Werewolf: The Forsaken

Werewolf: The Forsaken
RPG published by White Wolf / Onyx Path
Rule System	Storytelling System
Authors	Justin Achilli et al
First Publication	2005

The New World of Darkness analogue to Werewolf: The Apocalypse. Dumps the bloody-minded eco-hippies metaplot for a much vaguer "border patrol on the shores of Animistic Hell" setting.

Backstory

In the ancient past, the worlds of Flesh and Spirit were one, creating a world/time called Pangaea. In this time, the mighty wolf-spirit Father Wolf kept the peace between humans and spirits, destroying either of those that got out of line. The moon-spirit, Mother Luna, became enamored with Father Wolf's strength and took a human form to lay with him, giving birth to the first werewolves, who helped their father in his quest. These beings were special in that they were neither spirit nor human, but somewhere in between.

But as Father Wolf battled terrible demon-gods, his strength began to wane, and the world began to sicken, for he could no longer do his duty. Following their lupine instincts, most of these first werewolves rose up to challenge their father to step down as leader of the pack; unable to stand down by his nature, they were forced to slay him. His death howl tore Pangaea apart, raising the Gauntlet that formed a barrier between the worlds of Flesh and Spirit. The grieving Mother Luna cursed her patricidal children with weakness to her sacred metal, silver, and charged them to take up their father's mantle as defenders of humanity against the spirits. This oath has been upheld by the Forsaken ever since.

Werewolves and You

In contrast to their predecessor in the Old World of Darkness, all werewolves are the result of werewolf on human sex; werewolves mating together is a Harmony-shattering event that can spawn evil, werewolf-hating demons called Unihar, and werewolves don't mate with wolves (but, if they must, all that happens is a litter of normal wolf pups - you sicko!), for all that the Pure have their legends of a wolfborn werewolf Messiah.

As beings possessed of dual natures -wolf and man, as well as spirit and mortal- their morality replacement is Harmony, which represents how well they can strike a balance between the two aspects of their existence.

Most human/werewolf matings produce wolfblooded, which are basically the game's equivalent to kinsfolk; they're more resistant to Lunacy and that's about it.

Werewolves have five forms; human, wolf, near-human, near-wolf and "warform" (Garou, a humanoid wolf mixed with a walking murder-machine that is prone to going into Death Rage and trying to kill everyone around it). There's also a high-level power called Primal Form, which adds a "dire wolf" form that is... well, picture a wolf big enough to eat a human in one bite, and you got the idea.

Werewolves are protected by Lunacy, which drives humans mad with fear and blurs their memories if they survive the encounter.

Spirits, Pure, Bale Hounds and Hosts

These are the three threats a werewolf will most likely face off against in its (nasty, brutish and short) life.

Spirits are everywhere. They define and promote aspects of existence and do so to monomaniacal fixation; they are NOT good guys, and even spirits of things like Joy or Love are dangerous if they're left to their own devices. The nature of the Forsaken's oath to Mother Luna compels them to guard humanity from their influence, and many spirits hate them for it.

Hosts are the shattered shards of the demon-gods that Father Wolf slew, which mostly exist as roving swarms of creepy-crawlies. Until they get strong enough that they can gnaw their way into peoples' living bodies and absorb their flesh to become grotesque half-human half-beasts. The two main ones are the Azlu (giant fucking brain-eating spiders) and the Beshilu (plague-spreading rats). The other ones are the Srizaku (flesh-eating locust swarms that devour every plant, animal and person in sight), the Halaku (crows that eat peoples' eyes to turn them into their slaves for fuck-knows-why), the Razilu (snakes who your Storyteller gets to decide what the fuck they want), the Adarusharu (fear-eating wolves who can merge into giant multi-headed wolf-monsters), the Usudwirku (fungus-spirits that infect the victims of werewolves so they can drive wolves batty whilst the fungi-spirits take over their loci), and the Uglathlu (worm spirits who steal the bodies of utter scum so that they can create Wounds - basically, little pockets of Hell).

Finally, one of the most depressingly common enemies for werewolves are other werewolves. Squabbles over territory, pride, all that good shit is normal. But, there's two groups of werewolves who are pretty much always enemies...

The Pure are werewolves who claim they're innocent of murdering Father Wolf, and so they hate Mother Luna for demanding they atone for a crime they never committed and hate the Forsaken even more for taking Pangaea away from them. They reject Mother Luna, which among other things means silver hurts them worse, and they want to tear down the Gauntlet between worlds so the spirits can take over, hoping that this will restore Pangaea and allow them to become rulers. Thing is, there's a lot more of these bastards than there are of the Forsaken (that is, the good guys), and the spirits like them more since they aren't interested in bossing them around like the Forsaken do.

The Bale Hounds, meanwhile, have taken one look at the shithole they live in and come to the conclusion that evil is winning, and they want to be on the winning team. So, they've allied themselves with the Maeljin - the Spirit Kings of Lust, Pride, Wrath, Envy, Avarice, Gluttony, Sloth, Deceit and Destruction - and work to make the world even more of an utter shithole, creating pits of hell that the werewolves call "Wounds". Even the Pure think these guys are fucking dangerous, so much so they have been known to team up with the Forsaken to kill the bastards.

Other Shifters

A lot less focused on in this setting, but still present. There were two excellent books - Skinthieves, for "humans who change shape through magic" and "spirit-melded shifters" types and War Against The Pure for more "mythical shapechanger" types.

There's also the absolute atrocity known as Changing Breeds, which is basically every single fucking awful thing about Werewolf: The Apocalypse wrapped up in one shittastic package. Don't believe us? Take a look at this poor sap, who dared to try and dissect its awfulness chapter by chapter. http://destroythis.blogspot.com.au/search?updated-max=2014-07-31T18:46:00-07:00&max-results=7&start=7&by-date=false&m=1

Needless to say, nobody talks about Changing Breeds.

2nd Edition

Like Vampire: The Requiem before them, the wolves got themselves a 2nd edition, and they got a hell of a lot more badass in it. Some of the highlights:

Werewolves now only take Aggravated damage from damage roll-over, silver, and supernatural attacks. This means werewolves are a lot tougher to fight.

Garou form got massively beefed up. Among other things? Instant regeneration of all non-Agg damage. Combined with how tough werewolves can be, and it's almost impossible to kill a werewolf while it's in war form.

Wolf-bloods went from just getting +2 Willpower to resist Lunacy to full-fledged immunity and at least one (and potentially more) of several possible supernatural powers, from shapeshifting to werewolf-like regeneration. Of course, it's now possible for werewolves to make Wolf-bloods with bad Lunacy rolls, so it's not all good news.