History YMMV / WerewolfTheForsaken

->"They have some really unfortunate implications that we want to move away from — penalising sex with the “wrong” people, casting Wolf-Blooded as breeding stock, punishing female characters far more than male, and a whole mess of problems around their impact on people who have lost pregnancies. I want to stress that nobody on the original design team intended any of this, but a we’re older and wiser we decided to drop a highly problematic element of the game. Ultimately, we removed Unihar because removing them removes a bunch of unintential messages that people found very off-putting. They won’t be coming back."

** When compared to ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse''; ''Apocalypse'' was infamously decried for having most of the protagonist werewolf tribes be, by human standards, [[DesignatedHero incredibly unlikable due to being corrupt racist genocidal supremacists and fundamentalists whose actions were making things even worse for the whole planet]] even though their role was to ''fix'' it (the Red Talons being possibly the worst offender). Tribes like this are ''still'' present in ''Forsaken''... as the Pure, who are firmly established as villains, while the playable tribes, the titual Forsaken, are characterized as being more likable and actually trying to improve things despite still having some degree of BlueAndOrangeMorality.
** 1E had Werewolves being forbidden to mate with each others and having to rely on humans to breed, with the offspring of two Uratha resulting in a FoetusTerrible known as Unihar, which would kill its mother by bursting out of the womb and would take off to the Spirit World before returning to wreak havoc on its parents- a concept that was seen as uncomfortable and sexist by many, the writers included. Comes 2E, Unihar were made CanonDiscontinuity, and the rule stating Werewolves had to breed with humans only was retooled to instead be about the importance of socializing with humans to maintain the balance between your spirit and flesh sides.

** When compared to ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse''; ''Apocalypse'' was infamously decried for having most of the protagonist werewolf tribes be, by human standards, incredibly unlikable due to being corrupt racist genocidal supremacists and fundamentalists whose actions were making things even worse for the whole planet even though their role was to ''fix'' it (the Red Talons being possibly the worst offender). Tribes like this are ''still'' present in ''Forsaken''... as the Pure, who are firmly established as villains, while the playable tribes, the titual Forsaken, are characterized as being more likable and actually trying to improve things despite still having some degree of BlueAndOrangeMorality.

** 1E had Werewolves being forbidden to mate with each others and having to rely on humans to breed, with the offspring of two Uratha resulting in a FoetusTerrible known as Unihar, which would kill its mother by bursting out of the womb and would take off to the Spirit World before returning to wreak havoc on its parents- a concept that was seen as uncomfortable and sexist by many. Comes 2E, Unihar were made CanonDiscontinuity, and the rule stating Werewolves had to breed with humans only was retooled to instead be about the importance of socializing with humans to maintain the balance between your spirit and flesh sides.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: When compared to ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse''; ''Apocalypse'' was infamously decried for having most of the protagonist werewolf tribes be, by human standards, incredibly unlikable due to being corrupt racist genocidal supremacists and fundamentalists whose actions were making things even worse for the whole planet even though their role was to ''fix'' it (the Red Talons being possibly the worst offender). Tribes like this are ''still'' present in ''Forsaken''... as the Pure, who are firmly established as villains, while the playable tribes, the titual Forsaken, are characterized as being more likable and actually trying to improve things despite still having some degree of BlueAndOrangeMorality.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: When compared to ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse''; ''Apocalypse'' was infamously decried for having most of the protagonist werewolf tribes be, by human standards, incredibly unlikable due to being corrupt racist genocidal supremacists and fundamentalists whose actions were making things even worse for the whole planet even though their role was to ''fix'' it (the Red Talons being possibly the worst offender). Tribes like this are ''still'' present in ''Forsaken''... as the Pure, who are firmly established as villains, while the playable tribes, the titual Forsaken, are firmly characterized as being more likable and actually trying to improve things despite still having some degree of BlueAndOrangeMorality.

** WerewolfTheForsaken is perhaps one of the first pieces of urban fantasy werewolf literature to actually address the implications of humans landing on the moon.

* TheWoobie: Three out of the five alternate shapeshifters from War Against The Pure have perfectly valid reasons for [[IJustWantToBeNormal wanting to be fully human]].

