred preys are the Ridden and Spirit-Claimed. Their addition to the Oath of the Moon is "Allow no one to witness or tend your weakness".

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• Berserk Button: One of the reasons they hunt Spirit-Claimed; to them, spirits twisting the physical into a warped mockery of Ephemera is flat-out insulting to Father Wolf's memory.
• Comes Great Responsibility: They consider themselves as Alphas and leaders, yes, but their ideal is that having power isn't enough; you need to actually do something worthwhile with it.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Storm Lords make a rule of never ever showing their weakness— meaning they will sometimes turn down help so they won't look vulnerable.
• Expy: They include elements of both the Shadow Lords and the Silver Fangs from Werewolf: The Apocalypse, sharing the ambitious politician aspect from the former, the aristocratic noble vibe of the latter and the aspiration to lead from both.
• Fantastic Racism: They are not fond of Sin-Eaters, who they see as too close to Spirit-Claimed for their tastes.
  "Claimed by the dead is still Claimed."
• The Leader: They usually are the leading tribe among the Forsaken, and their members have a strong tendency toward being Alphas. They also tend to be the most focused on political power. Mechanic-wise, they can cover any of the four flavors, depending on which stats you chose to give them.
• Leader Wannabe: Usually how young Storm Lords start out. After their First Change, many of them start to think ruling is their birthright and take it for granted, an attitude that irritates the other Tribes and causes them to perceive them as pretentious pricks. Fortunately, they usually grow out of it with age and teaching from their elders.
• The Perfectionist: Storm Lords value self-reliance and personal strength over everything; they expect they members to be nothing short of the perfect hunters, pushing themselves to their best and enduring the worst hardships. And most importantly, they must never show any sign of weakness.
• Tough Leader Façade: Their tribal oath binds them to never show weakness even to their allies.
• Tranquil Fury: They have a reputation of being cold and ruthless during the hunt, to the point they can keep an icy calm even while in Death Rage.
• Victory by Endurance: Another big part of their hunting tactics. Storm Lords are trained to fight and endure in insanely extreme conditions such as blizzards or hurricanes- something their opponent usually cannot do.
• Weather Manipulation: One of their signature Gift, Weather, is oriented toward manipulating weather to their advantage. This can grant them both an immunity to the effects of the weather and the ability to summon fogs, extreme cold or heat, thunder or roaring winds.

Ghost Wolves

Werewolves who follow no tribe and thus have no patron or preferred prey. These range from werewolves who wish to remain as close to human as possible, to werewolves who simply don't feel like they fit in with any particular tribe. Due to not being educated in the ways of the Tribes, they often are closer to regular humans than other werewolves in terms of personality.

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• Audience Surrogate: In 2E, their stereotypes essentially reflect what normal people would typically think of werewolf society, since they are for the most part closer to their human side due to not embracing Tribes. For exemple, they refer to Werewolf tribes as "crazy wolf cults".
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Some Ghost Wolves simply want to pretend their First Change never happened and keep living like humans. Obviously, this is easier said than done- even if they don't get indoctrinated by Tribes, their instincts still push them toward werewolf behaviour and way of thinking (such as feeling the need to hunt or dividing people between preys and threats), and they often they find themselves going out at night to hunt down serial killers or similar activities.
• Loners Are Freaks: Ghost Wolves get little to no respect from other Forsaken, who scoff at them for having Luna's Blessing and doing nothing with it. Though they usually are slightly more tolerant toward those who do use their abilities and just happen to have no resonance with any of the Tribes.

Pure Tribes

Pure in General

Those werewolves who reject the Forsaken's mission and claim to embrace Father Wolf over Luna. Because they lack Luna's blessings, they have no Auspice and are weaker to silver. What they do have, however, is a much larger number than the Forsaken (they roughly outnumber them two to one) and stronger ties to the Shadow, meaning they can rely on numerous spirit allies and powerful Totems to give them an edge on their cousins. Unfortunately, they also are generally hostile toward the Tribes of the Moon, and actively hunt them.

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• Achilles' Heel: Since they refused Luna's blessing, their weakness to silver is much higher than the Forsaken's, to the point they cannot even touch it without getting harmed. In addition, each Tribe has a personal weakness called "Ban".
• A Lighter Shade of Black: They are pretty bad as far as werewolves go, yes, but compared to the Bale Hounds, they are practically saints.
• Dark Messiah: According to Night Horrors: Wolfsbane, the Pure have legends of one they call Urazakh-Angir: "Wolf-Born Foretold", a werewolf who will be born from the union of Uratha and wolf and, free of humanity's taint, will lead the Pure to cleansing the world of humanity's poison and the reclamation of their race's glorious birthright.
• Fantastic Racism: They despise both the Forsaken, who they still consider as the real responsible for Father Wolf's death, and humans, who they see as inferior beings. Ivory Claws, especially, reach Nazi-level of xenophobic racial pride.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The three tribes in general fit to this archetype — the bestial, combat-focused Predator Kings are the Fighter, the religiously driven mystical Fire-Touched are the Mage and the sly, manipulative social predator Ivory Claws are the Thief.
• Hunter of Their Own Kind: More than happy to hunt down and kill non-Pure werewolves.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The Predator Kings and the Ivory Claws are based on Tribes from Werewolf: The Apocalypse. The Ivory Claws are based on both the Silver Fangs, arrogant werewolf aristocrats whose inbreeding may have been driving them to insanity and extincion, and the Get of Fenris who never recovered, In-Universe or out, for the fact that a large faction of them happily aligned themselves with the Nazis and say their ideology as complementary to National Socialism. The Predator Kings are derived from the Red Talons, a vehemently anti-human tribe with a major faction pushing to genocidally cull humans to the point of near-extinction and to destroy human civilization, especially the technology that it depended upon.
  • The Urazakh-Angir, a werewolf born to a werewolf father and a normal wolf mother, is a reference to the Lupus (wolf-born) werewolf breed from Apocalypse.
• Never My Fault: The entire reason they rejected Luna's offer; their ancestors, they claim, didn't take part in the murder of Father Wolf, and as such they don't consider themselves guilty of the same crime than the Forsaken. Of course, this completely ignores the fact their ancestors did nothing to prevent Father Wolf's murder and made no effort to carry out his duty after his death, instead throwing all the blame on the Forsaken while basically helping spirits abuse humans (the exact opposite of what Father Wolf was doing) in an effort to rebuild Pangea.
• We ARE Struggling Together: One of the reasons they haven't beaten the Forsaken yet despite out-numbering them by far is because the three Pure Tribes don't actively get along with each other. The Fire-Touched think that the others are insufficiently fervent in their loyalty to the spirits, the Predator Kings look down on the others for, in essence, "thinking too much" instead of just enjoying the hunt, and the Ivory Claws not only look down on both of the others for accepting Forsaken-blooded members (or even former Forsaken converts) into their ranks, but they sneer at Fire-Touched for being too servile and Predator Kings for being dumb beasts.

Fire-Touched

Followers of the Rabid Wolf, the Fire-Touched are a tribe of zealots and fanatics, who revere the spirits as godly beings who are unjustly chained away from their true dominion by the Forsaken "heretics". Worshiping disease for the comparisons they can draw between it and faith, and praising madness as a divine gift that brings enlightenment, Fire-Touched bands tend to be the largest and most sprawling of all the Pure packs, bolstered by eager spirits and Claimed or Urged human chattel. Of the three Pure tribes, they place the most emphasis on the Spirit aspect of being Uratha.

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• A Lighter Shade of Black: Compared to the other Pure Tribes, though not by much. Unlike the Ivory Claws, they are least are willing to spare Forsaken who will convert.
• Cannot Tell a Lie: Their ban forbids them from letting a false statement lie. Not only are they forbidden to lie, if someone else says something they know is a lie, they're required to immediately challenge it.
• Church Militant: Fire-Touched are the spiritual leaders of the Pure, making them as much a cult as they are a Tribe. Their main purpose is to convert the Forsaken to their side.
• The Corrupter: From the Forsaken's point of view. Fire-Touched are a particularly insidious threat, because they won't just try to rip you apart on the spot; they actually want to talk, and are skilled enough with words that they can occasionally convince Forsaken to join their side.
• Evil Counterpart: To the Bone Shadows; like them, they have a strong affinity with spirits and the Shadow; unlike them, they are fanatical zealots who actively try to have spirits invade the physical world and rule over humanity.
• Join or Die: They are more than happy to welcome Forsaken willing to convert to their cause, and will usually try to convince them to do so. Obviously, in case of refusal, death is the only alternative.
• Mad Oracle: Literally. They believe madness is a form of gift granted by their totem.
• Plague Master: Their Gifts tend to be based on diseases and plagues.
• Religion is Magic: Their Gifts draw power partially from religious conviction, and the torrents of Essence generated by their religious devotion make them the most adept of the Pure at spiritual bargaining and Rite magic.
• Religion of Evil:
  • They preach that humans should be reduced to the level of cattle for the spirits, the true masters of the world around them.
  • They worship madness as a sacred gift that brings enlightenment, and revere disease as a literal metaphor for faith.
  • They are the most fervent preachers that the Forsaken must be converted or slain for the greater good of all Uratha.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Just like the Forsaken, they aim to redeem their kind for the murder of Father Wolf. A pity they think this must be done through a genocide of the Forsaken and the destruction of human civilization.

Ivory Claws

Believing themselves the only truly pure Uratha left, these "blue-blooded" werewolves worship Silver Wolf and hold that not only should werewolves rule over humans, but that their lineage means that they should rule over all werewolves. This means that, ironically, the Ivory Claws place the most emphasis on the Human aspect of being werewolves; they are adept social predators who combine their bestial prowess, spiritual magic, predatory instincts and humanity's own tools in their efforts to subvert, manipulate and dominate the human "cattle" that surrounds them.

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• Aristocrats Are Evil: They are obscenely wealthy and powerful, consider themselves superior because of their blood... and they are racists who believe werewolves are the master race.
• Composite Character: They're basically the Silver Fangs from Werewolf: The Apocalypse, an elitist werewolf tribe that interbred with human royalty and thusly claimed dominion over the other werewolves, combined with the Get of Fenris, whose Darwinistic ideology led them to collaborate with the Nazis in a big way, but stripped of either Tribe's nobler qualities or more redeeming traits and leaving only their worst impulses.
• Evil Counterpart: To the Iron Masters. Like them, they tend to live hidden among humans, specialize in using humanity's tools and methods and put an emphasis on the human aspect of Uratha. Unlike them, they treat humans as nothing but cattle and slaves to be used.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Exaggerated compared to other Pure. They use a blood magic specifically designed to discern a werewolf's lineage, and refuse anyone with Forsaken blood in their rank.
  • They're also vehemently anti-human; they regard werewolves as the "master race", specialize in manipulating and exploiting humans, and will happily send humans to their deaths by the thousands to serve the cause of their "superiors". Part of what makes fighting Ivory Claws particularly challenging is that there's usually a dense layer of human Cannon Fodder standing between them and any threat, and Ivory Claws will not hesitate to sacrifice any human to cover their own escapes.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: They aim to become the Purest of the Tribes, which they intend to do by exterminating the Forsaken, who they perceive as mongrels. As a result, they are obsessed with racial purity and discipline, much like real-life Nazis. There's also the fact that they look down on humans as a literal inferior species, fit only to slave and die for the wills of their lupine masters.
• Logical Weakness: Because the Ivory Claws are so stringent about the qualities for a "true" werewolf (aka, must have only Pure werewolves in their ancestry), and will only accept what they consider true werewolves into their packs, their numbers are always the smallest of all the Pure. This forces them to depend on human servants or suitably "pure" Wolfblooded to bolster their ranks and makes them depend on more covert tactics than the blood & thunder assaults favored by the other Pure tribes.
• Ridiculously High Relationship Standards: A Played for Horror variation; their numbers are small compared to the other tribes because they are selective about who their tribe members marry and breed with. Worse, they have no issue with actions such as rape and forced marriage if they think someone is willing produce valuable offspring.
• Super Breeding Program: Because of their Fantastic Racism and obsession with racial purity, Ivory Claws actively control and monitor their breeding, using their ability to sense family connections to make sure all their members pick strong, pure mates. Their hunts frequently involve killing people who get in the way of this, such as parents who won't let their children marry the right people or lovers who get in the way of said mates.
• Too Dumb to Live: Restricting their membership to only those who fit their exacting requirements for lineage is really a rather poor choice given that werewolves don't breed true. It's only the fact that they're, ironically, the Pure best suited for interacting with and manipulating humans that's kept them alive as a tribe so far.
• Tranquil Fury: They tend to be far less savage and passionate than other Pure, which leads some young Forsaken to mistakenly believe they can be reasoned with. In truth, they hate the Forsaken with as much intensity as the other Pure, if not more- they just do a far better job at channeling that hatred.

Predator Kings

The most savage and vicious of all the Pure, the Predator Kings passionately embrace the Wolf aspect of their nature, with their entire philosophy revolving around being the apex predator of the world. Devoted servants of Dire Wolf, they despise the "unnatural, artificial" world that humanity has created about them, seeking to tear it all down so that werewolves may once again rule over an endless wilderness.

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• Dumb Is Good: Zigzagged. Predator Kings don't entirely reject intelligence, but abstract reasoning, technology and other forms of science are considered sinful in their eyes. One should triumph through physical capabilities, or not at all.
• Dumb Muscle: A common stereotype for Predator Kings, but also a very dangerous one to believe in. They won't use technology, but they are very rarely dumb brutes, with their veteran members in particular being wickedly cunning creatures with finely honed instincts.
• Evil Counterpart: To the Hunters of Darkness. Both embrace nature and care little for the modern human world, but the Predator Kings' approach is much worse.
• Evil Luddite: As far as they are concerned, any technology humans made is to be rejected, as it makes you soft and dependent of it, preventing you from relying on your natural abilities. They take it to such an extreme their ban prevent them from interacting with anything made by human hands unless it's to destroy it.
• Expy: They essentially are an outright villainous version of the Red Talons from Werewolf: The Apocalypse.
• Fantastic Racism: The Predator Kings may be the Pure tribe who most vehemently hate humans, considering them the truest cause of all that is wrong with the world around them.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: Zigzagged. They do love to hunt humans, but they don't consider them "the most dangerous game" for one key reason — humans cheat by using technology to compensate for their physical weakness. They love hunting humans so much mostly to punish them for the arrogance of assuming they're the top of the food-chain on the basis of such trickery.
• Science Is Bad: Predator Kings hate science, technology, and every related concept, because they see it as the ultimate cause for humanity's ability to break the chains of nature and "ascend beyond their place". Rendering human technology inoperative and irreparable world-wide is one of their big milestones on the road to restoring Pangaea.
• The Social Darwinist: They revel in their animal instincts, and believe the modern human world is soft and weak. To them, anything that cannot defend itself has no right to live. Even Father Wolf has no sympathy or pity from them; by the creed of the Predator Kings, if he couldn't uphold his position as alpha, then he deserved to die.
• Villainous Valor: Of all the Pure tribes, the Predator Kings are the least hostile towards the Forsaken. They hold no grudge against them and even respect them, as a whole and as individuals. After all, ousting the alpha is just part of the natural cycle for wolves, and if Father Wolf died, then it was his time to die. The only reason they're really opposed to the Forsaken is because the Forsaken are trying to uphold the separation of Flesh and Spirit, and the only way the Predator Kings can get Pangaea back is if they force the two worlds to merge back together. That and the fact Forsaken tend to protect humans instead of treating them like the cattle they are.
• Worthy Opponent: This is why they are the least hostile towards the Forsaken of all the Pure tribes, not just because the Forsaken's ancestors were strong enough to take down Father Wolf, but because they're willing to stick to their decision and keep trying to uphold Mother Luna's decree. They're quick to provide their respect to any Forsaken who can give them a strong fight or who otherwise proves worthy quarry.

Tribal Totems

Forsaken Totems

Winter Wolf (Skolis-Ur)

Tribal totem of the Storm Lords, Winter Wolf is the second of Father Wolf's children and alpha of the Forsaken pack, and led them into the world after the death of Father Wolf and the loss of Pangaea. A remote, disapproving figure, he demands total loyalty and respect from his followers.

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• Aloof Big Brother: To his followers.
• An Ice Person: As indicated by his name, he has Elemental Powers over ice and snow due to his being partially a spirit of winter.
• Big Brother Mentor: To Red Wolf.
• Cain and Abel: He and Silver Wolf have an intense rivalry over leadership of the First Pack. Winter Wolf would appear to be winning.
• The Chains of Commanding: Feels the responsibility of leading the Forsaken, and does not believe he can show any weakness before the others.
• The Leader: As the eldest of Father Wolf's spirit offspring who remained loyal to Father Wolf, he is the acting pack alpha of those spirits — and, by extension, of the Forsaken. This makes him the ultimate spiritual authority that, in theory, all Forsaken werewolves and their totems should obey.
• Number Two: Was once the Beta to Dire Wolf's Alpha, but no more.
• Odd Job Gods: He's a Spirit of Wolves, Storms, Winter and Leadership at the very least. So his spheres of influence include wolves, wind, thunder, lightning, rain, snow, sleet, ice, cold, authority, loyalty, command...
• Pet the Dog: Lets his icy demeanor slip with Red Wolf.
• Tough Leader Façade: His oath binds the Storm Lords to show no weakness even to their own allies.
• Undying Loyalty: He demands it from his followers.

Red Wolf (Sagrim-Ur)

The tribal totem of the Iron Masters, Red Wolf once watched over the human herds. Inquisitive and driven, he often frustrates his siblings with his need to know. He is close to both Winter Wolf and Death Wolf.

