Historia Antes de la Colonia

Level Four, Punishment

This rite is reserved for only the greatest of all Corax screw-ups. It requires a small, empty wooden box, preferably painted with scenes from the target’s life. At least three Corax, including the one performing the rite, must surround the target (who is generally bound or subdued). The box is then opened and a litany of the victim’s deeds is sung. As each event is named, the memories of that moment fly from the victim into the box, along with all associated memories, until the victim’s mind is emptied of everything beyond his First Change. The rite is all-or-nothing — it cannot be used to excise only specific memories.

The ritemaster must then seal and crush the box, at which point all of the memories contained within become his.

System: This rite costs a point each of Gnosis, Will-

power, and Rage, and lasts for as long as it takes to sing away the deeds of the victim. It also requires a contested Willpower roll (difficulty 8) between the ritemaster and the victim, though each additional Corax present lowers the ritemaster’s difficulty by 1, to a minimum of 3. This rite may only be used on other Corax.

Of all Gaia’s children, none are more attuned to the cycle of life, death, and rebirth than her ursine brood, and they alone were trusted with Her greatest gift — the power over life and death itself.

Fetishes

uPhone

Level Three, Gnosis 8

The Corax claim to have invented this fetish — in truth, they stole a prototype from a Glass Walker and they quickly improved upon the design. The fetish is made from a normal smartphone with a Chimerling bound within. The uPhone works as a normal smartphone anywhere on earth, without charging the wereraven for calls or data use. When activated it can call other uPhones regardless of distance, even between Umbral realms or across the Gauntlet.

STEREOTYPES

Raina Fader goes on at length:

• Garou: You’re big, you’re violent, and

Raven’s beak it’s fun to point you in the right direction and watch the blood fly. We look out for you, and you look out for us. Capische?

“They talk too much, but if you know what to listen for and what to ignore, you can learn a lot. Assuming you don’t kill them first.” — William Furhie

• Kitsune: Gotta love a whole Breed named

after a Hendrix riff. But I got a feeling that you’re up to something, and even the Tengu I speak to don’t know the whole of it.

“Nobody hates the Tengu or their kind, not even the Garou. They irritate without mak- ing enemies. Perhaps that is the ravens’ true strength.” — Moonlight-Over-River

• Rokea: And I thought the Garou were

dumb and violent, you guys take the biscuit. But I can’t help imagining everything you know about the world under the waves. If you’d only tell us. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” — Bleeds- Night

History

In the earliest of days, there was nothing — only the potential for everything that would ever come to be. Gaia dug deep into that potential and brought forth Her three eldest children — the Yarn Spinner, the Tapestry Maker, and the Pattern Breaker, called by others the Wyld, the Weaver, and the Wyrm. She tasked these three with creating the rest of reality, and together they fashioned the Great Tapestry of existence, in which everything had a purpose, and a place, and a time in which it was right for them exist. Had the balance between these first three of Gaia’s offspring been maintained as it was meant to, the pattern would still exist to this day, and there would have been no need for any of the Changing Breeds to come into being. But alas, that was not to be.

Somewhere, sometime in the darkness of the past, Gaia’s first children stopped cooperating at their sacred tasks. Tapestry Maker trapped Pattern Breaker in a web of threads and drove it to madness and destruction. Rather than following the great design to create a work of beauty and balance, Yarn Spinner, Tapestry Maker, and Pattern Breaker went to war, each struggling to force its desire on the Great Tapestry.

To try to restore the lost balance, Gaia once again dug deep into the potential of the universe and created Her Changing children. Each of them she built specifically to serve the duty she put before them — the wolves to war, the ravens to uncover secrets, the lizards to remember.

And, to ensure that the rest of her children would have someone to look to for guidance, Gaia made the Gurahl. She gave them an innate understanding of Her design: not only the creating of new life and the weaving of that which exists, but also that most difficult knowing for mortal beings — the import of endings, each in its well and true time.

She gave them the ability to alter not only their bodies, but also their natures, as their duty would require — not mercurially, but slowly and with great deliberation. She made them curious and playful, to fill them with the joy of potential. She made them protective and nurtur- ing, parental figures to those who would have need of

their strength. And, knowing that Winter would come to all in time, she made them stoic and strong of both heart and body, that they might do what needed to be done to protect the Tapestry and all who were a part of it, when the time came.

