Rage & Gnosis Guide

Rage

Every Garou is a crucible for Gaia's primal anger -- her Rage at the pillage of the world at the hands of the Weaver and the Wyrm. This Rage is a force of mindless violence, a constant slow-motion path of unthinking destruction and violence that each and every Garou must keep control of lest it consume her. Rage mixes instinctual cunning and hunting ability with savage bloodlust and unpredictable horror.

To the Garou, Rage is both a blessing and a curse. Many think that Luna gave Rage to the Garou through her moon-signs that determine how much Rage a Garou begins his life with after the First Change. Others contend that Rage is a spark of the Wyrm within each Garou, the force of primal destruction corrupting the children of the creator. The most vocal say that it is Gaia herself who would have her children use her Rage as their greatest weapon.

Much of a Garou's struggle comes from a never-ending battle with the Rage each werewolf feels. The Beast is never far from their thoughts -- even the most pacifistic Ragabash or the most serene of the Children of Gaia looks at a normal human and must repress the urge to rend and tear and bite until all that's left is blood and meat. Ahroun have it far worse, fighting to see friends, family, and loved ones as little more than prey animals or targets for attack.

Rage is recorded in two forms on the character sheet. The dots indicate the character's Rage rating -- her permanent Rage. The second is the Rage pool, shown by the squares underneath. These squares show how much Rage you have left to spend. When you spend a point of Rage, remove it from one of the squares. Don't take it from the dots of the permanent rating. A werewolf's permanent Rage stays constant, while the pool will drop during the course of the story. At certain times, a werewolf's Rage can even go higher than his permanent rating, but only if the situation is sufficiently infuriating.

Using Rage

Rage points are spent at the beginning of a turn, in the declaration stage. You can spend Rage only in times of stress. A Garou can use Rage in the following ways:

- Frenzy: Frenzy is the violent outburst, the untamed savagery, the animal instinct for blood and brutality that lurks in the heart of every werewolf. Whenever a player gets four or more successes on a Rage roll, the character enters a frenzy.

- Extra Actions: A player can spend Rage to give her character extra actions in a single turn. However, a Garou cannot spend more Rage points for actions in a turn than half of her permanent Rage rating.

- Changing Forms: A Player may spend a Rage point for his character to change instantly to any form he desires, without having to roll Stamina + Primal-Urge.

- Recovering from Stun: If a character loses more health levels in one turn than his Stamina rating, he is stunned and unable to act in the next turn. By spending a Rage point, the werewolf can ignore the effect and function normally.

- Remaining Active: If a character falls below the Incapacitated health level, a player can use Rage to keep her character going. Doing so requires a Rage roll (difficulty 8 ). Each success heals a health level, regardless of the type of wound. A player may attempt this roll only once per scene. If this roll fails, the character doesn't recover.

However, this last-ditch survival effort has its price. Like all Rage rolls, the character is still subject to frenzy. The wound will also remain on the Garou's body as an appropriate Battle Scar.

- Beast Within: Occasionally, a Garou is more a snarling monster than man or beast, and she must pay the price for it. For every point of Rage a character has above her Willpower rating, she loses one die on all social-interaction rolls. People, even other werewolves, can sense the killer hiding just under her skin, and they don't want to be anywhere near it.

- Losing the Wolf: If a character has lost or spent all his Rage and Willpower points, he has "lost the wolf," and he cannot regain Rage. The Garou cannot shift to anything except his breed form until his Rage returns. The character must regain at least one Willpower point before he can recover any Rage.

Multiple Actions With Rage

Tapping into that blinding werewolf fury, a Garou's player may spend Rage points to take multiple actions. For each point of Rage spent, the character gets to take an additional action that turn. Chaser, for example, can spend two Rage points to hit three people in the time it takes a normal person to swing his fist.

These extra actions take place after every other character has taken a normal turn. If several werewolves are burning Rage points that turn, then the extra actions follow the characters' usual order of activity; if Chaser goes before Jape in that scene, then Chaser's extra Rage action takes place before Jape's extra Rage action.

A Garou can spend up to half his permanent Rage in a single turn, but cannot also split his dice pools in order to get even more actions within that time. Unless some unusual circumstance (wound penalties or other impediments) interferes, the Garou gets his full dice pool for each Rage point action.

Gaining And Regaining Rage

The Rage pool fluctuates from session to session and from turn to turn. Rage replenishes itself in several ways.

- The Moon: The first time a werewolf sees the moon at night, the Beast inside stirs, and Rage floods back into her. Under a new moon, the character gets one point; under a waning moon, two points; under a half or waxing moon, three points; and under a full moon, four points. If the moon phase corresponds with the character's auspice, she regains all of her Rage. This phenomenon only occurs when the character first sees the moon each night. Use this link for the moon phases: https://mooncalendar.astro-seek.com/moon-phases-calendar-december-1993

- Botch: If the Storyteller approves, a werewolf might receive a Rage point after a botched a roll. Rage comes from stressful situations, and seeing the action you were attempting blow up in your face, sometimes literally, can be a very stressful situation.