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• Annoying Younger Sibling: Once played this role to the rest of the First Pack.
• Cain and Abel: Has a rather agonizing relationship with Rabid Wolf.
• Good Twin: To Rabid Wolf.
• Morality Pet: To Winter Wolf and Death Wolf.
• Mother Nature, Father Science: Father Science to Black Wolf's Mother Nature. Unlike most examples, they get along pretty well.
• The Smart Guy: Father Wolf and the rest of the Firstborn were content to just accept things were as they were. Red Wolf was the only one who would bother himself to contemplate "why?"
• Trickster God: He's called "kin to Coyote" for a reason. He also rewards this kind of thinking.

Death Wolf (Kamduis-Ur)

Quiet and withdrawn, Death Wolf is the tribal totem of the Bone Shadows. She has always walked her own path, and is fascinated with notions of life and death.

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• Beyond the Impossible: Once, she was known as Seeking Wolf, but one day decided to investigate a cave that killed all who entered it. When she entered, she indeed died — which had the effect of doing nothing but changing her name before she ran out, still very much among the living. She later claims the problem was that others were more afraid of changing and couldn't adapt.
• Don't Fear the Reaper: She's the local totemic spirit of death, but she's honestly more of a Seeker Archetype.
• Loners Are Freaks: The opinion of some of her siblings.
• Pet the Dog: With Red Wolf, according to some.
• The Quiet One: Is extremely laconic and tends to say just enough to guide others into realizing what she is saying on their own.

Black Wolf (Hikaon-Ur)

Tribal totem of the Hunters in Darkness, Black Wolf is a creature of the night, and the best tracker among the First Pack. Once close to Dire Wolf, Black Wolf is the exact opposite of her brother Destroyer Wolf, and has a curious respect for Red Wolf.

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• Cain and Abel: Hates Rabid Wolf with an undying passion.
• Evil Former Friend: How she sees Dire Wolf.
• Mother Nature, Father Science: Mother Nature to Red Wolf's Father Science. Again, mutually respect each other due to similar motives.
• Scarily Competent Tracker: She's the one who taught her Tribe their notorious stealthiness.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: With Destroyer Wolf.

Destroyer Wolf (Fenris-Ur)

The tribal totem of the Blood Talons, Destroyer Wolf revels in violence and combat, often tearing his prey to shreds before devouring it. While extremely aggressive, he is no sadist, and respects a worthy adversary.

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• The Big Guy: He's the most aggressive and combative of the First Pack, and thusly he is their primary warrior.
• Blood Knight: As said above, he revels in violence and combat; hunting and fighting are his literal reason for being.
• Cain and Abel: Despises the sadistic Dire Wolf for marring the purity of combat with malice.
• Combat Pragmatist: His vow of "Offer no surrender you would not accept" is a code of personal honor. Anything that works is fair game to him, so long as you're not a hypocrite about it.
• Hot-Blooded: You don't get the name "Destroyer Wolf" by being peaceful and mellow.
• Laser-Guided Karma: A story in the 2E core features a group of corrupt Blood Talons who had taken over a town and had transformed it into a cannibalistic cult. Destroyer Wolf found out. That town no longer exists, especially not its rulers.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: With Black Wolf.
• Unstoppable Rage: He has the shortest fuse of any of the Forsaken Uratha totems, and combined with his strength and battle knowledge, when he gets in a fighting rage, his opponent is going to suffer.
• Worthy Opponent: Always on the look out for one.

Pure Totems

Dire Wolf (Huzuruth-Ur)

Tribal totem of the Predator Kings, Dire Wolf is the oldest and most malicious of Father Wolf's children. He mourns the loss of Pangaea, the predator's paradise, and longs to bring it back.

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• The Brute: Falls into this role by choice. He could be the Pure Alpha if he so chose.
• Cain and Abel: With Destroyer Wolf.
• Canis Major: The biggest after Father Wolf himself. He resembles one of the Dire Wolves that once stalked the mortal world.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Dire Wolf and the Predator Kings don't like the Forsaken, but they find the Bale Hounds totally revolting, and will take any chance to kill them and urinate on their corpses.
• Evil Former Friend: Was once close to Black Wolf, acting as a sort of mentor figure.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: If you ask him, humanity is the primary cause of most spiritual pollution and imbalance in the world. While he's right about many conceptual-spirits not existing if it weren't for humans and which probably shouldn't, such as rape or murder, keep in mind he thinks compassion is a sign of spiritual weakness.
• The Leader: Was once the Alpha of the First Pack. Now he mostly keeps to himself.
• Nature Is Not Nice: The personification of primordial carnivorism and savagery among the Pure, and supports the Predator Kings in demonstrating this.
• Might Makes Right: It's the foundation of his entire world-view; one is either predator or prey, and prey deserve no sympathy.
• Social Darwinist: Believes that only the strong can survive, and that if you are weak, you deserve to die.
• Super-Persistent Predator: He's a spirit of predation incarnate, making him literally an archetypal manifestation of this trope.
• Worthy Opponent: He and his followers are the most likely to see the Forsaken this way.

Rabid Wolf (Gurim-Ur)

The youngest and maddest of Father Wolf's children, Rabid Wolf is a slavering coward who serves as the tribal totem of the Fire-Touched. Crazed with fear and paranoia, and stricken with disease, he grants his followers visions in exchange for their services.

...According to the Forsaken, at least. According to the Pure, it's mostly accurate, but he isn't actually a coward so much as reluctant to involve himself in confrontations he knows he can't win, being a peerless Seer. The Fire-Touched say his various illnesses are simply a spiritual, literal representation of his piousness (faith is similar to a contagion after all), while his madness is a result of being aware of every single lie in the world. He is the kindest of the Pure tribe totems, and is quite supportive of granting mercy to the Forsaken...if they convert to the Pure.

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• Ax-Crazy: Even by spirit standards, Rabid Wolf is absolutely bonkers.
• Cain and Abel: Red Wolf, Black Wolf, and Death Wolf all find him completely disgusting.
• Cannot Tell a Lie: According to the Fire-Touched anyway.
• Dirty Coward: According to the Forsaken. The Pure believe he's a Lovable Coward.
• Evil Genius: Of the Pure Totems, he's unquestionably the smartest.
• Evil Is Visceral: Rabid Wolf is absolutely hideous to look at, being visibly disfigured with all manner of disgusting diseases and ailments.
• Evil Twin: To Red Wolf.
• The Fundamentalist: He's literally a spirit of all-encompassing faith, and in particular of both being zealous beyond the point of rationality and rejecting reason in favor of faith. Naturally, he himself is driven entirely by his own faith.
• Giggling Villain: Purported to cackle like a hyena after killing his victims.
• Mad Oracle: Grants his followers visions, and possesses prophecy himself-to his detriment.
• Meaningful Name: Rabid Wolf. It neatly encapsulates his insanity, his affinity for diseases, and his zealous attitudes.
• Plaguemaster: Many of Rabid Wolf's gifts deal with disease.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: According to at least one legend from the sourcebook, Rabid Wolf used to be known as Creator Wolf and was Fenris-Ur's twin and Morality Pet: She was the only one who could calm Fenris's rages, while he returned the favor by driving off the hordes of spirits that tormented her and threatened to drive her mad. Unfortunately, Father Wolf's death left them on opposite sides of the conflict.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Was once like this towards both Father Wolf and Dire Wolf.

Silver Wolf (Hathis-Ur)

Kingly in aspect, Silver Wolf believes he should have been the alpha of the First Pack. He serves as the tribal totem of the Ivory Claws, and his followers often provide the Pure with leadership.

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• A Nazi by Any Other Name: He loathes any form of impurity whatsoever, especially familial. It's why he won't let converted Forsaken join his tribe, or even tolerate a ceasefire for larger threats with them.
• Big Bad: To the Pure as a whole, though just barely.
• Cain and Abel: Has a longstanding rivalry with Winter Wolf, who is everything that Silver Wolf fancies himself to be.
• The Evil Prince: He's technically the most kingly and regal of the Pure Totems, and even of the First Pack entirely, but his concept of "kingliness" is tightly bound up with brutal authoritarianism, dictatorship, and racism.
• The Leader: Of the Pure. This is largely because Rabid Wolf is mad and Dire Wolf does not care.
• Manipulative Bastard: As the only member of the Pure Totems who has the ability to think rationally and logically, he excels at manipulating and outsmarting those around him.
• The Power of Hate: Even the Ivory Claws themselves admit his whole existence is based around one part agony, three parts absolute intolerance for any degree of impurity.
• Pride: Easily his greatest sin.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Has a very high opinion of himself, believing he is a greater leader then Father Wolf or Winter Wolf, and imagining that he is the leader of the Pure. In truth, he is but a shadow of his father and older sibling, and only leads the Pure because Dire Wolf isn't interested.
• The Starscream: Tried to seize power from Father Wolf in a coup d'etat and was humiliated in the process.

Spirits

Spirits in general

The inhabitants of the Spirit World. With the exception of sentient beings, everything in the world of flesh has a reflection in the Shadow, and each reflection results in a spirit. Initially, they subsist through the being who gave birth to them, but in order to outlive them, they need to feed on other spirits (preferably of their own type) or locii attuned to the Essence they prefer. Unfortunately, this means they will try to influence the world of flesh in a way that will create more spirits of their concept to feed on and potentially flavor a local locus to Essence they can consume, which becomes problematic when they are spirits of bad things such as fear and hatred. Worse, many of them will try to get in the world of flesh at the first opportunity, frequently by possessing mortals. With Father Wolf gone, it's the Uratha's job to ensure they won't abuse humanity. That said, not all of them are malevolent, and while they usually have no love for the werewolves, they can be bargained with to become allies, or even teach them new Gifts.

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• Achilles' Heel: Each Spirit has two weakness uniques to it: a Ban (a particular behaviour it is unable to go against) and a Bane (a particular substance that can be used to hurt it). Werewolves, obviously, are well-aware of this, and actively take advantages on it, often keeping tracks of them or trying to identify them.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: What they are in essence. Everything non-sentient in the world of flesh, from animals to inanimated objects to emotions, has a reflection in the Shadow that results in a spirit.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: The main reason werewolves have to keep an eye on them. Spirits just don't think in the same terms than humans — they are ready to do anything in order to subsist and grow in power, including harming or possessing innocent humans. A spirit of violence will happily spread murder and hatred in the world of flesh in order to create more spirits like him to feed on, and even a spirit of euphoria can become a problem if it starts to hang around, say, a drug den.
• Cannibalism Superpower: Spirits get stronger by feeding on other, weaker spirits, usually assimilating their traits in the process. Worth noticing, however, is that they prefer consuming spirits of the same type than theirs, or at least connected to their origin concept (for example, fear spirits for a wolf spirit, because wolves are considered scary by some). Spirits who consume too many spirits unrelated to their own concept tend to become nightmarish creatures called Magath and are considered outcasts by their peers.
• Demonic Possession: Spirits who manage to get in the world of flesh will usually try to find a vessel to possess, preferably a human, since they have enough autonomy and intelligence to be useful yet lack supernatural abilities to resist them. There are three types of possessions:
  • Spirit-Urged are people whose spirit got attached to without actually taking over; instead, it will just stick close to him in a stated known as "Fettered", where it has a subtle influence on his actions so he will act in accordance to its needs (for example, a plant spirit will influence its urge host into getting an interest in gardening so he will grow the very plant it needs in order to create more spirits like itself to feed on). If sufficiently powerful, the spirit can occasionally "possess" its Urged host, in which case it will be able to control him directly (albeit difficultly) for a short amount of time and provide him with a slight Healing Factor for the time of the possession, but no other particular abilities beyond this. The more often an Urged gets possessed by his spirit, the easier it becomes for the spirit to control him.
  • Spirit-Claimed are what happens when a spirit possessed its Urged host enough times or is powerful enough to truly refine its grasp on him, allowing it to reach the next stage and progressively merge with him. This usually results in the person gradually turning into a disturbing spirit-flesh hybrid with a fusion of their personalities and stats, and who shares the werewolves' ability to travel between the physical world and the Shadow at will. Once completed, this merging is permanent unless the spirit decides to leave of its own will, and even if it somehow does (which is unlikely), the host will always be left traumatized for life by the experience, assuming they survive (which becomes increasingly unlikely the longer the host was Claimed).
  • Spirit Thieves are spirits who just hijack their host's body, either driving the original mind into dormancy or out of the body completely. This is the least efficient form of possession however, as they are unable to use their spirit abilities while in this state and can't hope to fool the victim's relatives, so most spirits only use it as a last resort.
• Emotion Eater: A very specific variant; Emotion spirits don't directly feed on emotions, but they do feed on Essence, the substance/energy that makes up other spirits, preferably Essence of the same type than theirs, and are born from the emotion they represent. As such, a spirit of a specific emotion will usually try to propagate said emotion as much as possible in the world of flesh to create more spirits of its type to feed on in the spirit world as well as hopefully flavor any locii to its type.
• Fantastic Racism: Spirits usually don't particularly like or trust werewolves, perceiving them as half-flesh mongrels who imposed themselves as the guardians of the Shadow. Some of them do submit to their authority, and might even learn to genuinely respect them, but overall they are begrudgingly respectful at best, and downright hostile at worst.
• Our Spirits Are Different: They are beings born in the Shadow from reflections of anything non-sentient in the World of Flesh. They work on a very Darwinian system, with stronger spirits devouring weaker ones to subsist and get stronger. They can influence the world of flesh, though how strong this influence is varies according to their rank. And they can possess mortals in order to get a physical body.
• Resurrective Immortality: As long as a spirit either have at least 1 Corpus or Essence left, it cannot be truly killed; losing all its Corpus in a fight will just cause it to discorporate and reform in a safe place in the Shadow, where it will stays hibernating until it has regained enough Essence to reawaken, while losing all its Essence will cause it to fall into hibernation (and if they were in the World of Flesh, to return to the Shadow) until it regains enough to reawaken again. The only way to truly kill a spirit is to have it lose all his Essence and all his Corpus.
• Transformation of the Possessed: Spirit who Claim people tend to gradually merge with their host, transforming to ressemble their spirit form more closely.
• You Are Who You Eat: Spirits grow in power and intelligence by consuming Essence and other spirits. If the ones they prey on are of different concepts than their own (though they still prefer feeding on Essence and Spirits whose concept actually somewhat relate to their own, such as Wolf Spirits feeding on Hunt Spirits and Sheeps Spirits), they incorporate their concept and features into them, helping them evolving in different and unique ways.

Mother Luna

The Spirit of the Moon, mate of Father Wolf and one of the two progenitor of the Werewolves. According to Uratha mythology, she was the one who cursed them with the Bane of silver as a punishment for killing Father Wolf, and later gave her blessing to the Forsaken.

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• Big Good: The Forsaken see her as such, though the Pure beg to differ. She clearly isn't all that mentally stable, but she does want to preserve the balance between the Shadow and the World of Flesh.
• Interspecies Romance: With Father Wolf, a Pangaean.
• Lunacy: She is the Spirit of the Moon, and also happens to be one of the most powerful beings in the Spirit World.
• Monster Progenitor: To Werewolves, though she shares the spot with her mate Father Wolf.
• Physical God: By virtue of being one of the most powerful spirits, she practically is a goddess.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Played with; on the one hand, she was understandably pissed at her children for killing their father, only to then forgive them and give them a chance to atone. On the other hand, the conditions in which they had to kill Father Wolf were blurry at best, and it's generally agreed that Luna and her Court are, by human standards, completely insane due to their Ban.
• Solar and Lunar: The Lunar to Helios' Solar.

Helios

The Spirit of the Sun, and Luna's brother. Unfortunately for Werewolves, he hasn't forgiven them for killing his sister's mate — making him the primary reason visiting the Shadow during daytime isn't safe for them.

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• Anti-Villain: From the Werewolves' perspective; while misguided, his motive for hating them is more than understandable.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: To Luna; even though she has long forgiven Forsaken Werewolves for their ancestor killing Father Wolf, he still blames them for it, and as such is openly hostile toward them.
• Light Is Not Good: Or more accurately, Light is Not Kind to Werewolves. Helios isn't exactly evil, but he loathes Werewolves, and his presence is the primary reason visiting the Spirit World during daytime is highly dangerous to Uratha.
• Physical God: At the very least on par with Luna in term of God-like power, if not stronger.
• The Power of the Sun: Well, he is the Spirit of the Sun.
• Solar and Lunar: The Solar to Luna's Lunar.

The Maeljin

The Maeljin

The seven corrupt Incarnae who act as the lords and masters of the Bale Hounds.

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• Big Bad Ensemble: They are the masters of the Bale Hounds, who seek to turn the world into one big Wound, making them one of the most clearly evil group in the setting.
• The Corrupter: Like most spirits, they feed and grow in power by propagating the concepts they embody. Unfortunately, they happen to embody the concepts of everything evil, so they can only do so by corrupting everyone.
• Demon Lords And Arch Devils: As Physical God-tier spirits devoted to the most malevolent of concepts, they fit this within the boundaries of the setting. Inferno, a supplement book focusing on Demons, pretty much states they are demons.
• I Have Many Names: Cahalith actually know names for dozens of Maeljin, but several of these names appeared to be the same identity using different aliases.
• Mythology Gag: "Maeljin Incarna" were the most powerful spirit-servants of the corrupted Wyrm in Werewolf: The Apocalypse.
• Our Demons Are Different: They fit the definition of Demons as evil spirits trying to corrupt the world, and as noted above, Inferno explicitly confirms Maeljin are demons, albeit not the same than the ones from the God-Machine.
• Seven Deadly Sins: They represent all seven classical sins^note Avarice, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Pride, Sloth, Wrath plus Treachery and Violence.
• Totally Not a Werewolf: They having nothing to do with either the Unchained or the Inhabitants of Pandemonium. They are implied to be the same demons described in Inferno, though, and might be the same demons the Lucifuge are ascended from.
• Wrong Context Magic: While not quite as bizarre and alien as the Indigam, the Maeljin still seem to operate on different rules than regular spirits; they aren't born into the Spirit World, but seem to instead get to by escaping from Wounds, and their influence is much more harmful to the Hisil than spirits. On top of that, "Maeljin", as a word, isn't from the First Tongue, and no werewolf alive knows where it came from - even their name is out of context.