** The Colony (cat people), besides being forced into becoming TheVirus every tenth birthday, are literally forced into a VigilanteMan role in the world, having to kill people who don't meet Morality standards lest their own natures drive them insane. That would be bad, except that their mission ''doesn't'' give them a DetectEvil ability, so they have to guess which people are immoral enough to qualify...[[MyGodWhatHaveIDone and if they guess wrong]]...
** [[FishPeople The Brine Born]] ''seem'' like they'd be the evil guys, being shameless {{Shout Out}}s to the [[Creator/HPLovecraft Deep Ones]]...and even their own myths emphasize what a miserable, luckless people they are, with their own progenitor being kicked out by Mother Ocean when he failed to take over the world in her name. They suffer a race-wide case of what is implied to be StockholmSyndrome for Mother Ocean, mainly because they can't live inland, but they can't live in her because of a species-wide phobia of the deep. Of course, they're were-fish, so they ''have'' to go in the water very frequently. And the icing on the cake? They can't even live in isolation from normal humans, since they need to interbreed with {{Muggle}}s for a sane child. Even the intro emphasizes TheGrotesque aspect of them: After an initial buildup that seems worthy of a Lovecraft novel, when a human woman gives birth to her Brine Born child, the entire message flips when the werewolves observing the event [[MoralEventHorizon reveals they murdered the whole settlement, both human and Brine Born, and plan to dash the baby against a rock]].

* FridgeBrilliance: The four non-human forms of MultiformBalance are references to the most iconic werewolf forms in modern culture.
** Urhan clearly owes its lineage to most forms of actual mythological depictions of the werewolf.
** Dalu is based on the iconic "wolfman" form of film, first seen in [[Franchise/UniversalHorror Universal's]] ''Film/TheWolfMan1941''.
** Urshul arguably has some mythological basis, but can most easily be connected to the werewolf as depicted in ''Film/AnAmericanWerewolfInLondon''.
** Finally, Gauru resembles the now-iconic "manwolf" that has become heavily associated with werewolves in modern culture and which can be arguably traced back to film via ''Film/TheHowling''.

** Dalu is based on the iconic "wolfman" form of film, first seen in [[UniversalHorror Universal's]] ''Film/TheWolfMan1941''.

** [[FishPeople The Brine Born]] ''seem'' like they'd be the evil guys, being shameless {{Shout Outs}} to the [[Creator/HPLovecraft Deep Ones]]...and even their own myths emphasize what a miserable, luckless people they are, with their own progenitor being kicked out by Mother Ocean when he failed to take over the world in her name. They suffer a race-wide case of what is implied to be StockholmSyndrome for Mother Ocean, mainly because they can't live inland, but they can't live in her because of a species-wide phobia of the deep. Of course, they're were-fish, so they ''have'' to go in the water very frequently. And the icing on the cake? They can't even live in isolation from normal humans, since they need to interbreed with {{Muggle}}s for a sane child. Even the intro emphasizes TheGrotesque aspect of them: After an initial buildup that seems worthy of a Lovecraft novel, when a human woman gives birth to her Brine Born child, the entire message flips when the werewolves observing the event [[MoralEventHorizon reveals they murdered the whole settlement, both human and Brine Born, and plan to dash the baby against a rock]].

* FanonDiscontinuity: ''Changing Breeds'' is hated for numerous reasons -- the writing quality is poor, with rules that are [[GameBreaker easily exploitable]] or overpowered, and generally of lower quality compared to earlier splatbooks with similar rules, such as ''War Against the Pure''. Furthermore, the book's fluff presents a ''very'' hamhanded take on a man vs. nature motif, outright ''encouraging'' players to be kill-happy sociopaths dedicated to the destruction of humanity and/or human civilisation. More than one negative reviewer has compared it to the worst elements of ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse''. It has also [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking been accused of pandering to the]] FurryFandom.

* UnfortunateImplications: ''Unihar'', or ''Spirit Wolves'', hit a lot of triggers and sensitive spots about abortion, miscarriage, sexual inequality and the like. The authors, by WordOfGod, came to agree that they were a poor choice for avoiding the Metis of TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse, and so as mentioned on the main page under CanonDiscontinuity they were stricken from the second edition.

* CanonDiscontinuity: In the second edition reboot, the Unihar -- Spirit Wolves -- were removed from continuity. WordOfGod from the authors is that they received a lot of outcry about the UnfortunateImplications (in essence, the lore hit a ''lot'' of trigger buttons about miscarriages and abortion) and agreed the Spirit Wolves were a poor addition to the lore in the hindsight, even with the goal of preventing the Metis of TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse.

* FanonDiscontinuity -- ''Changing Breeds'' is hated for numerous reasons, such as other sourcebooks serving the same purpose, but better.