- Humiliation: Rage will also come rushing back if anything a Garou does proves particularly humiliating. The Storyteller decides whether a situation is embarrassing enough to warrant a Rage point. Garou tend to be very proud, and they don't take being laughed at well.

- Confrontation: Again at the Storyteller's approval, a character could receive a Rage point at the beginning of a tense situation, in the moments right before combat starts. This gain accounts for the anticipation and hackle-raising that happens just as tempers start to flare.

- New Stories: When a new story begins, each player should roll a die to determine how many Rage points he possesses currently. (They might even exceed their permanent Rage ratings, at the Storyteller's discretion.) Yes, characters might end up with less Rage than they had at the end of the last story. Such is the way of Rage. It is always moving and never predictable.

The player is encouraged to explain this increase or decrease in Rage by describing what happened between sessions. If they come up with some creative tales, Storytellers can be a little more giving with the Rage as the new story progresses.

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Gnosis

Gaia did not leave the Garou with Rage as their only inheritance of her spiritual power. She gave them another tool, one that connects her children to their other nature, the spirit world. This connection to the Sacred Mother is called Gnosis.

Gnosis is the essence of the spiritual world; it allows Garou to access the spirits that surround them. In some ways, it is the expression of their half-spirit nature. This connection is what makes travel to the Umbra possible, and it fuels many of the powerful Gifts the spirits can bestow. Without this spiritual force, Garou would be cut off from half of their natures. Characters with low Gnosis can find contact with the spirits rare and difficult. On the other side, those with very high Gnosis scores sometimes find the worlds blurring, and they may have trouble distinguishing each side of the Gauntlet from the other.

Gnosis is recorded in two forms, much like Rage and Willpower. The first is the character's permanent Gnosis rating, indicated on the character sheet by the dots. The second is the temporary Gnosis pool, represented by the squares, which shows how many Gnosis points the player has left to spend. The Gnosis pool can never be greater than the Gnosis rating. When you spend a point of Gnosis, remove it from the Gnosis pool, not the permanent Gnosis rating. Permanent Gnosis stays constant through the story, while the pool fluctuates.

Using Gnosis

Much as Rage fuels battle and the physical world, the uses of Gnosis tend toward affecting insight and the spirit world.

- Rage and Gnosis: A player cannot use both Rage and Gnosis in the same turn, whether spending points or rolling the Trait. The only exceptions are certain Gifts that demand both to function. These two forces are very powerful, and the Garou's body is not strong enough to pull the power from these two natures simultaneously. For example, a werewolf cannot spend Rage for multiple actions and activate a fetish in the same turn.

- Carrying Silver: For every object made of or containing silver that a character is carrying, she loses one effective point from her Gnosis rating. More potent objects will cause the character to lose more. Luckily, this effect is only temporary, and it lasts only a day after the silver is discarded.

- Using Gifts: Many of the Gifts the spirits have bestowed upon faithful Garou call for Gnosis expenditures and/or rolls.

- Fetishes: Gnosis is used to attune or activate fetishes.


Gaining And Regaining Gnosis

Characters can regain their Gnosis in several ways.

- Meditation: When a character takes time to center himself and reconnect with the Sacred Mother on a personal level, he can sometimes regain Gnosis. The character must spend at least an hour in one place, focusing on his deeply spiritual side. The player rolls Wits + Enigmas (difficulty 8 ). For each success, the character regains one Gnosis point, up to a maximum of one point per hour of meditation; additional successes are lost. A Garou can only meditate to regain Gnosis once per day. The difficulty increases by one for each extra day a character attempts it in the same week, to a maximum difficulty of 10. The spirits are gracious, but not always generous.

- Sacred Hunt: The Sacred Hunt is one of the most frequently performed activities at Garou moots. The chosen prey -- an Engling -- is summoned and then hunted down. This activity can be done in either the Umbra or on Earth. After the prey has been caught and "killed," werewolves who have taken part in the hunt give thanks to the spirit for the gift of its life. All who participate in the hunt replenish their Gnosis pools completely.

- Bargaining with Spirits: Ritual hunts are not the only way to get Gnosis out of a spirit; the soft sell can work just as well. A werewolf can simply ask a spirit to share some of its Gnosis. The character must be able to speak in the spirit language through the use of a Gift or similar. The spirit may ask the character to perform some task before it shares its life force with the Garou. Once the bargain is completed, the spirit spends an amount of Essence, and the werewolf gains that many points of Gnosis.

- Between Stories: In the downtime between new tales, the players can make a Charisma + Enigmas roll to regain some Gnosis. Each success on this roll refreshes one point of Gnosis.