The Idigam

Ancient, alien spirits of concepts which never were, never existed, or never codified, depending on who you ask. Some say they aren't actually spirits, either, though they're certainly close enough to be called them. Mad Gods to a spirit, the idigam's experiments and hungers posed a grave danger to Pangaea, made as they were with either no care for the order of things or contempt for it, so it naturally fell to Father Wolf to hunt them. Unfortunately, the idigam soon proved more cunning prey; their defining trait is their endless evolution, each form an idigam takes simply being a transitional state to something grander and more terrifying. Any attempt to destroy them was countered, any trap was disarmed, any victory undone. In desperation, Father Wolf turned to Luna for help, and she took them unto her physical self, leaving only the ones who he never saw due to their relative lack of hostility on Earth.

On the moon, the majority of the idigam licked their wounds and sulked. A few learned to call the spirits of stellar phenomena, a few reflected on how they were finally defeated and changed. But they could not reach Earth, the gap of space plus Luna's own guarding against space-born threats prevented that.

The Apollo missions? Not so much.

The idigam have returned, still furious over their humiliation and millennia of imprisonment. So new a threat that the Forsaken have no method for hunting them, so old as to have matched wits with the greatest of hunters and come out ahead, the idigam combine the adaptability of werewolves, the might of spirits, the strangeness of the Hosts, the intellect of humans, and the unpredictability of the Claimed into singular beasts, and due to their skill with Shaping Essence, they can command or create all of the above given the time and motive. They still despise Father Wolf, all of them, but he cannot feel their fury, since he is dead.

So, they've focused their rage on the next best thing — his descendants.

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• Big Bad: Of the Idigam Chronicle setting update, and in any story they feature in, being very powerful masterminds who prefer to work through proxies.
• Blob Monster: What they look like as Formless, giant amorphous blobs that randomly change color.
• Confusion Fu: On a species-wide level with werewolves, who have no idea what they are or what they're generally capable of. Formless idigam have this on a personal basis, with even their Bans and Banes varying from scene to scene, but thankfully they need to subvert the trope if they want to focus on a single goal, and Coalesce into a stable form... that generally has little bearing on what form the idigam took, it was just present nearby when the idigam Coalesced.
• The Corrupter: The defining ability of Coalesced idigam is the ability to transform anything and anyone nearby into their servants.
• Eldritch Abomination: Nobody's sure what these things are spirits of, or even if they're spirits. Even beyond that, all idigam are alien and bizarre in form, even after Coalescing (Formless idigam look like Shoggoths).
• Mad Scientist: Dominant motive for many of them is curiosity and the desire for self-perfection, and even the ones who aren't have no problem whipping up Claimed monsters and aberrant spirits as minions.
• Paradox Person: Are unique among spiritual entities in that they don't seem to reflect anything in the world of Flesh. Two of the leading theories are that they are either reflections of things that no longer exist, or else spirits of raw potential awaiting definition into the reflections of new concepts.
• Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Self-inflicted version; while idigam start as ever-shifting, fluid beings called Formless, one that has decided on a Goal in Life semi-permanently fixes its body into a Coalesced stat build specifically for that purpose, gaining a Rank of power and the ability to manufacture minions. Can be subverted later on if the idigam gives up on that particular avenue towards perfection and devolves back into a Formless.
• Tortured Abomination: Idigam, horrifyingly, don't need a normal human to create a Claimed; they can tear the wolf-spirit part of an Uratha out and place a different spirit in, creating a monster called a Su'ur; an Empty Wolf. From the quotations of one, it is exactly as horrifying as it sounds to the Su'ur.

Lul'Aya, the False Father

This idigam has a very simple motivation that drives it: envy. It wants to be Father Wolf and have his appearance, his children, his powers and his wife, Luna, so now that he is dead it pretends to be him. Of course, it has a few problems with that because of its limited understanding about how the world works.

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• Animalistic Abomination: He wanted to look like Father Wolf, a great and mighty lupine, but his idigam nature to "improve" got the better of him. Instead he looks like a giant wolf with, among other things, barbed tentacles for fur, an impossibly long jaw filled with teeth from beginning to end, exposed musculature, and occasional other "improvements" if he feels like it.
• Berserk Button: He is one for the Pure, who don't take kindly to some spirit (even an idigam) pretending to be Father Wolf. The Pure hate this guy so much that they're willing to even team up with the Forsaken to destroy him.
• Bed Trick: As part of his obsession, he wants to pull a metaphysical version of this on Luna. It's not working.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: He really doesn't get what being a warden and protector of both worlds really means. See Evil Cannot Comprehend Good and Start X to Stop X.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: A prime advantage werewolves have over Lul'Aya is the fact he doesn't understand pack bonds or the relationship between equal peers, only dominance and power. Thus, it's possible to surprise him with ambushes made by trusted allies or invoking help without threatening or blackmail.
• Holy Burns Evil: Werewolves with maxed-out Purity are one of Lul'Aya's Banes.
• I Just Want to Be You: To Father Wolf, to insane degrees.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: He usually claims to be the reborn Urfarah... to people who don't know any better. He looks and acts nothing like Father Wolf.
• Start X to Stop X: He knows Father Wolf was a hunter of things that disrupt the balance between the Shadow and Flesh worlds. Thus, he uses his Essence Shaping to make things that disrupt the balance by their very existence to hunt.
• Yandere: He wants everything that Urfarah had as his role. Especially his wife. Given how his very existence sends nearby Lunes into Death Rage, it's probably a safe bet that she isn't a fan of the idea.

Gamugur, the Unholy Host

Not all of the idigam retained their hatred and their desire during their long imprisonment on the moon. Gamugur actually came to enjoy the serenity of its imprisonment, losing interest in the world twinkling so far below. It wasn't until December 19, 1972, that it finally mustered the desire to return to Earth. With its new obsession with stability and peace, it found Earth of the 1970s horrifically chaotic, and retreated to a cave in the wilderness. It wasn't until a quiet Christian church was built over the cave that it stirred from its slumber; in the stoic, faithful minds of the congregation, it found kindred souls — especially in their shared abhorrence for the chaotic influence of disease and age. Manifesting itself, Gamugur became the patron angel of the church, founding its own private little heaven where routine was all-sacred and nothing ever changed.

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• Arc Number: Three, and multiples of three, are repeated throughout Gamugur's form.
• Chaos Is Evil: Its entire motif boils down to its belief in this and its logical counterpart. Of course, as is made clear, its obsession with stasis makes it more of an example of Order Is Evil.
• Harmful Healing: Gamugur can heal the sick and wounded... technically. From its alien perspective, healing is as disgustingly chaotic as letting the disease or injury run its course. So, rather than actually heal something, it just freezes the aberration in stasis, perhaps cosmetically resculpting the body to look less damaged if necessary, and then leaves it like that. Thusly, Gamugur's congregation still have cancers and the like, it's just that they no longer feel the symptoms.
• Our Angels Are Different: Gamugur deliberately styles itself out of angels from the Old Testament. It sports three heads with thirty-three eyes shared between them, fitted on a sexless humanoid body with six arms and nine legs. It is born aloft by six wings in three rows of two upon its back and surrounded by a nimbus of golden light.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Gamugur's abhorrence for change extends to the shunning of death. Thusly, whenever one of its congregation dies, it restores them as a twisted half-living version called an Ascended. These individuals come back incurably insane and still half-dead; they can't sleep, or feel physical pleasures, and just wander around in a daze. They're also utterly loyal to Gamugur, being incapable of even thinking about defying its orders.
• Voice of the Legion: Inverted; Gamugur's three mouths all speak with the same voice at the same time.
• Weaksauce Weakness: "The blood of Christ" — communion wine that has been properly blessed and sanctified — burns Gamugur like acid, piercing its supernatural defenses.

Gifmalu Igizalag, the Explorer

Obsessed with the way that creatures and spirits interact with each other and the world around them, Gifmalu Igizalag is a compulsive experimenter, constantly seeking to find some way to "fix" this broken world caused by the shattering of Pangaea and create a new world of infinite possibilities. Thusly, it roams the world seemingly at random, performing all manner of torturous experiments in melding flesh and ephemera.

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• Blob Monster: In its "native" form, Gifmalu Igizalag basically looks like an animate blob of sapient mercury that solidifies into limbs and organs as needed.
• Chaos Is Evil: Inverted; the Explorer worships Chaos as the embodiment of everything good and worthwhile, and seeks to create the ultimate chaos by undoing the stability of the two worlds.
• For Science!: For all of its posturing, this is Gifmalu's real motivation — the desire to know everything there is about the blending of flesh and spirit.
• Giant Enemy Crab: Its preferred form is... vaguely...crab-like.
• I Have Many Names: It has quite a list of titles, including The Shapeless, The Formless, The Blob, The Mad Scientist and the Intelligent Designer.
• Incendiary Exponent: The easiest way to destroy this idigam? Set yourself on fire (or set someone else on fire as a Human Sacrifice). Oh, and it has to be a Heroic Sacrifice; if you're immune to fire, then you're not in pain, so the Explorer just keeps coming.
• Kill It with Fire: A strange variant. The Explorer cannot stand to be around someone who is being burned alive. Human pain is fine, fire is fine, but when the two are combined, it spiritually wracks it, nullifying all of its powers and almost completely negating its defenses...unless the creature in question is a being specifically vulnerable to fire itself (a vampire, for example), which is a different enough frequency that the Explorer can ignore it (thankfully, it isn't yet aware of this).
• Mad Scientist: One with an obsession in investigating what makes spirits and flesh-creatures tick, and how the two can be combined.
• Sanity Has Advantages: Gifmalu Igizalag is pretty much guaranteed to never succeed in its goals because its obsession with trying out the new and fresh keeps it from making or staying with concentrated efforts. It basically refuses to do anything but just poke around at random, finding the idea of doing otherwise incomprehensible.

Mussughana, the Ravenous Swarm

In 1678, the voice of one particular idigam reached to Earth from its prison, touching upon the mind of Heironymus Gesell, a German occultist currently confined to a sanitarium as consumption ravaged his body. Desperate to survive, and completely insane to begin with, he interpreted this spirit as a deity and founded a cult, the Brotherhood of the Locust. It would not be until April 17, 1970 that the Brotherhood's god would make its way back to the Earth. Now, it roams the world, seeking famines and plagues to fuel its strength, hoping to one day devour everything.

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• Anthropomorphic Personification: Though this admittedly comes from the ravings of the Brotherhood of the Locust, Mussughana claims to be the embodiment of the universe before existence began. The incarnation of absolute nothingness, it seeks to devour everything because it cannot know peace until creation has been undone.
• Grey Goo: It's almost a spirit of this trope incarnate.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Its titles include the Devourer, He-Who-Consumes, The Final Dissolution, and The Worm That Feasts.
• Omnicidal Maniac: It isn't actual sustenance that spurs Mussughana's hunger — it's hatred for the very concept of existence and a desire to return to the primordial void by eating everything not of it.
• Plague Master: Downplayed; it has some minor influence over disease, but more so over hunger and despair. It does seek out places suffering from famine and plague, as these fuel its strength more efficiently.
• Weaksauce Weakness: It cannot cross a barrier of pure potable water, it is compelled to devour any offering of pure food, and its hunger increases with its size, so it quickly loses its strength the bigger it gets.

Udu Luhal, the Breeder

Breeding-Beast Master, to translate its name from the First Tongue, is an idigam obsessed with the unihar, the Ghost Children born of werewolf/werewolf mating. It sees in them a kindred spirit, and it yearns to make one turn from its insane, all-consuming quest to murder werewolves to instead become its mate. Consequently, the idigam secretly follows werewolf packs, seeking to manipulate couples into pairing and birthing unihar, so that it may try to create its perfect mate.

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• Blob Monster: It generally appears as semi-amorphous mass or smear of blood, dirt or grime.
• Death by Irony: The blood created when a female werewolf gives birth to an unihar is a lethal toxin to Udu Luhal; a werewolf who anoints their fangs and claws with it can tear through the idigam's flesh with ease, and smearing a handprint of unihar birth-blood on Udu Luhal saps its ability to resist magic and binding.
• Evilutionary Biologist: Is capable and willing to engineer unihar into a better mate directly.
• Love Makes You Evil: Zigzagged; it is motivated by its obsession with finding a perfect mate, but it was pretty damn evil to begin with.
• Stalker with a Crush: A variant, in that it doesn't try to mate with a werewolf itself, but to arrange for two werewolves to mate. Usually overlaps with Conceive and Kill; as the child is important, it typically murders the father to make its planned experiments easier for it.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Because of its ban, it has an instinctive and intense phobia of pregnant women, and will flee into the Shadow rather than come near one.

Umum Wabalu Damu, Mother Wants a Family

One, it was an unnatural duality, two spirits that were perfect halves of the greater whole. In the days of Pangaea, the idigam Umum'Abum was unity incarnate. But Luna grew jealous of the perfection of its wholeness and demanded that Father Wolf separate the two, so that no love was greater than that of the fickle goddess and her chosen mate. So it was torn apart and thrown to the moon, until eventually the female half of it tumbled back to the moon, coalescing within the haunted catacombs below an ancient graveyard. Of course, such is the biased claims of the clearly insane Umum Wabalu Damu. But what is irrefutably true is that, seeing a kinship with the ghosts roaming her graveyard, the idigam began assimilating ghosts into herself, trying to use them to patch the hole where her other half once was.

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• Evil Matriarch: The only idigam to be explicitly female, and she pretty much has the "overbearing parental figure" down to an extreme.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Anyone willing to infect themselves with Yellow Fever can deliver unnaturally lethal blows to the idigam. Of course, Yellow Fever is a horrible, horrible way to die...
• Unholy Matrimony: When she was half of Umum'Abum, and what she tries to achieve by melding with ghosts.
• Voice of the Legion: Speaks in this fashion.

Zul Sanak, the Nemesis

Of all the idigam to have escaped the moon, Zul Sanak is perhaps the easiest to understand. At heart, it is little more than a horrifically abused child, driven insane by rage and spite and self-loathing, and utterly consumed by hatred for those around it. It despises werewolves with all its black heart, and yet it yearns for their validation as well, so overwhelmed by loathing of itself that desperately strives to prove it has a place in the universe.

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• Death Seeker: Zul Sanak's mind is so fragmented and consumed by self-loathing that, secretly, it wants to be destroyed.
• The Power of Hate: Literally; not only is Zul Sanak utterly consumed by hatred for itself and everything around it, it has spiritual power over hatred.
• The Power of Love: As Zul Sanak is more a spirit of hatred and vengeance than anything, its bane is that werewolves who are willing to make peace with each other just for the sake of killing it will be endowed with the power to do so.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: When it deigns to speak, Zul Sanak favors a sweet, melodic tone of voice even while informing the Uratha of the fate they will suffer at its claws.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Zul Sanak is freakishly adept at manipulating its body even by idigam standards.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Zul Sanak is a hideously evil monster. But, when one notes its description as a "cast-off thing, unvalued and without purpose", living an existence described as "endless misery", well, one can't help but feel a little sorry for it.

Lu'im Iduth, the Deceiver Lune

This idigam wants vengeance against the werewolves like many of its ilk, but has another method and a long-term plan; taking the shape of a Lune and manipulating werewolves with their most inner desire: forgiveness for their past sins from Mother Luna. By bringing Ghost Wolves near it into a new tribe with it as their totem, Urdam or Believer Wolves, will be created and extend its false message to destroy Uratha society, both Forsaken and Pure, from the inside. Once that task is complete the idigam will drive its servants mad and make them kill each other, rendering Uratha extinct.

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• The Atoner: The Urdam, it's werewolf followers, really want to atone for the sin of slay Father Wolf and this is what the false Lune uses.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Pretends be one of the servants of Luna to make werewolves trust it and become it's pawns.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: The Devoted, werewolves that the idigam modifies in mind and body, transforming them into things more spirit than flesh that will follow any of it's orders.
• He Knows Too Much: Since any real Lune can clearly see that Deceiver is not one of them, it has its wolves capture and killing them or, if it needs to renovate it's disguise, bring them before it to be devoured.
• Holy Burns Evil: Invoked and Subverted. One of the steps to join the Urdam involves being naked in a circle made of his peers and confessing to previous sins with one of the Urdum pouring water from a silver container for each sin. In theory, if the new supplicant is not sincere in his devotion the water will kill him. However, it's all pure bullshit: the "peers" are Devoted and the idigam investigates all prospective tribe members, informing the ritemaster just prior so he will swap the water with acid, making the ones really faithful believe the pretender is unworthy.
• Kill and Replace: Did this to the Lune whose form it stole.
• Lunacy: Looks like a moon spirit, its described by werewolf scholars as something between breaking and madness, and can made werewolves and other creatures mad at will.
• Manipulative Bastard: It seeks out Ghost Wolves and brings them to its cult along with other werewolves that fall for it's lies and manipulates them into fighting and killing other werewolves, enjoying even when its own servants die because it's one less werewolf in the world.
• Protective Charm: It can made its werewolf followers No-Sell silver by giving them Essence it has previously tainted, something that makes its lies seem all the more credible and it's followers more faithful.
• Treacherous Advisor: To all it's followers.
• Unwitting Pawn: Every Urdam sincerely believes that the idigam is a real Lune that offers them an opportunity to atone for the sins of their progenitors.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Among its followers, who see it as a messiah that will help them redeem themselves, when it only wants all of them dead.
• Weakened by the Light: Being an imitation of a Lunar Spirit it will die if it sends too much time in sunlight.
• Weaksauce Weakness: The idigam must obey anyone carrying a piece of the actual Falcon landing module or an authentic Apollo 15 mission patch. Unfortunately, you cannot order it to do anything obviously suicidal or that's outside of its capabilities.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Once the Urdam destabilize and destroy Uratha society in a way it can not recover, Deceiver will drive them mad and make them destroy each other.

