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is name isb
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staged a rescue shortly before Mark underwent the First Change. Thrown into a world he barely understood, and certainly was not mature enough to adjust to, Mark was forced to run with, and keep up with, the far older and more experienced Meninna. While the companionship of his pack brothers and sisters drew Mark (whom the pack dubbed “Little Shadow”) out of the near-catatonia his prior traumas had inflicted on him, his immaturity made finding Harmony a difficult prospect for the child.
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With time, the Crescent Street Shadows might have helped their youngest member find his balance, but time was not on their side. Just under a year after Mark was inducted into the Hunters in Darkness and became the newest member of the Shadows, the pack descended into the sewers below the city to clear out a Beshilu nest. The nest was far bigger than the pack had expected, and after a titanic battle, the entire pack, save for Mark and the pack’s totem, was slain. Mark escaped by fleeing into the Shadow, guided by the wolf-totem Barag-Lugal.
Without a pack to lean on, and with only the barest understanding of Harmony and his duty to Father Wolf, Mark’s spirit-side has nearly consumed his rational mind. Operating solely on instinct, he still patrols the Crescent
Aliases: Mark Lee, the Ghost of Crescent Street, the
Bottle Boy.
background
Most among the People experience the First Change sometime after puberty and sometime before the infirmity of old age sets in. Generally, that’s for the best. Children can’t handle the mental and emotional trauma of becoming a moon-mad, half-spirit beast, and even a werewolf’s legendary physical vigor can only do so much with a body ravaged by a lifetime of human frailty. By choosing those in their physical and emotional prime, Mother Luna ensures that her children are capable of performing the job set before them.
On the other hand, any Elodoth who has tried to negotiate with a Lune can tell you that Mother Luna is a certifiably insane bitch goddess, and her spirit-children are no different. Sometimes, whether by whim or unknow- able divine plan or sheer madness, Luna reaches down to “bless” a nuzusul far younger than the norm. Mark Lee was the unfortunate result of one such whim. Three weeks after his 10th birthday, Mark began complaining to his parents that monsters were lurking outside his window at night. His parents, thinking this was just typical childhood anxiety rearing its heads, assured him there were no such things as monsters and thought nothing more of it. As the month wore on, and the moon progressed toward its crescent phase, Mark’s fears became more tangible and, ultimately, damaging. When the boy woke up one morning with dozens of apparently self-inflicted scratch marks all over his body, his parents admitted him to a psychiatric hospital.
t
Hem
adHouseWhat Mark’s parents couldn’t possibly have known was that this asylum was just about the worst place they could have put their child. Spirits of madness, fear and loneliness swarmed about the place, and those alien enti- ties recognized a werewolf on the cusp of the Change and tormented Mark ceaselessly. The staff was little better, infested with sadists and power-junkies, to say nothing of Ridden orderlies and doctors with their own ideas on “treatment,” which amounted to little more than torture.
In all likelihood, Mark would have died in that hospi- tal had the Crescent Street Shadows, a Hunter in Dark- ness pack whose territory butted up against the asylum, recognized the spiritual disruptions around the boy and
aSylum and aSylum
The name and specific details of the asylum Mark was confined to are left to you to flesh out, ideally to integrate his background into your chron- icle. The asylum might be the site of some signifi- cant bit of backstory in your chronicle, or a major antagonist (perhaps a Beshilu Host or an ancient vampire) might lair in the hospital’s basement.
Alternately, if you have access to World of Darkness: Asylum, Bishopsgate Hospital makes for a fine place to set Mark’s backstory, and likewise, Mark himself might be a good hook to encourage your players to investigate the horrors of Bishopsgate.
Street Shadows’ old territory. Sightings of the strange, silent boy, accompanied by a massive, shaggy gray “dog,” at various locations throughout the territory have given rise to legends of a ghostly boy and his spectral dog, faith- ful to its master even in death. Even the local Forsaken packs (none of whom has yet made an effort to reclaim the Crescent Street Shadows’ territory) haven’t connected the “ghost boy” to one of their own yet.
d
escript ionThere’s a reason people who have seen Mark assume he’s a ghost, and it’s not just because Lunacy makes them forget when they see him Change. Small, pale and quiet, Mark has a haunted, almost insubstantial quality about him that comes from spending too much time in the Shadow. He knows the location of every locus, no matter how small, within his territory, and that, coupled with his knowledge of Stealth Gifts, allows him to appear and van- ish in the blink of an eye. A regular nightly patrol pattern makes it easy for ghost spotters to predict where he might appear, further suggesting a ghostly origin.