** Dalu is based on the iconic "wolfman" form of film, first seen in Universal Horror's TheWolfMan.

** Urshul arguably has some mythological basis, but can most easily be connected to the werewolf as depicted in AnAmericanWerewolfInLondon.
** Finally, Gauru resembles the now-iconic "manwolf" that has become heavily associated with werewolves in modern culture and which can be arguably traced back to film via TheHowling.

* FanNickname: The Iron Masters have a sub-faction called the Lodge of Spires, which is dedicated to being the perfect urban predator, or to put it simply, mastering the geography of the city like your standard werewolf would master the forest. It didn't take long for this group to be called The Lodge of Batman or occasionally The Lodge of the Goddamn Batman

* NightmareFuel: See its page for more details.

* CompleteMonster -- The Bale Hounds, to the point where even the Pure loathe them and might actually [[EnemyMine team up with the Forsaken to take them out]]. The idigam qualify, unless you go by the interpretation that they are spirits who honestly can't be said to be anything more than their [[BlueAndOrangeMorality (incomprehensible)]] natures, I.E., just weird.

* NightmareFuel: And how. See its page for more details.

* NightmareFuel: And how. The Werewolf take on the NewWorldOfDarkness may even be more of a CrapsackWorld than normal.
** The SpiritWorld is full of strange, alien entities that range from barely-sentient motes of spiritual power to terrible and alien gods. And all of them are literally [[BlueAndOrangeMorality incapable of thinking like humans do]], which makes them extremely dangerous; even a spirit of Love, Friendship or Joy can do terrible, unspeakable things to humans simply to promote its own nature. And, what's worse, they all basically want to get into the material world, where they do fun things like [[DemonicPossession take over human beings]].
** The Hosts are scary, too. Malevolent demon-gods shattered into many pieces, they now inhabit the bodies of ordinary animals. Given the time, though, they can grow in strength and power and become far more terrible monsters, who gnaw their way into living human flesh and begin eating them from the inside out to assume ghastly semi-human forms.
** The werewolves themselves are frightening enough; they're an entire race of half-flesh, half-spirit ''things'' that live a few steps away from flying into a berserk fury and the mere sight of which can drive people insane. Of these, maybe a third of the race want to do their "job" of destroying the Hosts and keeping humans safe from the spirits (who loathe them for it and who do everything they can to thwart them). The other two thirds of the race basically regard humans as mere livestock and want to openly conquer the world, creating a hellish new reality in which humans would be slaves to werewolves and spirits alike.
*** And then it gets worse. Some werewolves can't stand up to the mental and spiritual punishment the world dishes out to them; these become the Zi'ir ([[MeaningfulName "Broken Souls"]]), which are all the psychotic fury of a blood-mad werewolf and absolutely no control or sanity left. Other werewolves, the so-called Bale Hounds, have decided that evil is winning... and they want to be on the winning side. So they actively serve and promote the agenda of the [[GodOfEvil god-spirits]] of [[SevenDeadlySins Lust, Wrath, Gluttony, Greed, Envy, Pride, Sloth]], Deceit and Violence.

** [[FishPeople The Brine Born]] ''seem'' like they'd be the evil guys, being shameless {{Shout Outs}} to the [[HpLovecraft Deep Ones]]...and even their own myths emphasize what a miserable, luckless people they are, with their own progenitor being kicked out by Mother Ocean when he failed to take over the world in her name. They suffer a race-wide case of what is implied to be StockholmSyndrome for Mother Ocean, mainly because they can't live inland, but they can't live in her because of a species-wide phobia of the deep. Of course, they're were-fish, so they ''have'' to go in the water very frequently. And the icing on the cake? They can't even live in isolation from normal humans, since they need to interbreed with {{Muggle}}s for a sane child. Even the intro emphasizes TheGrotesque aspect of them: After an initial buildup that seems worthy of a Lovecraft novel, when a human woman gives birth to her Brine Born child, the entire message flips when the werewolves observing the event [[MoralEventHorizon reveals they murdered the whole settlement, both human and Brine Born, and plan to dash the baby against a rock]].

** [[CatGirl The Colony]] (despite the trope, both sexes are represented), besides being forced into becoming TheVirus every tenth birthday, are literally forced into a VigilanteMan role in the world, having to kill people who don't meet Morality standards lest their own natures drive them insane. That would be bad, except that their mission ''doesn't'' give them a DetectEvil ability, so they have to guess which people are immoral enough to qualify...[[MyGodWhatHaveIDone and if they guess wrong]]...