Sag'suga Isim, the Endless, the Empty Hunger

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• The Corruption: How it creates servants like the Empty.
• Dark Is Evil: The idigam can only materialize in darkness, using its influence over entropy and decay to further twist the world to its needs so it can move about afterwards.
• Eye Scream: The Empty have gaping holes of nothingness where their eyes should be.
• For Science!: Its only motivation is understanding how entropy works and how to become it. This makes it very interested in werewolves because of their regenerative abilities.
• Fighting a Shadow: The Entropy Elementals are not really spirits but portions of the idigam with some individuality it lets loose to either help it or distract werewolves. To make things more confusing, some of them are also spirits it ripped apart to study their decay.
• Genre Savvy: Since the packs would interfere with its experiments, it prefers to avoid them or distract them with its creations before packing up and moving on to another location. Also, it and some other idigams knew they were no match for Father Wolf, so they hid under the Earth or in the farthest reaches of the Hisil until he was dead.
• Humanoid Abomination: The Empty, the servants of the idigam in the real world. They look human but they lack eyes and are literally hollow, as in when they die they deflate as if they were balloons.
• Mad Scientist: It wants to understand entropy because that would make it able to find ways to sustain itself indefinitely, making everything else like itself.
• Make Them Rot: The whole point of its activities and interests. The idigam only wants to know and experiment with decay of all kinds.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Endless, Empty Hunger.
• No-Sell: Being nearly void of everything makes the Empty unable to be affected by supernatural powers that control, manipulate or read minds.
• Outside-Context Problem: The Entropy Elementals to werewolves, since they are spirits acting outside the common behaviors of their type, to the point where they can be confused with magath until it's to late.
• Red Right Hand: Every “living” servant of this idigam, be human or animal, is rotten in some way because they are also experimentation subjects in it's quest to understand and control necrosis.
• Soulless Shell: The Empty, humans that the idigam literally hollowed out and turned into its servants.
• Walking Wasteland: Let's just say that when an incarnation of entropy interacts with the living world things tend to not remain very... stable.

Ansar-zalag, the Heavenly Fire

This prideful idigam only is known to want two things: Kill werewolves and grow more powerful. Also, it's one of the more alien members of its species because it's literally an alien: most of it's current powers came from when it devoured the essence of a literal star-spirit from another part of the galaxy. It doesn't have many servants due to it's egocentric personality but sometimes it can swallow that pride and create some servants to help it, something it doesn't really like.

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• Cold Iron: Incapable of harming anyone carrying a piece of meteoric iron.
• Eldritch Abomination: Both it and its servants the Lilia’izi look like small living suns that somehow don't radiate heat.
• Humanoid Abomination: It looks like a humanoid form surrounded by flames but has never been human. It's human servants, the Namnigir, are those who survived being infused with its power and are also examples.
• It's All About Me: And HOW! It is stated that it doesn't care for anyone and prefers to do things itself to ensure they are done according to it's standards. Even one apparent Pet the Dog moment on its part was just so it would eat that spirit. However, its inteligent enough to know that it can't be everywere so it sends its offspring, the Lilia’izi, as scouts and to soft up its prey on rare occasions.
• Kick the Dog: It found a small star-spirit, a fragment of a dead star, and hid it from other spirits by pretending to be its friend, caring and nurturing it with the sole intention of eating it when it was powerful enough.
• Kill It with Fire: How it deals with nearly everything.
• Light Is Not Good: It is surrounded by light and its servants seem to be little living stars, but it only wants to incinerate people.
• Meaningful Name: The Heavenly Fire, since it's living fire that came from the moon and it's coalesced form looks like a biblical representation of an angel.
• Playing with Fire
• Power of the Sun: After devouring, completely or partially, a star-spirit.
• Radiation-Induced Superpowers: Already a powerful... something, it became even more powerful after being hit by a nuclear test in the Moruroa atoll.
• You Will Be Spared: It only attacks the Pure when they sit in it's path or hold something it desires. According to them, their ancestors had no part in jailing the idigam, whereas the Forsaken were accessories to Father Wolf. Also, the Namnigir are only created when it doesn't just vaporize the person trying to contact it.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Not only can anyone carrying a piece of meteoric iron No-Sell it's attacks but it would die if it's hit enough times by weapons made of rocks, coral or wood from the Moruroa atoll, where it first escaped to after the Apollo 11 module.

Gagh-Azur, the Mouth of the Depths

In the days of Pangaea Gagh-Azur rose from the ocean and ate everything in her path to mix essence and flesh for unknown reasons. Urfarah followed her and waited until she surfaced once again and cast her into the sky after days of fighting. When she returned home, she hid in the ocean to escape from Father Wolf but her hunger drove her in time to the surface and she discovered the death of her Nemesis. Furious she gnawed away the Gauntlet and came back to her old habits, devouring spirits and flesh in both worlds in her experiments to create life.

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• Animalistic Abomination: Most of her creations have the general shape of recognizable sea fauna, but everything about them is wrong, like aerial jellyfish with human features and electric tentacles, or icthyoid bodies that drag themselves across the sand with human hands.
• The Assimilator: How she creates her minions and steals traits.
• Been There, Shaped History: She is so old that some of her creations appear in fossil records... like the Burgess Shale.
• Big Eater: There's a reason she's called "The Mouth of the Depths". She will eat anything, be it humans, spirits, Claimed, fish, werewolves, sand or sediment and is never satisfied. Her children inherit this hunger and one possibility about why she attacked the land in Pangaea was to end her roiling hunger.
• Combat Tentacles: Uses them to ensnare prey and eat them. Also, a usual feature of her creations.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Some say that it was one of the first magath, but if that's true, now she isn't one.
• Green-Eyed Monster: She is full of envy for the life forms that fill her domain because they are symmetric and endlessly varied, and she is all too aware that her body is imperfect and no matter how many aspects she steals it will never be coherent.
• Home Field Advantage: She leaves a trail of disappearances, so the werewolves always have to avoid the police and the media. Also, being an underwater idigam, she finds it difficult to move on land, just like werewolves have difficulty fighting her underwater.
• Humanoid Abomination: Most of the spawn she makes from humans, like Brine Walkers and Ig’amargha.
• I'm a Humanitarian: She eats humans because she noticed that they can shape the world around them in fascinating ways and hopes to learn how to create true life from them.
• Kryptonite Factor: Coral can cut her hide.
• Mighty Glacier: She is slow, but her great size and power compensates for that during her fights.
• Mirroring Factions: Both the idigam and the werewolves share a need to hunt.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Is described as one and creates more.
• Mother of a Thousand Young: She create multiple monstrous creatures in her belly that she then spits upon the land every full moon. These "Mawspawn" include land animals Claimed by seagoing spirits (Brine Walkers), magath hybrids of land and sea spirits, and alien creatures that defy explanation (Hashbar'dumu, Ig’amargha and Mur’hal Gushu).
• Our Centaurs Are Different: Mur’hal Gushu. Lower body of a gigantic crab and upper body of human or other animal.
• Sea Monster: Is one and creates more.
• The Soulless: The Hashbar'dumu don't leave behind ghosts or creates spirit reflections, a fact that terrifies werewolves.
• Tortured Monster: Due to her inability to understand how biology works most of her creations have short and painful lives that makes being killed by a werewolf a Mercy Kill.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Sometimes she eats ghost ships and their inhabitants.

The Broken Majesty

One unknown idigam that inhabits Pak Kret, Bangkok, and appears to be only interested in become King or Queen of the Shadow in Thailand. This idigam is mentioned in the The Pack sourcebook for 2nd edition.

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• Body Horror: Its Coalesced form looks like a living tower made of flesh and bones.
• Body of Bodies: It manifest as a giggling and burbling mountain of flesh and faces that totters along on a forest of legs.
• Divine Right of Kings: It didn't claim this yet but has the power to backup the claim if it does.
• The Dreaded: EVERYONE in Thailand, be they Pure, Forsaken, Spirits, or Host, fears its very appearance. Between its nature as an idigam and its appearance this is not a surprise.
• The Spook: About the only thing anyone knows about it is that it wants to rule the Shadow of Thailand, and what it does to werewolves and spirits. No one even knows its name in First Tongue or its history.
• Offered the Crown: What it demands the werewolves do. Of course, they are very wary about it.
• Outside-Context Problem: When it first appeared, no one had idea of what it was and, of course, the attacks by the werewolves were... futile. Even with knowledge of what it is, everyone only has more questions.
• Requisite Royal Regalia: It's decked out with the regalia of a hundred different monarchies.
• Slasher Smile: Hundreds of them.
• Time Abyss: Nothing strange for an Idigam, but it's possible that it is the idigam known as the Builder of Tongues mentioned in Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Ages, making it active at least 10000 years ago.

Anaba'hi, The Infiltrator

An idigam mentioned in Night Horrors - Shunned By The Moon, Anaba'hi was fascinated by life and how it changed with evolution and extinction. She saw the Uratha as agents of destruction that threatened the natural and careful progression of life with their might and magic. After returning to Earth from her imprisonment on the moon, she was furious and dismayed by how the world seemed to have lost its infinite potential due to the split between the Shadow and the mortal world. However, she soon discovered fragile innocent things of hope and wonder that she wants to protect. The problem? Said things are the souls of children.

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• Achilles' Heel: Her bane is fresh green wood from the corpse of trees at the site of her return to Earth.
• Friend to All Children: How Anaba'hi sees herself. She seeks to protect the "perfect" souls of children from pain and suffering, starting with the students of Sanctuary School.
• My Beloved Smother: Anaba'hi is loathe to let any student under her care leave any school that she's taken over. For schools that aren't as secretive or exclusive as Sanctuary School, she only grudgingly allows students to head home for the holidays, but her jealous protectiveness continues to grow.
• World of Silence: Her ultimate goal, born from her obsession with protecting the innocent soul of children from the pain and suffering of the world.

Others

The Bale Hounds

Spiritual descendants of the Black Spiral Dancers of Werewolf: The Apocalypse, the Bale Hounds are werewolves who have abandoned the creeds of both the Forsaken and the Pure. Instead, having looked closely at the Crapsack World they live in, they have formed the opinion that the Maeljin, corrupt Incarnae embodying Avarice, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Pride, Sloth, Wrath, Deceit and Destruction who inhabit the Wounds and their minions are not only the most powerful of all spirits, but are destined to win control over the world and turn everything into one giant Wound.

So, they have joined up with the "winning team".

The Bale Hounds' exact numbers and status is left up to individual Storytellers to customize for their own campaigns, but the default assumption is that they are a distinct minority power in comparison to the Pure and even the Forsaken, compelling them to work as lone double-agents or small, twisted cults that know they will be destroyed if their corruption is ever revealed.

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• Ax-Crazy: The stereotypical Bale Hound is a barely-sentient monster in thrall to their own darkest urges. Unfortunately, this is all most Forsaken and Pure know of them, which lets the subtler, less rabid Hounds fly under the radar.
• Belief Makes You Stupid: In the Shadows of the UK sourcebook, it's noted that Bale Hounds have a disproportionately high presence in the UK because of the strong historical influence of Christianity, which unambiguously portrays werewolves as irredeemable agents of Satan and willing servants of evil. When this is combined with an usually high majority of Ghost Wolves, the lack of proper werewolf culture to fall back on means that many of those confused, tormented werewolves either fall back on their human beliefs and become convinced they are the Devil's Dogs, or they have no way of resisting the blandishments and arguments of Bale Hounds when they come to convert them.
• Black Magic: Beyond the unique gifts granted by the Maeljin, Bale Hounds know many rites that would be unspeakable even to the Pure.
• Broken Angel: They make these. The Rite of Dead Light, a ritual known only to the Bale Hounds, allows them to take a Lune (one of Luna's personal spirit-servants) and subject it to Cold-Blooded Torture, leaving it a quivering, near-death mass of Corpus. They can then force it to teach them the perverse Gifts they most favor. There's a catch, though: the Flayed One (as the unfortunate Lune is known) can no longer support its own existence, and must be fed Essence every night at moonrise or finally get the release of death, which really pisses off the Maeljin because of how hard it is to make the damn things.
• The Corrupter: Bale Hounds exist to spread metaphysical corruption, and seducing another werewolf into embracing the Maeljin is a great triumph for them.
• Cult: They're technically a Religion of Evil, but they're too disparate and small to fully qualify for that status.
• Dystopia Justifies the Means: Their end goal is to turn the world into one big Wound and rule alongside the Maeljin over a land of torment and pain.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: The most commonly-told story about their origins is that the werewolves who would become the first Bale Hounds were traveling the Shadow and happened to find the exact spot where Father Wolf died. What they saw there snapped their minds like twigs, and they decided selling themselves to the Maeljin made sense.
• Hell Hound: Not by physical definitions, but they are werewolves who serve the setting's equivalent of Demon Lords And Arch Devils, so they still fit the spirit.
• Manipulative Bastard: Any Hound of Deceit or Envy can be this, turning packmate against packmate with a few words.
• Paranoia Fuel: In-Universe: Any werewolf could potentially be a Bale Hound, and even their own packmates wouldn't know it.
• Psycho Supporter: If you have a Bale Hound in your party, congratulations; they're going to work towards converting you if they can or killing you if they can't. Or if it's just more expedient.
• Resignations Not Accepted: You don't get to leave the Bale Hounds. A Bale Hound who can't stomach the work anymore is royally screwed - they can't run to the Forsaken or the Pure, because both groups will want them dead as repayment for what's sure to be a very long list of sins, but if they don't try to get help, the Maeltinet will have any other Bale Hounds in the area after them to make sure they don't give up any of the cult's secrets.
• Villainous Valor: They actually have quite a lot of respect for the Forsaken. They still think their efforts are doomed and the Bale Hounds are on the winning side, but they can appreciate the courage and stubbornness it takes to fight for a hopeless cause. They certainly respect the Forsaken far more than they do the Pure, whom they roll their eyes at and consider to be unwitting pawns. After all, with how chaotic the reconstitution of Pangaea would be if the Pure's methods succeeded, it would end up turning the world into one giant Wound.

Tribal Totems

Soulless Wolf (Viruhk-Ur)

Also known as the "Eyes of the Maeljin", Soulless Wolf purports to be Father Wolf's ninth offspring, and claims to have allied with the Maeljin when he saw the way the wind was blowing. Whether he is telling the truth, and whether he is the totem of the Bale Hounds, or simply acts as a messenger for the Maeljin, is up to the storyteller's discretion.

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• Bad Boss: Bale Hounds who fail him don't last long.
• Black Eyes of Evil: Has dead, black, shark-like eyes that never move.
• Cain and Abel: With both the Pure and the Forsaken totems, who took a vow never to speak his name again.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Seems quite self-aware about his own, and the Maeljin's, role in the overall plot. He also doesn't seem to care.
• Deal with the Devil: Has some sort of arrangement with the Maeljin.
• Dragon-in-Chief: He's not the Big Bad of the Bale Hounds, but both players and the Hounds themselves are much more likely to encounter him then they are the Maeljin themselves.
• Loners Are Freaks: Left the First Pack very early on.
• Mouth of Sauron: Acts as the eyes and voice of the Maeljin in the world.
• Multiple-Choice Past: Several options are presented for Soulless Wolf's origins. Either he is the ninth son of Father Wolf, unpersoned by his brothers after his turn to evil; or he is a particularly powerful spirit in service to the Maeljin; or he is merely a composite avatar of the Maeljin.
• The Soulless: Likely, given his name.
• The Stoic: More like "has had all his emotions burned out of him". Soulless Wolf simply doesn't care enough to have feelings about anything.
• Turncoat: Ran out on the First Pack long before the Pure/Forsaken rift.
• You Have Failed Me: Rarely, but pissing him off is a good way for a Bale Hound's career to meet a very messy, very final end.

The Hosts

The broken, twisted descendants of malevolent Pangaeans (flesh-bound, primal spirits that survived in the Border Marches before Urfarah's death destroyed them) that Father Wolf fought but couldn't completely destroy during the days of Pangaea. The Hosts take various twisted spirit-beast forms, devouring their own kind to grow into stronger forms, which ultimately merge with humans to achieve a mightier state. Each Host is driven by its own drive, based on its original spiritual ancestor.

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• Body Horror: Hosts that reach the power to join and become hybrids are always hideously warped, twisted creatures.
• Cannibalism Superpower: To get stronger, a Host needs to physically devour other "Shards" of the same Host class, as this is the only way to evolve and mutate into the higher forms.
• Demonic Possession: Once strong enough, any Host can take over a human body. Unlike most spirits, even those merely Ridden by a Host end up dead, as Hosts kill their human victims and then puppeteer the corpse to interact with the world around them.
• Monstrous Cannibalism: The secondary goal of all Hosts is generally devouring other Hosts of the same class in order to increase their strength.
• The Worm That Walks: As a defense mechanism, when any single Host is physically beaten, it reverts to a massive swarm of deformed and distorted "base creatures" (spiders for Azlu, rats for Beshilu, locusts for Srizaku, etc) that then attempts to flee in all direction. One of these contains the essence of the defeated Host, and unless you manage to luck out and kill that one, or just destroy them all, the Host will survive, take a new host, and pick up where it left off.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Intra-Host cooperation is a fairly rare event, since all Hosts are compelled to devour each other to get stronger. When it happens, usually there's a singular strong and developed Host able to keep them all in line. Averted with the Beshilu. Perhaps because they are the weakest of all Hosts, perhaps because of influence from their ratly nature, whatever the reason, they are far more communal than Hosts tend to be and so are usually found in groups.