Mark never speaks to the humans who witness his appearance, and seldom even acknowledges their pres- ence. Attempts to approach him or engage him elicit a dangerous warning growl from the manifested wolf-spirit that accompanies him, which is usually enough to scare off would-be ghost whisperers. Exactly why Barag-Lugal continues to accompany and protect the boy when the pack-bond must have been broken by the deaths of the rest of the pack remains a mystery.
Mark’s behavior is unpredictable, to say the least — or rather, it is predictable by such an intricate web of pseudo- logic and spirit-bans that it is effectively unpredictable. Multiple derangements brought on by low Harmony, not to mention the attendant bans, have made Mark’s thought processes nearly as alien as a spirit’s. In his madness, he sees even innocuous behavior as evidence of spiritual compunc- tion. Nearly any act might be enough to convince Mark that a person is Ridden or Claimed, eliciting a violent response. Conversely, Mark might interpret some acts as a sign of a bargain made with some spirit-court guaranteeing safe passage. In the months since sightings of the ghost-boy began, a dozen or more conflicting stories have sprung up to explain why these particular acts might draw the ghost’s ire. Several are discussed under “Rumors,” below; the Story- teller is encouraged to come up with more as needed.
s
ecre t sBy all rights, the totem-spirit Barag-Lugal should have returned to the Shadow after its pack was
slain. One member left alive was not enough to maintain the totem bond, and without that spiritual connection, most spirits would have abandoned a lone Forsaken cub. During the battle with the Beshilu swarm that doomed the Shadows, Barag-Lugal manifested physically to fight along-
side the Uratha, crushing and consuming many of the rat-shards. Something happened to the spirit after that battle; perhaps it consumed too many of the shards, or perhaps the swarm possessed
an infectious Numen, but Barag-Lugal has been partially corrupted by the rat Host’s
Essence. Not quite a magath, but certainly no longer a pure wolf-spirit, Barag-Lugal
stays with Mark because Mark does not recognize what is wrong with his former
totem. Mark protects the spirit from its brethren and from other werewolves who would destroy the abomination.
Though he knows it is his duty to destroy the Beshilu swarm that still threatens his territory, Mark has developed an intense phobia of rats, so much so that even seeing an ordinary rat is enough to
risk Death Rage. A werewolf pack with a rat-spirit as a totem would be seen as a nightmare beyond imagining, and might drive Mark to flee his territory for good.
No other pack of Uratha has swept in to claim Mark’s territory yet, and with good reason. The lone cub has caught the eye of a Predator King seer, who believes the boy’s descent into feral madness is actually the blessing of Dire Wolf. This Predator King, Hunt’s-Eye, and his pack keep other werewolves, Forsaken and Pure alike, from moving in on the territory. Hunt’s-Eye believes that soon Mark will shed the last vestige of his humanity, at which point he plans to offer the young Meninna a new home.
Mark’s parents believe their son ran away from the hospital in the midst of a psychotic break. They’ve hired
a private investigator, Ronnie Chen, to try to find their missing boy. Ronnie seems to have at least a working knowledge of werewolves, and suspects the ghost-boy he’s been hearing about lately might be the boy he’s looking for. Whether Ronnie is wolf-blooded himself or a hunter or something else altogether remains to be seen.
r
umors“The way I heard it, this kid back in, like, the 1950s or whatever, went to the hospital with a stomachache or some- thing. This was back when they still kept medicine in those big glass bottles, with green- or brown-colored glass and whatever. Anyway, some stupid nurse on her first night, or maybe she’s drunk or stoned or some shit, she gives him the wrong medi- cine. She should have given him the shit in the green bottle, but instead she hooked the brown bottle up to his IV, and the kid ended up dying. Now he haunts that old hospital over on Ward, and if you go there at night, and you’ve got a brown bottle in your hand, he’ll think you’ve brought the wrong medi- cine and he’ll kill your ass. But if you got a green bottle, and you show it to him, he’ll go away and leave you alone. Moral of the story? Drink Heineken, man.”