Knowing she had made them worthy of the respon- sibility, she also granted them her most sacred of gifts: the ability to wrest one of the slain back from the lands of the dead.

For a time, it appeared that Gaia’s newest children would accomplish the task put before them. Their strengths and weaknesses complemented one another, just as the cold of winter and the heat of summer are both vital to the turning of the seasons, and they worked closely together to serve Her purpose.

In time, as had happened before, things began to fall out of synch. The Garou grew jealous of the trust Gaia had placed in her other children, and coveted the secrets and Gifts of the rest of the Changing Breeds. When the Garou discovered that the Gurahl knew the secret of bringing life back to the dead, they demanded that the Gurahl teach them this magic.

The Gurahl, in their wisdom, decided not to share the secret of restoring life with any other Changing Breed, particularly to the warlike and razor-edged Garou. They realized that Wolf’s Children would want to bring back every warrior slain in battle in order to continue the fight against the Pattern Breaker and that this desire went against the cycle of life and death.

When the Garou found that the Gurahl would not teach them our most closely guarded Gift, they spread the word to the other Fera that the werebears were hoarding Gaia’s gifts. And, as rumors do, the tales grew ever darker with the retelling…

The Gurahl refused to teach the Garou their most secret Gift so that they might raise their warriors from the dead.

The Gurahl refused to raise Garou who had been killed in battles with the Wyrm.

The Gurahl turned their back on injured Garou so as to make the wolf-warriors weaker.

The Gurahl sympathized with the Wyrm, and refused to aid Garou in fighting it.

The Gurahl had turned to the Wyrm.

When the War of Rage finally broke out, the Gurahl gave way to their Rage and fought long and hard against the Garou and any others who tried to de-

stroy them. But the Garou fought in packs and could take down even the fiercest bear-shifter. The wolven-warriors obliterated entire tribes of Gurahl, torturing those who were captured in attempts to force them to give up the Gift of rebirth.

Not one Gurahl did so.

The Gurahl saw that the Garou were bent on destroy- ing all other Shifters. In order to save their Breed and

protect the secrets Gaia had entrusted to them, the werebears withdrew from the world. Some ancient ones left their bodies and moved into the Umbra, seeking the Summer Lands. Others went to their Umbral Glades and fell into a deep sleep. The Garou believed they

were all gone. T h e c e n - t u r i e s w e n t on without the Gurahl. Only the Great Grandfather or Great Grand- mother remained present and awake to monitor the changes in the world and wait for the time was right for their return. When the Storm Eater — a massive Bane that seemed capable of destroying all of North America — emerged and threatened the Gurahl’s remaining Kin, the Gurahl awoke en masse and offered their services to the Garou to help fight it. The Garou reluctantly agreed, and Gaia’s Healers returned to their sacred duties.

Today, the Gurahl fight a desper- ate battle to increase their numbers before the Final Battles begin. The Children of Bear know that their talents — both for battle as well as for healing and cleansing — will be vital in those

last days.

Organization

For the most part, Gurahl do not travel in packs.

Their healing and protec- tion is needed almost

world, and they exist in such small numbers that they usually live and travel alone in order to cover as much of Gaia’s land as possible. This dispersal of the Breed across a vast range of territories also minimizes the chances of a concerted attack destroying most or all of the Gurahl. This is not to say that Gurahl never travel in groups. One tribe of werebear, the Ice Stalkers, habitually gathers in small units similar to packs. Their native territory — the frozen north — is vast and harsh enough to make pack-life preferable to a solitary existence. Group hunts allow them to travel further and take down larger prey than any one Gurahl could on their own. And for those

Arctic nights that last for months at a time, companion- ship is preferable to sullen silence.

In areas where the Pattern Breaker’s forces are nu- merous, several Uzmati may band together to accomplish what a single Gurahl cannot. A group of werebears ral- lied together for a mass rite of cleansing — or a battle, if there are no other options — is enough to tackle almost anything the Wyrm can throw at it. While such temporary packs are exceedingly effective, they usually disband when their mission is accomplished, so that the individuals can spread out and share their healing and protection with a larger range than if they’d stayed together.