Azlu: the Spider Host

Generally held as the first and oldest of the Hosts in Uratha mythology, the Azlu were once a demonic Pangaean spider named Zur Suhikath, "The Spinner-Hag". Though Pangaea had its place for predators, the Spinner-Hag was The Hedonist, defying the laws of the primal world to greedily pursue a life of sensual indulgence, rampantly conquering, enslaving and devouring all that caught her many eyes. Such an attitude drew the wrath of Father Wolf, especially due to her fondness for consuming werewolves. Breaking off his then-hunt for the Plague King, he pursued the Spinner-Hag relentlessly, destroying every abandoned web-palace and tearing through all of her cunning traps. Realizing she was doomed, the cowardly demon devised a plan; as she fled before the raging wolf-spirit, she laid thousands of tiny eggs, each containing a small shard of her very soul. When she was destroyed and Pangaea was ultimately shattered, these hatched and became the Azlu. Driven by mad urges to strengthen the Gauntlet and cut off the two worlds entirely, and craving the delicious flesh and blood of werewolves, the Azlu creep into the skulls of human victims and devour their brains so they can take control of their bodies.

Appearing in the corebooks of both editions, Azlu were fleshed out in the Predators sourcebook for 1st edition.

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• Alternate History: An In-Universe example; some versions of the story of the Spinner-Hag claim that the monster managed to bite Father Wolf just once before being destroyed, and that the First-Forsaken slew him in an unjustified assault, mistaking the curse-laced poison for true weakness. Only the Pure and some Bale Hounds tell this version of the story, which the Forsaken fiercely reject.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Justified in the Predators 1e sourcebook; the insane daughters of an even crazier spirit, Azlu know that sealing off the two worlds will almost assuredly kill or render insane millions of flesh-side beings and may potentially destroy both worlds. And they don't care in the slightest. The Azlu weave and kill because they must, they can, and they want to. There is no question that they will "defect" from their way of life, any more than a human can "defect" from eating and breathing; their spirit-driven intelligences simply cannot comprehend or encompass a reason to cease their lives and duties.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Of the Giant Spider variety.
• Mother of a Thousand Young: The mightiest of the Azarath can develop a special mutation; the Egg Sac. These "Azlu Crones", as they are known, are the only Azlu capable of reproducing, laying dozens of eggs in a sitting that all hatch into new Azlu. Fortunately, it's an extremely rare mutation and very difficult for an Azlu to fuel, which means Azlu guard their "Crones" with their lives.
• Spider People: When an Azlu gains enough power by consuming its weaker siblings it can meld with a human victim's body to become an evolved creature called an Azarath. These monsters craft forms that are a hideous mixture of human and spider traits.

Beshilu: the Rat Host

The second of the Hosts known to be born, and the most common next to the Azlu, the Beshilu are the soul-fragmented spawn of a titanic disease-spirit, a Pangaean demon known as the Plague King. This demon earned Father Wolf's wrath for its delight in slaughtering mortals and spirits alike, visiting plague and ruin upon all things for the sheer joy of watching their suffering. Though distracted for a short time by the Spinner-Hag, Father Wolf could not be stopped and ultimately slew the Plague-King. As he lay dying, the Plague-King summoned swarms of rats which devoured his tainted flesh with unnatural speed, and from these creatures eventually were born the Beshilu. Terrified of werewolves, the Beshilu seek to gnaw down the Gauntlet and force the worlds of flesh and spirit to reunite, eating the hearts of living humans so that they can use their bodies to their advantage.

Appearing in the corebooks of both editions, Beshilu were fleshed out in the Predators sourcebook for 1st edition.

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• Always Chaotic Evil: As with the Azlu, justified in Predators. The Beshilu were literally created with two impulses: fear the Uratha, and gnaw through the Gauntlet. They believe, to their absolute core, that if they destroy the Gauntlet completely it will recreate the Plague King. This is the entirety of their existence, the one impulse that drives them: avoid the Uratha, restore the Plague King. Every Beshilu alive knows little more than those two ideas.
• Blind Seer: Rokhan who develop the power of Prophet's Vision, the ability to foretell the future, lose their sight in the process. Oddly, they still have to look at whatever they're using as a divinatory instrument.
• The Fundamentalist: When Beshilu get religious, they are invariably fanatically devout to their twisted doctrines.
• Plague Master: They have a natural affinity for disease-spirits, so where Beshilu gather, plagues swiftly follow. Rokhans, the most powerful of evolved Beshilu, even have powers specifically relating to inflicting disease, such as infected claws or hideous skin-tumors that weep disease-laden pus.
• Rat Men: Their evolved forms after taking possession of a human body are always some hideous melding of human and rodent features.
• Religious Bruiser: Beshilu often form mad cults and twisted religions about their works, particularly those in the United Kingdom.
• You Dirty Rat!: They're literally embodiments of the rat in its symbolism as an agent of disease and foulness.
• Zerg Rush: As Beshilu are more communal than usual for Hosts, their primary tactic is to swarm foes in a wave of possessed bodies and grotesque hybrids.

Srizaku: the Locust Host

The most common and well-known of the "lesser Hosts" (which still isn't saying much), the Srizaku are the Shartha most likely to be known as the Third Host. They were once locusts, before they were infected by the soul of the Famine-Bringer, a monstrous Pangaean whose dominion was over insects and hunger, taking the form of an immense locust. Indeed, it is sometimes said that the Srizaku were truly the first hosts, for Famine-Bringer was brought down in Father Wolf's prime, before his final battles with the Spinner-Hag and Plague King. Taking the forms of swarms of omnivorous locusts, they devour the innards of human beings and take control of their bodies for a single, simple purpose. To feed.

Srizaku are detailed in the Predators sourcebook for 1st edition.

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• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Locusts, with the most powerful hybrids being humanoid locusts.
• Big Eater: Their hunger is literally insatiable.
• Eldritch Abomination: The true identity of the Famine-Bringer, according to the Night Horrors: Wolfsbane sourcebook? An idigam. Mussughana, the Ravenous Swarm. A creature that is very much alive, well and haunting the World of Darkness today.
• Extreme Omnivore: Being incarnations of demonic hunger, Srizaku will devour anything so long as it's organic.

Halaku: the Crow Host

Eerie, ominous figures, little is known about the Halaku. Their obsession seems to be watching, claiming human proxies to further their web of information-gathering. Patient, cautious and careful, Halaku simply watch, and wait. Whenever a Halaku does have a goal, it seems to always be an individual thing, rather than the all-consuming drive of other Hosts. They are believed to be the spawn of a Pangaean known various as "The Corpse-Eater" and "The Carrion Prince".

2nd Edition changes some details about them. Now they enter a living human body after eating their eyes and force the possesed person to kill people to make a nest with their skeletons, killing them if they don´t follow their orders. There are no details about for what they would need a nest of bones but is likely for reproductive purposes.

Halaku are detailed in the Predators sourcebook for 1st edition.

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• Creepy Crows: They're crow-spirits that can assume grotesquely half-human forms, with no apparent purpose save to lurk around spying on people (or at least werewolves) and looking ominous.
• Eye Scream: Halaku possess humans by gouging out and swallowing their eyeballs whilst they're still alive.
• Cannibal Larder: What their recent made nests would look to anyone without any real knowledge about how the World of Darkness works. Of course this is likely to happen, since crows are carrion eaters and they don't get outside their houses often...
• Luck Manipulation Mechanic: Their Fickle Fate aspect allows Halaku to inflict bad luck on people who displease them.
• Necromancer: To a very, very limited degree; all Halaku have the inherent ability to speak with the dead.
• Not-So-Abandoned Building: Due to their isolation, at least in Second Edition, any house whose owner they use as a suit would look abandoned, with them living in basements or similar structures. Of course, this state makes the house likely to attract smug or brave children wanting to play, hobos searching where to sleep and other similar people who obviously would disappear...
• Token Good Teammate: Unlike the other breeds of Host, the Halaku actually get along fairly well with the Forsaken. Though the two are far from allies, there's a general "live and let live" sentiment between them. This is in part because, unlike the other Hosts, their goal is not inherently destructive - they gather information and keep to themselves.
• Weakened by the Light: Daylight causes Halaku to rot if they're exposed to it, so most only go out at night unless they have a host body.
• Winged Humanoid: In hybrid form, Halaku always combine a generally humanoid body frame with flight-capable wings.

Razilu: the Snake Host

Rarest and most mysterious of all the Hosts, virtually nothing is known about them beyond that they exist, and they are driven to hide themselves, reacting violently when their presence is discovered.

Razilu are detailed in the Predators sourcebook for 1st edition.

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• Charm Person: They have a hypnotic gaze as one of their inherent powers.
• Curious as a Monkey: If the option that their "purpose" is to sleep is chosen, Razilu are best defined by their insatiable curiosity when they are awake and about. Of course, since these Razilu spend 99 years out of every 100 in the deepest slumber imaginable, it's rather justified they want to cram as much learning and discovery into their one year awake as they can.
• Food Chain of Evil: One of the options presented for Razilu is that their "purpose" is to hunt other Hosts, making them predators of Azlu, Beshilu and the others.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The "serpentine grace" of their host-bodies is described as looking threatening, rather than sensual.
• Shrug of God: They're deliberately left blank in their sourcebook so that Storytellers can make them fit what role they have, including chosing their potential purpose from a list.
• Super-Strength: Razilu can double their Strength for a single turn by spending a point of Essence.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: If their purpose is "healing", then they will probably fall under this; Razilu "healers" are not entirely concurrent with human concepts of compassion and mercy.

Adarusharu: the Wolf Host

Twisted lupine spirits commonly assumed to be "just" spirits of fear-of-wolves, the Adarusharu are an enigmatic lupine Host that possesses packs of wolves, dogs and coyotes, turning them into Gauntlet-hopping gestalt entities that exist to haunt mortals, growing ever-stronger as they feed on the fear their hunting generates.

Adarusharu are detailed in the Night Horrors: Wolfsbane sourcebook for 1st edition.

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• Canis Major: Their "war form" is at least the size of a large horse.
• Fallen Hero: Speculated in universe. Some werewolves wonder if they are Shards from Father Wolf himself.
• Hell Hound: Spirit-possessed canines that literally feed on fear.
• Hive Mind: All of the canines possessed by an Adarusharu are a singular organism, on a mental/spiritual level.
• Multiple Head Case: When an Adarusharu colaesces into its war form, it becomes a many-headed abomination.
• Savage Wolves: They're wolf-spirits that possess packs of mortal canines in order to sow terror and death among mortals so that they can feed and grow strong on their fear.

Usudwirku: the Fungus Host

One of the least understood of all Hosts, most werewolves don't actually realize these creatures are Hosts at all. Instead, they believe them to be two separate phenomena; the Usudwirku (mushrooms) proper, a species of spiritually aware fungus that has a tendency to colonize loci on both sides and would ignored were it not for its lethally toxic spores, and the Namusiden ("The Marching Dead"), mysteriously revived corpses of people killed by werewolves who somehow keep returning, each time nothing but a hollow skin filled by slimy, gloppy fungal matter. In fact, the Usudwirku are driven by a mad purpose to colonize loci, as part of a long-term to break down the Gauntlet by bridging the two worlds. The Namusiden are created as propagators and guardians; the fungus-filled corpses spread spores to new loci, and distract werewolves from destroying the new fungal colonies by playing headgames.

Usudwirku are detailed in the Night Horrors: Wolfsbane sourcebook for 1st edition.

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• From a Single Cell: The Namusiden are the unliving breeding spores of the Usudwirku form-and so long as they have the embryonic spore in them, all they need is a thimbleful of their original bodies and decaying organic matter to reconstruct themselves.
• Fungus Humongous: Downplayed. The mushrooms above the ground are generally no bigger than ordinary mushrooms. The primary body below the soil, however, can easily spread for miles, if given long enough to grow.
• Manipulative Bastard: The Namusiden are not at all fighters by nature, but what they do have is an extremely cunning mind, memories from their bodies, and the willingness to use the guilt of werewolves against them while scheming to force them out of loci.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Theoretically, they could potentially recreate Pangaea. But, like all spirits, their mindlessly amoral pursuit of this goal overrides any good that may come of their actions, especially since they are lethally poisonous to werewolves and humans alike.

Uglathlu: the Worm Host

An extremely rare strain of Host, the Uglathlu are spirits of physical and spiritual decay, existing only to induce dissolution wherever they go, making them the most potent sources for Wounds in the world. Only capable of propagating by possessing the body of an extremely morally bankrupt individual (Morality 2 or less) as they die and then using the body to create a large Wound, their spiritual impact more than outweighs their limited numbers, as mortals descend into insane evil and spirits are driven away or defiled.

Uglathlu are detailed in the Night Horrors: Wolfsbane sourcebook for 1st edition.

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• Evil Smells Bad: Uglathlu bodies always smell like freshly dug graves and decay.
• Moral Event Horizon: In a sense. Uglathlu don't cross it, technically — they're In-Universe embodiments of the point beyond it. Their presence literally drives people into evil, opening up Wounds if they stay in one place too long.
• Walking Wasteland: If an Uglathlu stays in a given spot too long, they'll cause it to develop into a Wound, a hellish spiritual void where only the most evil and twisted of spirits flock. Indeed, just being near one for too long causes a person's Karma Meter to drop as the Worm Host subtly devours their spirit.
• The Worm That Walks: Puns aside, as Uglathlu eat through their bodies, they gradually replace all of the internal organs with hundreds of tightly knotted pink worms. If their pet Wound becomes toxic to their satisfaction, each worm becomes a new Uglathlu and crawls off to find new places to defile.

Sidalaaghu: the Cicada Host

Another very rare strain of Host, the Sidalaaghu only apperar for a brief period in the later part od summer, through August and September, in enough numbers that the Forsaken are more likely to relocate or hide until their onlaught ends than fight them.

Sisalaaghu are mentioned in the corebook for 2nd edition.

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• Hell Is That Noise: They are infamous for deafening victims with their song — and since werewolves have more sensitive hearing than humans...
• Run or Die: Due to their numbers and noise, most werewolves simply relocate or hole up their packs until the onslaught ends instead of fighting them.

Alaghidim: the Crab Host

Most werewolves will likely spend all their lives without fighting one of these, because they often don't leave the ocean. However, the Forsaken and Pure natives of Tokyo knows them very well because they fought one of their nests for nearly a century and the Hosts didn't get expelled from their fortress in Odaiba.

Alaghidim are mentioned in the corebook for 2nd edition.

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• Determinator: They managed to survive the attacks on their stronghold of Odaiba for a century, to the point that the werewolves consider it suicidal to go into their territory.
• Ghost Ship: They usually cause fishing boats to vanish without trace.
• Paranoia Fuel: Odaiba is an enormous shopping and entertainment district, so the crabs have potentially thousands or millions of possible victims. And they have been there for over a century...
• Suicide Mission: The Forsaken consider "going to Odaiba", their fortress in Tokyo, to be suicidal.

Kha-Yaawk: the Leech Host

A kind of Host endemic to the rainforest of the Golden Triangle, where Thailand, Myanmar and Laos meet. They are solitary creatures, capable of possessing humans and animals alike, that gain sustenance — and Essence — by drinking blood, and the blood of an Uratha is particularly potent to them; once they have fed, they do not need to eat again for months. The worst thing about them is what happens to their victims: if the resulting desiccated corpses rot in standing water, sometimes their reanimates as gory, slithering monstrosities just as blood-hungry as the Hosts.

Kha-Yaawk are mentioned in the The Pack sourcebook for 2nd edition.

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• Necromancer: Played with. Some of their victims will return as zombie/vampire hybrids but they don't control them or care about what they do.
• Odd Name Out: Justified. They were named and discovered by Urathra natives of the Golden Triangle and likely any knowledge of the name of the original entity and its crimes against Father Wolf have been lost to time.
• Our Zombies Are Different: If the bodies of their victims are allowed to rot in stagnant water, they can reanimate as bloody, bloodthirsty undead horrors.
• Orifice Invasion: They enter into their victims through the ears, nose or mouth while they are sleeping.
• Never Sleep Again: They can only possess sleeping victims.

Ukusguaku: the Lamprey Host

Also from the Golden Triangle, members of this Host also burrow into the flesh for blood but the real danger is what they do to the Gauntlet. The Barrier becomes almost fluid, a bloody medium through which the Ukusguaku swim and prowl, and starts seeping blood and oozing into the Flesh. Worse, the Meninna tales whisper of wallowing horrors reaching out of its depths, which makes the Forsaken worried that something worse is using them as its minions.

Ukusguaku are mentioned in the The Pack sourcebook for 2nd edition, and expanded in Night Horrors: Shunned by the Moon.

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• Apocalypse Cult: Those who drink the blood produced by the Ukusguaku infesting an area become maddened by visions of gods the Hosts themselves are only vaguely aware of and form crazed churches of blood, sea, and bone.
• Eldritch Abomination: If the tales of the Meninna are true then at least one of them, likely an Idigam, is the one that orders them around.
• Hostile Terraforming: Ukusguaku infestations spit excess blood into the Gauntlet, causing it to become a dark red sea that is their natural environment. As the Gauntlet metamorphoses, that same bloody ocean leaks into the physical world to make it something suitable for them.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Very old, very successful Ukusguaku are called "wyrms" because they become truly enormous lampreys with disturbingly human eyes.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Lampreys possessed by shards of a primal spirit who can possess humans themselves.
• Space Master: A severe Ukusguaku infestation turns the Gauntlet into a literal bloody sea that they can swim through, manipulate the thickness of at will, and even irrigate to move loci around.
• Villain Teleportation: Because of their effect on the Gauntlet, they can attack from everywhere if they have corrupted it.
• The Virus: Downplayed; being fed on by a Lamprey Host does not make you one of them, but leaves an imprint of their Essence — which is how they get around the fact that, being fish, they have a hard time with the From a Single Cell regeneration of most Hosts; if an Ukusguaku is killed on land, they can reshape that fingerprint into a new lamprey for their shard-soul to possess, and right inside a convenient subject for Demonic Possession.

Other Hosts

There are rumors of even rarer Hosts than the ones explained above, so strange and twisted that the Forsaken do not expect them to exist. Of course, such shortsightedness is likely to kill them.

These Hosts are mentioned in the Blasphemies sourcebook.

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• Cult: It's mentioned that the Host often have cabals of human devotees protecting and giving them power, but the "Stinger" is the only one known to have willing followers.
• Omnicidal Maniac: The Ghost Hosts only want two things, to kill people and suck their souls to create more of them that will kill more people to create more until everything around them is dead.
• Worm That Walks: "Stinger" is believed to be a living hive to a colony of Bee Hosts; it wants to build "hives" and it wants to "pollinate" both the Gurihal and the Hisil.

Wolf-Blooded

Wolf-Blooded is a term used to design humans who have werewolf ancestry, and as such are likely to either go through the First Change, or give birth to werewolves; every werewolf first started out as a Wolf-Booded. Because of their bood, they are immune to Lunacy, and have some affinity with Uratha, who see them as family.

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• Fantastic Racism: Downplayed; while they are considered below actual werewolves, they still are seen as more important than regular humans, and werewolves perceive them as family, meaning they can be very protective toward them. How well they are treated depends on the pack and lodge, but usually they are seen as important, if just because they are needed to perpetuate the species.
• I Am Who?: Not all Wolf-Blooded grew up aware of their nature. It's entirely possible for a Wolf-Blooded to spend his entire childhood without knowing about his nature until his First Change happens.
• Mark of the Supernatural: In 2E, each one of them now has at least one "Tell", a strange physical feature betraying their Uratha ancestry. Said Tell usually comes with a special ability that can vary depending on the individual. Interestingly, while Tells disappear after the First Change, they do remain if the Wolf-Blooded go through a different type of transformation (such as being Embraced or an Awakening).
• No-Sell: Wolf-Blooded are completely immune to Lunacy, allowing them to interact with Uratha without suffering any amnesia after witnessing their hybrid forms.
• Took a Level in Badass: In the first edition, Wolf-Blooded was little more than a Merit for mortals granting them some degree of affinity with werewolves and an immunity to Lunacy, which while useful wasn't really that powerful. In 2E, they have been upgraded to a minor Template granting them minor supernatural traits called "Tells", which can include the ability to shapeshift into Urshul form, among others. They are still nowhere near as powerful as actual werewolves, but they now have more potential as fighters.
• The Virus: In 2E, it's possible, albeit rare, for a regular mortal to become a Wolf-Blooded if he was exposed to a sufficienty strong Lunacy to cause a dramatic failure.

Other Shifters

Other Shifters in general

The Uratha are not the only beings to wander the World of Darkness in more forms than one. Other strange lineages of half-man, half-beast also prowl the darkness, alongside mad mystics, cursed souls, mortals ridden by beast-spirits, and other, even stranger things. The majority of focus to non-werewolf shifters is the focus of the 1e sourcebooks Skinchangers and War Against the Pure, with the latter focusing on "true" shifters, although the Balam-Colop appeared in the Blasphemies sourcebook.

There are also the Fera of "Changing Breeds", but nobody likes to talk about "Changing Breeds".

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• Our Werebeasts Are Different: Are they ever! Just take a look a this list of creepy creatures and know that storytellers are actively encouraged to come up with their own unique forms of werebeast.

True Shifters

True Shifters

True Shifters are shapechanging races in their own right. They may begin life as men and become beasts, or they may be born as beasts and become men, or they may know what they are from birth. They may propagate through selective breeding, sorcery, or some strange combination of the two, but whatever induces the change, they are shifters thenceforth, and this trait can never be removed.

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Balam-Colop

Descendants of a cursed line of jaguars once used by the ancient Mesoamericans to conduct human sacrifices, Balam-Colop are born whenever a pregnant jaguar of such lineage kills a human, cursing her young to existence as half-man, half-beast monsters. Balam-Colop are massive and powerful jaguars with near-human intelligence and the ability to assume a beast-man form. Though they lack higher culture of their own, embracing the feral life of their jaguar ancestors, Balam-Colop have a taste for human flesh and must feed on human hearts to power their regenerative abilities. In their hybrid form, Balam-Colop have eerily child-like proportions, with overly large heads and eyes and amply fleshed frames that conceal powerful muscle. In contrast, their jaguar forms are true paragons of their species, large, strong and vital specimens that have their pick of mates, ensuring their tainted bloodline spreads far and wide.

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• Breath Weapon: Balam-Colop can exhale dense clouds of mist, which they use to cover their retreats or enhance their ability to strike from surprise.
• Healing Factor: Weaker than that of a werewolf's, and it only functions if a Balam-Colop has eaten at least one human heart within the last 24 hours, but it does allow them to recover from non-mortal wounds with preternatural swiftness.
• Picky People Eater: Zigzagged. Balam-Colop need to eat human hearts to fuel their powers of regeneration. But they can and will eat the rest of a person, too, as they enjoy the taste of human flesh in general.
• Spider-Sense: Balam-Colop have a limited form of inherent prophetic talent, enabling them to sense danger before it arrives. This makes them almost impossible to ambush, makes their attacks far more accurate, and means that opponents don't gain any benefits from trying to fight them in a group.
• This Was His True Form: Balam-Colop revert to jaguar form upon death.

Suthanu-Sua: the Colony

Cursed and insane werecats driven by mystical compulsions to judge and punish humanity, the Colony seeks out human sinners and destroys them, or is driven insane by the unsated urge to do so.

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• Cat Folk: Played for horror. Suthanu-Sua in their hybrid form resemble grotesquely emaciated and long-limbed humans with clawed digits, a thin coating of cat-like fur, and a rather oversized for its body vaguely anthropomorphic cat's head. The end result is quite hideous.
• Detect Evil: Averted. Despite being compelled to find and slay evil, the Suthanu-Sua have no special ability to sense people who are evil. They have to rely on mundane methods of tracking criminals down... and spirits preserve them if they're wrong.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Suthanu-Sua are mentally compelled to kill sinners and evil doers, with the frequency set by how powerful they are; the most powerful Suthanu-Sua have to be committing a murder a week. Failure to kill drives them insane, with insanity deepening if they still refuse to obey, and can only be cured by finally giving in and committing murder. However, killing people forces a Harmony check if the Suthanu-Sua is at all a decent sort of person (6 for innocents, 7 for sinners), so they'll probably end up going permanently crazy anyway.
• Man Bites Man: Suthanu-Sua with the Spinebite aspect have the ability to deliver an exceptionally lethal bite, allowing them to rip out peoples' throats for immense damage.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Killing someone that they consider innocent is a huge mental blow to the members of the Colony, forcing a roll on the Karma Meter.
• The Virus: Almost literally. Suthanu-Sua enter a quasi-biological mystic condition on every 10th birthday, in which they are compelled to add a new werecat to the Colony. By an act of will, they can secrete a virulent spiritual toxin (which werecats often refer to as "Cat Scratch Fever") and deliver it via their claws. If the Suthanu-Sua can stay within the victim's presence for the next 24 hours, the victim will become a new werecat. Otherwise, the victim dies.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Originally humans, they have the ability to assume the forms of large, feral-looking housecats capable of speech, or eerily mute and alien humanoid cats.

Surthu Athilal: the Distant Ones

Arrogant and vain, the Surthu Athilal are a race of werefalcons who claim the skies as their sovereign territory, jealously defending their chosen aeries from groundling interference almost as zealously as they bicker and war with each other over the pettiest of difficulties.

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• A God Am I: A sign of how arrogant they are; the Distant Ones are all convinced that they are royalty, born with the strains of godhood running in their bloodlines. It's so ubiquitous that renaming themselves after various deities related to the skies is standard practice in their aeries.
• Bizarre Alien Reproduction: Every so often, when a person tries to obsessively climb to a certain height, the Surthu Athilal will recognize that human as one of them in potentia. After abducting the candidate, they perform what they call the Soaring Uplift; a ritual in which at least three of the avian therianthropes pluck their feathers and draw spiraling sigils on the subject's body with a cocktail of egg yolk and bird's blood, shrieking and screeching as they do so. Then, when they have completely covered the subject, they throw him or her from the highest point in their aerie. If the ritual takes, the human is irreversibly transformed into a new Surthu Athilal. If not, they go splat.
• Giant Flyer: Downplayed. In their beast form, Surthu Athilal have a wingspan of six to seven feet and when sitting are easily half that height — which is massive for a falcon.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Surthu Athilal can assume the form of both abnormally large raptors and humanoid eagles in addition to their original human form.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Surthu Athilal are driven almost obsessively by the pursuit of Glory, and thusly their interactions with one another are almost operatic performances of one-upsmanship, rivalry, competition and other petty disputes. Only the intervention of a hostile outside force makes them pull together.
• Winged Humanoid: Only if patagia count. Surthu Athilal can fly in hybrid form, but they don't have distinct, separate wings on their humanoid form.

Bith Balag: the Brineborn

This is the story that the Bith Balag tell. In the beginning, Mother Ocean looked upon the land and saw that man was but an animal, knowing nothing beyond the hypnotic dance of the campfire and the sweet taste of bloody brains oozing from a rock-smashed skull. But she also saw that they had potential. So she gave life to a child of herself, a creature she named Oe, that melded human forms with piscine elements, and sent him to the land to educate man. From Oe's careful tutelage, man learned the rudiments of math, writing, music; everything that would ultimately give them culture and wisdom came from Mother Ocean's generosity. But no matter Oe's gifts, man was still no more than a savage, and proved that by turning on their benefactor without warning or cause. Terrified and bleeding from wounds made by stone axes, Oe fled his assailants by diving into the waters of the sea, only for Mother Ocean to turn on him in a fickle rage. Exiling him, he was trapped on the shoreline forever more, caught between the worlds of man and ocean, as his children have been ever since.

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• Blessed with Suck: For all their powers and shapeshifting abilities, it gives them little benefit. Brineborn can't live too far from sources of water; at 50 miles or more away, it's almost impossible for them to think about anything other than the burning need to get closer to water. However, they can't survive in water, either; the ability to breathe water isn't universal amongst them, and even if they can breathe water, they can only do so for so long. Secondly, spending too long in the water gives them horrific panic attacks as they become seized by an unshakeable conviction that some horrific Sea Monster is going to gulp them down from beneath.
• Dark Is Not Evil: They look like Deep Ones straight out of the Cthulhu Mythos... but they're actually a shy, retiring and decent people, who are laboring under an extremely nasty species-wide curse. There are some bad eggs, but for the most part they want to leave alone and be left alone.
• Evil Matriarch: Mother Ocean, going by their Creation Myth, makes Luna seem a stable and loving mother-figure.
• Interspecies Romance: They have to engage in this in order to reproduce; Brineborn mate with humans to produce more of their own kind, guaranteeing the birth of new Brineborn, but if they mate with each other, the result is a violently insane monster trapped in hybrid form and constantly in the throes of Death Rage.
• Mythology Gag: The results of Brineborn breeding together is very similar to the Metis of Werewolf: The Apocalypse.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: They're shapeshifting, cursed fish-men, who don't even have the ability to breathe underwater as standard.
• Religious Bruiser: Whether they worship Mother Ocean, Christianity, Buddhism or some other faith, the Brineborn tend to be strongly religious.
• Stockholm Syndrome: Implicit in their attitude towards Mother Ocean. She torments them mercilessly, refusing to let them get too close to her or to get away from her, but the Brineborn love her and worship her.
• Tragic Monster: Everything about the Brineborn seems to be the result of someone looking at a Deep One and thinking "how can we make these guys pitiful and sympathetic?"
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Their true form is arguably their hybrid form, which varies a lot, but always looks like a strange melding of human and fish. However, they can also assume human form, or the form of massive fish, such as giant catfish, gars, sturgeons, or, in rarer cases, more predatory horrors like sharks, giant eels and swordfish.

Nidmuzug: the Unclean

Cursed wereroaches who spread a spiritual contamination wherever they go, the Unclean huddle in the dark places of the world, seeking only to be left alone by a world that hates and reviles them.

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• Big Creepy-Crawlies: They're were-cockroaches. It comes with the territory.
• Blessed with Suck: They gain Voluntary Shapeshifting and significant durability... at the cost of being weakened by the light and, of course, turning into hideous roach-men.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Yes, they are hideous, repulsive and terrifying. But most Nidmuzug are actually fairly nice guys... at least, until age and bitterness turns them hostile to a world that rejects them for being what they are, anyway.
• Genius Bonus: The sample wereroach is a girl named Samantha Gregors. This is a reference to Gregor Samsa, protagonist of Franz Kafka's The Metamorophsis, who also experiences a horrifying transformation into a bug.
• Poisonous Person: Nidmuzug have the Venomous aspect as a freebie, imbuing them with lethally poisonous natural weapons.
• Tragic Monster: No Nidmuzug asked to be turned into a hideous, garbage-eating wereroach. But once they changed, they can't change back. And they can't even have children any other way than by this "adoptive" method; wereroach/wereroach breeding always miscarries, and wereroach/human pregnancies are three times as likely to miscarry as normal ones.
• The Virus: A disturbingly literal example. Nidmuzug broadcast a spiritual contamination whenever they increase in Primal Urge, contaminating exposed water sources and raw foodstuffs in a radius of potentially hundreds of feet. Those who eat such food risk becoming sick with a disease that will, if they succumb, turn them into new Nidmuzug.
• The Worm That Walks: Their "beast form" is a mass of 500 or more six-inch-long cockroaches that moves with a singular mind and will.

Gudthabak

Referring to themselves as the Baal-Hadad, these sun-worshiping werebulls stake out territories in the backroads and desolate regions, forcing humans into worshiping them.

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• A God Am I: The natural instinct of the Baal-Hadad is to claim dominance over humans, seeing themselves as intermediaries between Helios, the Incarnae of the Sun, and humans, and thusly as being demigods.
• Animal Gender-Bender: Female Baal-Hadad sport horns as impressive as those of the males in animal and hybrid forms, though otherwise they remain visibly female.
• Breeding Cult: Their primary reason for clashing with the Uratha; Baal-Hadad can only propagate their numbers by mystically transforming wolfbloods into new werebulls. As these same individuals are the primary source of new generations of werewolves, violence swiftly ensues.
• Knight Templar: They regard themselves as arbiters of morality in their territories, and they are extremely vicious about punishing transgressors.
• Our Minotaurs Are Different: They're bovine shapeshifters. As such, their hybrid form is a minotaur-like humanoid bull.

Saharusum

Also known as Sobeki, these werecrocodiles are introduced in Dark Eras 2. Composed of the priesthood of Sobek, this shapeshifter is created by humans performing cannibalistic rituals before and on the rotting corpse of an ancient Pangaean Crocodile located under Atef-Pehu. By performing these rites, the priest transforms into a blasphemous fusion of man and primal hunger.

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• Bizarre Alien Reproduction: A human transforms into a Sobeki by first consuming another human (at least a meals worth) followed gorging themself on Crocodile's rotting flesh. Once the prospective Sobeki can eat no more, they perform a initiation ritual that leaves them covered in a cocoon of flesh which they spend six days pupating inside before emerging as a werecrocodile.
• Cannibalism Superpower: Not only is cannibalism required just to become a Sobeki, but the Sobeki must eat a human as often as a werewolf must hunt. Furthermore, Sobeki can regain Essense by devouring spirits, humans, or crocodile flesh.
• Human Resources: One of their powers is to transform five human corpses into a living crocodile Familiar.
• Lovecraftian Superpower: Have quite a few powers related to reshaping and sculpting flesh; either their own... or other's.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: Sobeki are werecrocodiles able to assume a hybrid form similar to a werewolf's Garou form.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Especially when they're fueled by cannibalism and possess Lovecraftian Superpower.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: With crocodiles, naturally.

Skinthieves

Skinthieves

The most common form of once-men shapeshifters, skinthieves are mortals who have learned magical rituals that enable them to craft talismans that let them assume the forms of animals. Most usually, this involves killing an animal and wearing its hide to trigger the transformation, hence the common moniker, but there are variants upon the theme.

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Black-Eyed Toads

A secretive lineage of minor mystics who have learned a secret rite from the spirit Softly-Croaking Toad. After first treating their eyes with drops of a compound of castor oil and tannins, dying their eyeballs a deep, near-black hue, these mystics are able to remove their eyes and then implant them in the body of a toad. They can then possess this toad's body, allowing them to direct it as they see fit, seeing and hearing anything. Though they still possess the power of speech and reason, they are otherwise normal toads.

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• Black Eyes of Crazy: They stain their eyes blue-black while undergoing a ritual to allow themselves to yank out their eyes so that they can spy on people in the guise of a toad.
• Eyes Are Unbreakable: The toad doesn't always make it back to the skinthief intact, but it's very rare that anything happens to the skinthief's eyes. If worst does come to worst, however, Softly-Croaking Toad, in the process of teaching Black-Eyed Toads to make the transformation, throws in an extra ritual that allows the skinthief to grow a new set of eyes out of a bed of rock crystal.
• Eye Scream: The ritual to take control of a toad's body involves first cutting out the living toad's eyes, and then gouging out your own eyes and sticking them in the toad's eye sockets. Then, to reclaim your eyes, you have to pluck them from the toad's eye sockets again and stick them back in. Then you eat the toad.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: The reason there are still black-eyed toads around; being a toad is an excellent way to go unnoticed, and learn all kinds of valuable secrets, and there are people who consider it worthwhile for that alone.
• Knowledge Broker: Most black-eyed toads specialize in stealing and selling secrets. The price Softly-Croaking Toad demands for teaching someone how to use this power is that all the really good secrets go to her.
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Not a lot of people would consider "pluck out your eyes to take control of a toad's body" to be much of a valuable power.

The Coalblacks

The Coalblacks of Cincinnati, Ohio, had made a fortune in the coal industry, but when the grand switchover from coal to petroleum occurred in the 1970s, Emil Coalblack, grandson of the man who had founded the Coalblack dynasty, found his family one of the first to lose grasp on both the business and its fortune. When the legal and financial dust settled, they retained ownership of their mansion and estate some 20 miles from the city along the I-74, and enough money in stocks to subsist on, so long as they gave up their formerly extravagant lifestyle. Emil refused to accept this, and turned to the occult. The Coalblack Mansion became known as the Crow House, as the increasingly gloomy estate became infested with crows over a period of a few short years. However, Emil's experiments bore fruit; he created an elixir that would allow him to assume the form of a crow. Sharing this secret with his children, the Coalblacks have since secretly prospered, using their alternate forms to steal, spy and blackmail.

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• Dark Secret: Not just the whole "family who use occult rituals of Voluntary Shapeshifting" thing, but they actually gather all kinds of secrets in their flights.
• Evil Matriarch: Emil's eldest daughter Sarah is in charge of the family now, directing their thefts and making use of the secrets they acquire.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: The younger Coalblacks have become more crow than human, and so display an increased tendency to act like crows even in their own bodies.
• Mundane Utility: Turning into Ravens and Crows works great as a way to steal valuable trinkets to rebuild your crumbling family fortune. Not to mention ferreting out all sorts of secrets that can work for blackmail.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: The Coalblack formula involves mixing together a cocktail of coal dust, crow's eggs and the skinthief's own blood. The skinthief then feeds a mixture of this compound and seed to a crow, before eating it alive. After which, they turn into a crow and can stay like that for as long as they wish, though once they've changed back, they need to feed and eat another crow to become crows again.

Tusk-Runners

Throughout Africa and Asia, certain isolated clans and tribes have learned a ritual where they can open up an elephant's stomach and climb inside, proceeding to assume control over the elephant's body. By bathing in a cocktail of elephant's milk and certain special plant oils, the Tusk-Runner can then approach a sleeping elephant without fear, slicing them open and melding with them, and then leaving, with nothing but a tiny and harmless scar left in their wake. Though mostly restricted to the lands of their birth, a few have chosen to immigrate elsewhere in the world.

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• Demonic Possession: Inverted, in that it's a human possessing a beast through magic.
• No Body Left Behind: If the elephant dies with the Tusk-Runner inside of it, the Tusk-Runner's body disappears. Even reducing the elephant to its component parts won't reveal it.
• The Symbiote: The process does not actually kill the elephant, making them unique amongst the sample skinthieves — hell, it doesn't even hurt the elephant all that much.

Horned Hunters

Sometimes, hunters who seek out deer and elk become obsessed with hunting, coming to lose themselves in the cycle of predator and prey. When these souls manage to slay the biggest and most fearsome bucks in the forest, the so-called "king stags", they are seized by an urge to carefully harvest the skin and antlers. By dressing in the buck's skin and thrusting the sharp roots of the antlers into their own scalps, the Horned Hunters transform into ferocious and highly territorial humanoid stags. Some Uratha lore-seekers believe that the arts may have originated in some sect in Eastern Europe, but it has clearly crossed well beyond its ancestral borders.

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• Animal Gender-Bender: Women can become Horned Hunters too, and presumably they look about as female as female Gauru-form werewolves do. But, since the power is concentrated in the antlers of the stags, a female Horned Hunter still sports an impressive set of antlers.
• Egomaniac Hunter: The majority of Horned Hunters are "weekend warrior" types who hunt for sport, not survival.
• Fauns and Satyrs: Horned Hunters look like particularly vicious and warlike humanoid stags in their hybrid form.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The transformation into a Horned Hunter can be quite addictive. Those who succumb to this addiction and try to force themselves to remain in hybrid form longer than they should often end up getting what they want at the cost of going completely stark raving mad.

Spirit-Skinners

Rarest and most disparate of all the skinthieves, Spirit-Skinners are occultists and lunatics who have managed an almost impossible feat; flaying a spirit and using the preserved hide to assume its form, or otherwise imprisoning and compelling a spirit to let the skinthief wear its body.

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• Demonic Possession: Inverted, they're humans who possess spirits.

The Stray

Alan Donning is one of the many sad and pitifully strange beings who roam the city streets of the World of Darkness. An unexceptional man, he loved two things with all his heart; his wife, and his faithful dog. When he returned early from work, only to find his wife having sex with another man, the heartbroken Donning turned and left, becoming a vagrant with his only true and loyal friend. One cold winter night, the homeless vagrant was on the verge of death, when his dog made a Heroic Sacrifice and tore itself open with its weathered teeth. Blinded by grief, Alan crawled inside his only friend's body for warmth, only to waken and find himself wearing the guise of large dog. Ever since then, whenever his borrowed hide decays, another stray sacrifices itself, and unwilling to let it die in vain, Alan takes a new body.

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• Death Seeker: Alan wants to die, unable to tolerate living in this cruel world, but he can't bring himself to just let it end, not when the dogs keep sacrificing themselves to preserve his life.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Alan is more of a dog than a man now, after spending so long in canine form.
• Pet the Dog: Pun aside, the Forsaken have a great deal of pity for Alan Donning and consider him a distant relative by adoption. The packs politely ignore him and even give him what comfort they can, when they can spare it.

Doctor Ape

Modern African legends tell the story of an American doctor who came to the continent as part of a relief program in the late 50s. Though they say only good things about his intentions and efforts, all stories ultimately focus on how, after an attack by an angry chimpanzee, he ultimately went mad and left. What none know is the truth; the attack, although it did little damage to his body, did injure his mind. He became obsessed with chimpanzees, and ultimately began performing experiments in human skin grafts, leading to his discovery of a way to take the hide of a chimpanzee and walk amongst them. To this day, certain villages in Africa near the heavy jungle regions will sometimes notice a chimpanzee who seems strangely interested in the doings of people. Rumors whisper that, should this chimpanzee see an important injury or a sickness, a strange white doctor with unusually lumpy skin and recently-sewn wounds behind his ears will soon after emerge from the jungle. He will help the hurt and cure the ill, and then vanish into the jungle once again. Doctor Ape has not abandoned his urge to heal the sick even as he has forsaken the human life for that of the chimpanzee.

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• Butt-Monkey: It's noted that when he spends time among the chimpanzees, he's usually at the bottom of the social ladder. He doesn't particularly mind.
• Creepy Good: Nuts he may be, but the reason people know he exists is that he can't stand to see people in pain when he has the capacity to help.
• Power Born of Madness: It was his insane obsession with chimpanzees that ultimately allowed him to discover his strange, science-based form of skintheft.
• Your Days Are Numbered: He's lived a very long time, and suspects that, even though his medical regimen has given him extra time, that time is almost up. Nowadays, when he leaves a village, he asks the people he's helped that he's looking for an apprentice.

Barsarks

Believed to hail from Eastern Europe, Barsarks are enigmatic loners who ritually stalk and kill the biggest, fiercest bears in the wilderness. By defeating such a monster and eating its heart, the Barsark can then cure its hide to create a cloak that enables them to become a bear or a bear-man. This cloak does not last forever, and the Barsark must continually recharge its power by slaying more bears, if lesser than its "totemic kill", and stitching them into the cloak to imbue it with fresh magic.

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• Bears Are Bad News: Most Barsarks seek only to be left alone in the wilderness, but like the bears they resemble, they are deadly when roused to anger.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Barsarks were once the guardians and champions of kings. But that era has passed, leaving them continuously searching for a meaning for their power.

The Invisible Man

A Nicaraguan man who learned a mad ritual that enables him to possess a swarm of fire ants by laying down in their nest and letting them swarm all over his body. Though the ceaseless biting is painful even as his mind rides the swarm, such is his obsession with the power he feels it gives him and his growing self-loathing that he cannot resist the urge to perform the ritual again and again.

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• Painful Transformation: The ants are constantly biting him while he's in the nest, dealing him damage every hour he maintains the form (in addition to the level of damage he takes to undergo the transformation in the first place).
• The Worm That Walks: His "shapeshifting" is a kind of inverted Demonic Possession that lets his human mind inhabit an entire colony of fire ants.

The Nahualtin, Cihuatlactah, and Animal Mystery Warriors

Introduced in Dark Eras. The Mexica empire — known to modern historians as the Aztecs — lived in a far more blatantly magical world before the conquistadores came. For example, it was actually an article of common knowledge that properly trained people could take the form of animals and learn the secrets of spiritual magic from them. Such as it was with these three varieties of shapeshifter, each from a quite different branch of Mexica life. The nahualtin (singular nahualli), the priesthood of the rain-makers and keepers of social order, trained trusted members in their ranks to take the form of beasts to keep watch on seditious elements. The Mystery Warriors were members of the normal Jaguar and Eagle branches of the Aztec military who were trained in skintheiving their namesakes as a reward for the many captives and victories they brought to their people. Finally, the Cihuatlactah were not actually sanctioned members of Aztec society, and in fact became as such in vicious defiance — for they were all women who grew so sick of their gender role they stole the skin of men, just to finally see what it was like, having freedom and power.

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• Bond Creatures: The Eagle Mystery Warriors don't need to kill their donor, and in fact usually don't—just a few drops of blood is enough to recharge their powers, and so they usually keep the eagle as a pet. Many are noted to become quite depressed when their friend dies.
• Body Snatcher: A Cihuatlactatl who does not have the Renewable Skins power is going to be murdering a lot of men and hiding their bodies.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Nothing says you have to be an awful person and be one of the Aztec skinthieves — the example Cihuatleth killed her donor while defending her father and only learned the trick to legally pardon him for teaching her male crafts, and both the Mystery Warriors are chivalrous Nice Guys. By Aztec standards, the nahualtin aren't evil either, just making sure society runs smoothly and the sacrifices keep coming. Operative term being "Aztec standards", and even then they're still pretty terrifying.
• The Dreaded: The nahualtin invoke this quite deliberately to make their jobs easier — it's a lot more appealing to be loyal when you know that the owl in the trees could be a lower-ranking priest, and any animal (or ghost, or human, or spirit...) a master among them.
• Loss of Identity: Rarely, a Mystery Warrior will lose himself to the bestial instincts, becoming a mad cryptid with no place as a man or beast.
• Malevolent Mutilation: The nahualtin aren't hypocrites about human blood feeding the gods — they happily cut themselves open to donate their own to the altars, and thus you can usually tell them by the network of scars they bear. Given how they're the shapeshifting Secret Police, they count.
• Noble Bird of Prey: Owl-aspected nahualtin and Eagle Mystery Warriors turn into them.
• Panthera Awesome; Jaguar-aspected nahualtin and Jaguar Mystery Warriors turn into jaguars.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Mid-ranking nahualtin are taught how to turn into an owl or jaguar as their initiation. Jaguar Mystery Warriors always turn into jaguars, Eagle Mystery Warriors eagles, and Cihualactah men who they have skinned.

Spirit-Claimed

Spirit-Claimed

Many spirits of beasts are capable of claiming human hosts and twisting their bodies into more comfortable guises. When such a being is capable of freely reverting between forms, usually establishing a bond with its host beyond that normal of a spirit, then a true shapeshifter is born.

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• Demonic Possession: What they all technically fall under, though Spirit Possession would be more accurate.

Thar Akuru: The Black Flock

In the days of Pangaea, Father Wolf existed alongside many other spirits of equal might. One of these was Uha, Raven, a trickster spirit who loved to test his wit and skill against those of Father Wolf. Although he was always careful to respect Father Wolf's authority and keep from pushing the great hunter's temper too far, not all of Uha's brood was so clever. One such spirit, Nam Uha, let his pride get the best of him, wreaking such havoc and harassing Father Wolf to the extent that the great hunter ultimately had no choice to hunt Nam Uha down. Although the hunt ended the only way it could have done, with Nam Uha being devoured, the spirit made a plan to escape. It left a "spirit egg" in the body of a human woman, hoping that this would allow Nam Uha to reincarnate after death. From this action was born the Black Flock, a lineage of Claimed all hosting incarnations of the same trickster-raven spirit.

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• Bullying a Dragon: If Nam Uha had just stopped flaunting its lawbreaking and incessant badgering for Father Wolf's attention, the Thar Akuru wouldn't exist.
• Cessation of Existence: The Thar Akuru propagates because each spirit is desperately afraid of dying; they cannot leave their host-bodies, even if those bodies die, so the death of the flesh brings them total annihilation.
• Clever Crows: They owe their existence to the symbolism of the crow/raven as a trickster and cunning mischief-maker.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: The first of the Thar Akuru was, in effect, a perfect copy of Nam Uha... but completely devoid of any sense of identity or or guiding purpose. When it finally figured out what it was, it found it couldn't voluntarily leave its body, even upon death. Also, the whole point of propagating the Flock — to one day free and restore Nam Uha — is pretty much impossible at this point. Each spirit that is part of the flock is, really, its own individual, so if it were set free, it wouldn't be Nam Uha reborn but an entirely new spirit.
• Soul Eating: A Thar Aku consumes the soul of its mortal flesh when its spirit egg hatches inside of them.
• Trickster God: A classic example. They love to trick others and show off how intelligent they are... but their efforts to outsmart people can and do often go disastrously wrong.

Kitsune

To survive in the days of Pangaea, so it is said, the foxes unanimously became trickster-spirits. However, their trait became a bane in its own right when their unwillingness to discriminate in their targets and their cruelty angered Father Wolf. Confronting the leader of all fox spirits, Inari the Eternal Fox, he gave the spirit a choice; reign in his brood, or watch as Father Wolf devoured them. So, Inari called all fox-spirits to a meeting, explaining the situation. Some agreed with Inari's plan, to change their ban so that they may only trick and molest those who had slighted them, and that they were compelled to repay those who gave them boons. These became the Inari Seha, the Obedient Foxes of Inari, and so they were left in peace ever more. Others, however, refused to heed Inari's warning and left the meeting; these became the Foxes Who Abandoned Inari, the Inari Kihar, and Father Wolf fell upon them with all his fury. Only the death of Father Wolf and the fall of Pangaea kept the Inari Kihar alive. As human culture evolved, so too did Inari's brood, until they became their own distinctive spirit choir; they became the Kitsune.

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• Asian Fox Spirit: Beyond the division of Inari Seha and Inari Kihar, there are three specific kinds of kitsune. The Kitsune Ka are spirits who only take the form of foxes, sometimes with multiple tails, and are the simplest-minded of the kitsune strains. The Kitsune Unu, generally held as the smartest and strongest of their kind, are shapeshifting fox spirits who prefer to spend most of their time manifesting in a human form, allowing them to more elaborately test — and trap — humans for their amusement. Finally, the Kitsune Sedu are shapeshifting fox-spirits who prefer a humanoid fox form and fetter themselves to unsuspecting human hosts and use their powers to make life chaotic for their victim. Needless to say, most Kitsune Sedu are Inari Kihar, relishing the chance to make human lives miserable, but a small number of Inari Seha take this path to better test, punish and reward mortals.
• Canis Major: Siten Uzu with the Avatar of Inari aspect can assume the form of a gargantuan nine-tailed silver-furred fox, comparable to the Primal Wolf form that certain Uratha can take.
• Cunning Like a Fox: The synonymy between "fox" and "trickery" is the ultimate reason why the kitsune exist.
• Demonic Possession: The Siten Uzu are a rare inversion; control of the kitsune's spiritual powers is entirely left to the human host, they can only be created if the host agrees to it, and the human has such total control that the spirit inside can't communicate or leave until the host dies or lets it out. Needless to say, Siten Uzu are universally created in desperation, and only by the Inari Seha, whose ban near-universally prevents them from conventionally Claiming a host.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The universal ban of the kitsune is that they must repay a kindness tenfold, and can repay a slight however they wish.
• Master of Illusion: Naturally, illusionary powers are universal to kitsune, although Kitsune Unu (with their unique Hallucinations numina) and Siten Uzu with the Illusion aspect are best at it.
• Super-Speed: Siten Uzu with Inari's Swiftness can attain supernatural speeds, complete with bullet-dodging abilities, whilst in fox form.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Kitsune Unu can become humans or foxes as they please, but prefer human form. Kitsune Sedu prefer a humanoid fox form, but can become purely human or fox if they must. Siten Uzu can unlock the Fox Transformation and Avatar of Inari forms, which allow them to become a normal fox or a giant fox-monster, respectively.

The Kanaima, aka Umamu Suhi, the Beasts of Vengeance

Hailing from the jungles of South America, the Kanaima are a specialized descant of the Vengeance spirit choir that are unique fusions of jaguar spirit and vengeance spirit. They are the children of Ka'an Balam, an Incarna who once ruled over the people who would become the Olmecs in South America; though a stern and demanding ruler, he was also fair, teaching his mortal subjects to live lives of faith and piety, and to live with full hearts. When Pangaea fell, he could no longer direct his people, and they turned increasingly to darker arts in order to survive and to find their beloved Jaguar God. By the time that Ka'an Balam was able to pierce the Gauntlet and walk amongst his people again, it was too late; the people whom he had ruled and, in his own way, loved, were dead, leaving a twisted and corrupted parody in their place. After being served human entrails at a feast to honor his return, and seeing the once-joyous Festival of the Sun culminate in a young boy being sacrificed and his heart offered to the heavens, Ka'an Balam could bear it no longer. He slaughtered his fallen priesthood and followers... but found, to his bitter regret, that his people were so distorted they could no longer understand why he was so angry. And so he left them. His brood were left behind, confused and uncertain; with no other clear path before them, they chose to continue in their lord's path; punishing those who were corrupt and avenging on behalf of the unjustly slain.

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• Disproportionate Retribution: The Kanaima do not care about the magnitude of the crime they are called to punish, nor the moral character of whoever contacted them. They are called for vengeance, and that is all that matters... though directing them for truly petty ends can irritate them.
• Monster from Beyond the Veil: Uniquely amongst spirits, Kanaima cannot possess mortals. But they have instead developed the ability to possess the bodies of those who die in a manner deserving of vengeance. So long as the future host either called upon a Kanaima to continue their quest before they were slain, pleaded with the Kanaima to avenge them as they died, or lingers as a ghost to grant permission, the Kanaima can take control of the body and act.
• Panthera Awesome: The default form of a manifest kanaima is a huge, ghostly jaguar, and their host-bodies can shift between human and jaguar form.

Nemu Sakar: Leopard Men

Born in Liberia, the "Terror Cats" (to translate their name from the First Tongue) are unique choir of spirits created as a result of human mysticism. When leopard hunting came into vogue amongst the tribes of the region, some leopard hunters began developing their own belief structure; having slain what they considered the most fearsome and terrible of all predators, they had literally conquered fear. And so that gave them the right to usurp the "leopard's power", to act as a leopard acts and use this to dominate the people around them. And so they began reigns of cruelty, murder and brutality... inadvertently feeding leopard-spirits who were drawn to them by the leopards they had claimed. These spirits gorged themselves on a bounty of pain, suffering, fear and bloodlust, becoming dark monsters that went from magath to a twisted new breed. Initially fettering themselves to their creators to goad them to further acts, eventually, they came to ritualistically claim them, creating duguthim and brutalizing the world around them.

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• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: "Terror Cats" — if that's not a moniker you don't want to hear applied to someone...
• Panthera Awesome: They appear as massive, evilly intelligent leopards with blood-spattered paws and muzzles.

Im Iri: The Bouda

In the ancient days of what is now Abyssinia, the Bouda tribe were once bedeviled by a unique choir of particularly malicious hyena-spirits, the Im Iri, who took a delight in plaguing the humans who had inadvertently helped free them from being "mere" hyena-spirits. But the Bouda had wise souls who knew the ways of spirits, and they learned of the Im Iri's ban; whenever they received a gift, they had to repay it with one of equal value. Upon also learning that many spirits eagerly sought to walk amongst the world of flesh, the elders of the Bouda made a deal with the Im Iri; the Im Iri would be allowed to claim selected women of the Bouda, but in return they were bound by their nature as spirits to grant an equitable request. The Im Iri agreed, but found they had underestimated the elders; they demanded that the Im Iri give themselves to the Bouda as the Bouda had given their women, protecting the tribe from their enemies and walking freely amongst them, and in exchange being constantly given new hosts as old ones perished, until the debt was paid. And so the Im Iri and the Bouda have been bound together ever since.

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• Always Female: Thanks to their spiritual connections with the spotted hyena and its matriarchal pack structure, Im Iri can only possess female hosts. Thusly, all of the Bouda's hyena duguthim are female.
• Deal with the Devil: The pact formed between the ancient Bouda and the Im Iri is this, and the tribe's chieftains and witch doctors know it. They desperately keep extending the pact because, not only is it familiar to both sides now, but they fear what might happen the day that the Im Iri are released.
• Lady Land: Zigzagged. Although the Bouda culture appears matriarchal to an outsider, the true power is concentrated with the always-male chieftains and witch-doctors. The duguthim are certainly respected and obeyed in matters of practicality, for doing otherwise would be foolish given they are compelled to use all of their strength and intelligence to protect the Bouda, but true leadership lies with the humans.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: From woman to unusually large and powerful female spotted hyena, and then back again.

Afhal Usum: The Serpent Sages, and Hal Usum: The Serpent Guardians

The Afhal Usum and the Hal Usum are two choirs of spirits intimately intertwined with each other. The Afhal Usum are ancient serpent-and-knowledge spirits who dedicate themselves to discovering and protecting the world's lost and forbidden lore. Always scattered into small, regionally-separated societies, the shattering of Pangaea made their choir task far more difficult. As humanity spread and expanded, scattering the Afhal Usum's knowledge, they realised they would have to begin entering the physical world to do what they needed. A risky prospect, given the ever-watchful, ever-angry Uratha still guarded the Gauntlet. So, they absorbed a second choir, one composed of serpent-and-guardian spirits, and renamed it the Hal Usum, a special descant of their own choir. Now with guardians in place, the Afhal Usum have continued their plans; urging and claiming humans, they found secret societies, dedicated to seeking the knowledge they wish to guard, all the while struggling to stay unnoticed by the Uratha.

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• Dumb Muscle: This is a rather poor attitude to take about the Hal Usum, but they are so single-minded that even the Afhal Usum tend to think of their guardians as "simpletons".
• Implacable Man: The Hal Usum are implacable and relentless to the point their singlemindedness comes off as just plain ignorant stubbornness.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Subverted. They're based on older concepts of serpents as embodiments of wisdom or protection, before Christianity demonized the snake as the symbol of evil.
• Scaled Up: Hal Usum generally appear as 30-40ft long vipers or cobras, whilst Afhal Usum usually appear as much vaguer ghostly serpents.
• Seen It All: Afhal Usum are so stoic and experienced that pretty much nothing phases them.
• Snake People: In contrast to Afhal Usum, who use Voluntary Shapeshifting to switch wholely from human form (with perhaps some subtle snaky traits) to snake form and back again, Hal Usum simply merge the best traits of both together, becoming armor-scaled humanoid serpents when they claim a host body.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Despite everything, the Afhal Usum clash frequently with one another over similar territorial urges to werewolves — it's just that the Serpent Sages claim conceptual territories, such as topics of fate and destiny, or topics of life and rejuvenation, rather than physical ones.

Other Strangeness

Other Strangeness

Some shapeshifters do not fit so neatly into the categories above, but are clearly still part of the general category.

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Scavenger Wolf

A disgraced and disreputable member of the Firstborn, the spirit called Scavenger Wolf became obsessed with humanity during the days of Pangaea, and especially with the ability of his lesser kindred, the Uratha, to take human form and walk amongst them. After a hundred failures, he finally tried something new, something inspired by the human practice of wearing clothes. He killed a slender human youth, tearing off his skin and carefully wriggling inside. To his delight, it worked, especially once he slew a wolf and used its hide to cover the wounds in his stolen skin, and he spent much time walking amongst humans. Overjoyed with his cleverness, he gathered the early Uratha and revealed himself to them. Outraged, they denounced him as a manslayer, a wolfslayer, and a betrayer of their common progenitor, before cursing him and stripping him of his status amongst the Firstborn. Scavenger Wolf fled into what is now the Hisil, and ever since then has bedeviled and plagued humanity and the Forsaken alike. Never will they kill him, though, because, repulsive as he is, he's still family.

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• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Weirdly inverted; spending so much time in the form of a human has actually left Scavenger Wolf thinking like a human. The drawback, of course, is that because Scavenger Wolf is such an absolute asshole, he's suffering the effects of an extremely low Karma Meter.
• Glamour Failure: His stolen skins slowly rot away, never lasting more than two or three weeks before they become obviously decayed and forcing him to find a new one.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: As a result of ages spent in human form, Scavenger Wolf is now, mentally, more human than spirit.
• Never My Fault: The Forsaken make the understandable conclusion that his being trapped in a half-flesh state rather than existing in the same ethereal state as other spirits is because of his constant stealing of human skins. He refuses to admit this, instead insisting that it's some evil hex inflicted on him by the Forsaken.
• Wound That Will Not Heal: He suffers from the Unhealing flaw; his stolen skins don't regenerate themselves, meaning any wounds inflicted whilst he wears that stolen guise remain with him until he sheds it once and for all.

Patches

A character who serves as an example of the "Artifact" classification of shapeshifters, those who transform with the aid of magical items. Patches is a mysterious figure whose powers come from her ever-present greatcoat — which is made from the stolen and preserved faces of countless victims, human and animal, that she has stitched together.

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• Clothes Make the Superman: Patches' shapeshifting powers comes from her coat. Assuming that she actually isn't the cloak itself disguising itself as a humanoid.
• Genuine Human Hide: Flayed faces, human and animal, are the material Patches uses to create her trademark tattered cloak.
• Glamour Failure: No matter what form she wears, Patches' eyes are always the same color; one brown, the other blue. Additionally, in animal form, her fur, feathers or scales are always mottled, covered in shapeless, multi-colored blotches that roughly correspond to the many faces on her cloak.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Patches can transform into the form of any creature whose face she has stitched to her coat.

The Chimera

A category of shapeshifters based on the scientific or alchemical fusing of animal to human — or human to animal.

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• Beast Man: The Humera, being animals forced into more humanoid forms, fall under this.
• Super-Strength: The sample Humera (an orangutan/human hybrid) is so strong that it has a special attack where it can literally rip a man's arm out of the socket.
• Uplifted Animal: The Animera, who have gained human-like intelligence and prehensile digits as part of their transformation, and the Humera, animals bred with human DNA.

The Cursed, aka "Circe's Brood"

A classification applied to humans forcibly shapeshifted into animal forms by magic-users, typically as a form of vengeance or for cruelty.

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• Disproportionate Retribution: All too often, even when the spellcaster justifies inflicting the transformation as a punishment for misdeeds, it's far out of proportion with what's justifiable.
• Forced Transformation: They were transformed into animals as a punishment; this trope goes without saying.
• Laser-Guided Karma: There are times, if rarely, where the transformation is actually a Karmic Transformation. In the introductory fluff for the category in Skinchangers, the sample Cursed is a rich college boy who used his connections to get away with raping and impregnating the only daughter of a widowed hillbilly farmer, who turned him into a pig when she realized she'd never get justice for her family through the legal arena.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Generally speaking, the Cursed lose most if not all of their human identity and have it subsumed by their animal nature. This is generally treated as a mercy, as it keeps the Cursed from going utterly insane under the weight of realizing just how doomed it likely is.
• This Was His True Form: A universal flaw in the spells that create the Cursed; cut off a piece and it reverts to its original shape, kill the creature and it becomes human again. For this reason, we are assured that the hillbilly witch in the sample Cursed's fluff is merely yanking his chain when she talks about making bacon out of the rich kid turned pig.

The Lobison

Hailing from Central and South America, the Lobison is a twisted lycanthrope born when certain families have a seventh child. If the child is a son, perhaps especially if its father was also a seventh son, it becomes a were-maned wolf, a monster consumed by its taste for human blood.

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• Always Male: By default, it's assumed all Lobisons are, well, sons. What might happen if the seventh child of a Lobison family is a daughter is left up to individual storytellers to decide. (In real life, the tale of the Lobison led to so many seventh children being killed if they were boys that the government had to step in.)
• Curse: Exactly why the seventh son of a family may be born a Lobison is unknown, but this is perhaps the most obvious answer.
• Death by Childbirth: Though there are rare aversions, the norm for Lobison pregnancy is for the mother to die. Usually because the Lobison flips out inside her womb when she goes into labor and it proceeds to rip its way out of her with its teeth and claws.
• Express Delivery: Women unfortunate enough to be carrying Lobisons find their pregnancies advance with unnatural speed.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: In monstrous form, Lobisons sport two rows of shark-like teeth.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: It's technically a werewolf, although very different from the Uratha. It's only got two forms; human and monster (unnaturally large maned wolf with two rows of shark-like teeth), its transformations are triggered by stress (anger, fear, even extreme hunger or arousal), it can only change back by consuming large amounts of human blood, it has no control over itself in its monster form, and it will slowly be driven insane by the shapeshifting.
• Tragic Monster: No Lobison asked to be born a monster, but once they come into the world, they're doomed to a downward spiral, slowly being driven insane by the brutal acts they commit in their bestial forms until ultimately they get put down for being ravening monsters.

Lila, the Devil's Daughter

A character who serves as an example of the "Spawned" classification of shapeshifters, those who transform due to less than human ancestry. In June 1939, in the depths of the Great Plains of Kansas, a farming family called the Warricks was struggling to survive in North America's worst drought. Driven by desperation, Melvin walked out into the fields one night and made a pact. They found him dead in the field the next morning, but over the next nine months, as Melvin's wife Alice swelled with a final pregnancy, the farm seemed truly blessed. As her children were busy harvesting the wheat, Alice went into labor. When her children returned, they found their mother dead from a difficult childbirth — and a snake suckling at her breast. It slithered away before they could catch it. Ever since then, Lila Warrick has enjoyed herself on the party scene in the big cities, leaving a string of broken hearts, shattered minds, empty wallets and missing persons in her wake.

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• Always Chaotic Evil: The Spawned are universally selfish, amoral and devoid of empathy, to the extent that they officially lack a Karma Meter.
• Charm Person: Lila has a power called "Her Father's Eyes" that lets her hypnotize and control anyone who meets her eyes, if she so wishes.
• The Corrupter: Lila loves to manipulate and coax people into acting on their worst impulses, eventually leading them to their destruction.
• Death by Childbirth: Alice died bringing Lila into the world all on her own.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Lila loves to drink, and never seems to get drunk, even when matching far larger companions drink for drink.
• Literal Maneater: Not necessarily all the time, but, many of Lila's bedmates are implied to become her food (or just be tortured to death for her amusement) if the whim strikes her.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Although she also invokes Snakes Are Sexy, she's evil to the core and played up as a heartless, man-eating (metaphorically and literally) monster.
• Scaled Up: Lila can transform into one of two different rattlesnake forms; the first only four feet long, the second twelve feet long and weighing in at over one hundred pounds.
• Someone to Remember Him By: Lila's mother, Alice, originally thought Lila was her husband's final child. Who knows? Maybe she was right, and Lila was born the way she was become of some genetic anomaly, or perhaps experimentation by some amoral wizard — maybe even a mad Thyrsus — tampering with Melvin's child.

The Summoned, aka Familiars

Mystical entities called from unknown other-worlds by human mystics, with a distinctive ability to assume the shape of various animals.

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• Deal with the Devil: As their common nickname implies, the Summoned can be bartered with. However, most of the rituals that call them don't compel them to accept — indeed, their would-be summoner is lucky if such shoddy rituals are even complete enough not to insult the Summoned, never mind including protection from the wrath of the entity they've called!
• Owl Be Damned: The sample familiar, Graemalkin, favors the form of a large, jet-black owl, or else a tall, formidably muscular dark-skinned man with a shaven scalp and eerie silver-blue eyes.
• Shadow Walker: Familiars can teleport by merging with shadows, allowing them to leap to anywhere else on the planet if they so desire.

The Devil of Deacon Hill

A character who serves as an example of the "Territorial" classification of shapeshifters, when a location produces some strange shapeshifting entity for no reason that can be ascertained at a glance. The Devil of Deacon Hill is a mysterious ghostly panther that manifests itself on Deacon Hill when the fogs rise. Once an expansive hardwood forest, the hill was clear cut and degraded under the watchful eye of the unscrupulous timber baron Zachariah Deacon, which is when the worksites became plagued by unnaturally common and thick fogs, and constant attacks by a shadowy mountain lion. Zachariah refused to be thwarted, building a mansion atop the hill. His wife, Margaret Deacon, mysteriously died — apparently slain by a big cat. There afterwards, her ghost began haunting Deacon Hill, and ever since, those foolish enough to try and cross the hills during the fog risk being attacked by the hungry panther-creature.

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• Multiple-Choice Past: Is it the spirit of Deacon Hill, summoned by the pain of the land? Is it the ghost of Margaret Deacon, the woman accepted as its first victim? Nobody really knows what it is.
• Nigh-Invulnerable: As far as can be ascertained, the Devil of Deacon Hill can't be killed. Destroy its body, and it reforms in a lunar month. No spirit-targeting powers work on it. It shrugs off sunlight. And it's also completely immune to pain.
• Panthera Awesome: It shifts between the form of a ghostly woman, the spitting image of Margaret Deacon, and an all-too-solid black puma.
• Super Smoke: A variant; it can't manipulate the fog around it, but it can teleport between any two spots touched by the same bank of fog.

The Zoonotics

Humans affected by a series of horrific genetic retro-viruses that forcibly mutate the body from human to animal, leaving them as twisted and insane humanoid beasts.

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• Body Horror: The whole idea behind them; a disease that slowly and painfully turns you from a man into a lizard, a rat, a wolf, a bull, a cat, any sort of animal.
• Forced Transformation: Forcibly mutated into animals by a disease and not magic, but the effect is the same.
• The Mind Is The Plaything Of The Body: Their human intelligence is stripped away as the disease progresses, subsumed by their bestial instincts.
• Painful Transformation: The process of being rebuilt on a molecular level from a human into an animal-like thing is unimaginably painful. In fact, it causes so much damage to the body that most people who become infected with the viruses die from the stress of the transformation long before they finish becoming beast-people.

Versipellitus

Perhaps distantly related to the Zoonotics, Versipellitus can be summarized as "lycanthropy as a sexually transmitted disease". However it evolved, it has been spreading slowly since The '60s, going through periods of long dormancy before randomly manifesting itself, inducing intense urges to mate and kill indiscriminately, and gorge on warm raw flesh, only to recede into dormancy once sated. It's not easily transmitted, thankfully, but it's damn hard to treat-and the patients are invariably sources of toxic Resonance that spirits of lust and violence are not willing to give up.

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• Body Horror: It's a disease that turns you into a sex-and-violence obsessed cannibalistic wolfman, with no way to predict when it'll strike.
• Demonic Possession: Subverted. Some Forsaken think that they are a species of lust spirit that figured out a way to spawn Claimed through a method of reproduction, but the lust spirits that congregate around a Versipellitus patient are symptoms, not the cause.
• Literal Maneater: Because of the intense and confusing urges for physical gratification that the virus induces when it triggers, those infected by it often end up sating their urge to kill and mate by combining the two, using their transformed body to butcher and eat their bedmate after — or as! — they have sex.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: They're victims of a sexually transmitted transformative virus that causes them to grow wild hair, fangs and claws when engaged in physical violence or physical pleasure, resulting in a wolfman appearance, compelling them towards sex and violence with such intensity that they often combine the two, all whilst producing a thick musk that entices people to accept their sexual advances. Also, silver has no effect on them, but it's possible — just very, very difficult — to produce a medicinal paste from the rare Aconitum Porphura (Purple Wolfsbane) plant that can cure them.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Subverted. Although werewolves spread a lot of stories claiming a magical origin for it, the sourcebook it appears in^note Night Horrors: Wolfsbane claims it's just an ordinary disease that was mutated by exposure to the Shadow. It's mostly mundane with some magical elements.
• The Virus: Literally. Or possibly a bacteria. Point is, it's an actual illness with a presumably germ-based origin that turns people into monsters to help spread.

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