As is the case with many rumors and urban legends, this one takes a nugget of truth and adds a backstory to it that’s complete bullshit. Mark isn’t a ghost from the 1950s, of course, but an abandoned hospital really does exist there (it used to be part of the same medical complex as the asylum Mark was held in, but the general hospital was shut down in 1976), and there remains an active locus in that building, so Mark can be found there sometimes. If he sees you there carrying a piece of brown glass — it doesn’t have to be a whole bottle — he’ll come after you, because he’s convinced that brown glass is the token of a disease-spirit his pack bound into a fetish bottle at that very hospital. Carrying brown glass means you’re there to try to free the spirit and must be stopped. Despite the story, green glass has no particular significance to Mark; he just ignores anyone who isn’t carrying brown glass.
“You know that Quick Shop store over on 14th? The one that’s always got the boarded-up windows ’cause people keep smashing them? Did you know it’s haunted? Yeah — well, the alley out back is, anyways. I worked there for a little while, a few months back, and one time when I was taking out the trash, I saw this kid, right? The kid just points at the manhole cover there in the alley, just staring at me, sorta shaking his head real slow, like he’s trying to tell me there’s something bad down there. I got kinda spooked, so I looked around to see if my manager was back in his office yet, and when I turned around again, the kid was gone. When I got home, I did a little digging on the Internet. Turns out some kid was abducted and killed, and the guy dumped the body in that sewer. You want to hear the kicker? The dead kid had a big Husky dog; two weeks after they found the kid, it got hit by a car. Yeah, I quit the next day.”
Something bad lurks under the manhole cover in the alley behind that convenience store: if you climb down the CreSCent Street ShadoWS
With the exception of Little Shadow and the pack’s totem, all of the Crescent Street Shadows have been dead for six months. Mark still “sees” them from time to time, though, and so a brief description of their personalities is given here. Clever characters might be able to learn about the Shadows and use that knowledge to reach Mark.
• Pretty Boy Don: The pack’s Cahalith and al- pha. Contrary to his deed name, Don was a thick- limbed, ugly son of a bitch, with a nose that had been broken several times in several bar fights, and a puckered scar across his neck and down his chest that came courtesy of a Fire-Touched war- rior’s poisoned blade. He was the closest thing to a father Mark had after his Change, but his lead- ership was more alpha wolf than paternal figure. Mark respected Don, but was also afraid of him.
• Liza the Bitch: Liza was a diminutive woman of indeterminate Latin American origins. Before her First Change, she was a business major at a local college; after she Changed under the half moon, she joined the Shadows and earned her epithet thanks to a hard-nosed negotiating style and an unwillingness to back down over unfair terms. Mark reminded her of her little brother, and she frequently stepped in when she felt Don was pushing the boy too hard.
• Alan Kensington: The youngest member of the pack before Mark joined, Alan was a privi- leged 17-year-old kid from a few towns over be- fore a homecoming party on the night of the full moon ended with his First Change and a bunch of dead teenagers. The police think someone supplied bad PCP for the party, leading to Alan going on a rampage with a garden trowel. Lack- ing enough evidence to arrest him, the local cops still keep a file on Alan — and the new friends he hooked up with after he ran away from home.
into the sewers there and follow the lines for a little while, you’ll find the Beshilu nest that killed the Crescent City Shadows. Mark keeps a close eye on that spot, and warns unwary humans away from it — by force, if necessary. Ironically, the rest of the story is also true: a boy was ab- ducted, held for over a week by his captor, then killed and dumped down the sewer. The killer was caught years ago, and anyone who has actually seen Mark can easily find a picture of the dead boy and realize he isn’t the “ghost.”
“Sometimes, if you walk along Meyers Road at night, you might hear someone whistling the first few bars of ‘Farmer in the Dell.’ If you want to make it home alive, you better whistle out the rest of the verse. Some kid died playing hide-and-seek out there, and if you don’t finish the rest of the song, his ghost will take you away, and then you’ll be lost too, forever and ever.”
The Crescent Street Shadows kept a tight rein on their territory, and anyone wanting to pass through it had to be given a special pass phrase that he could use if one of the pack caught him within their borders. They changed the code every few months so they could spot people trying to cheat, but for most of the time Mark was with the pack, the old children’s song “Farmer in the Dell” was used as the code. Now, when he spots someone he thinks is a werewolf interloper (whether that person is a werewolf or not), he challenges them to give the proper response. Those who don’t are killed, their bodies dumped in the Shadow where they won’t be found by human authorities.
m
ark“l
it tles
Hadow” l
eeAuspice: Ithaeur
Tribe: Hunters in Darkness
Mental Attributes: Intelligence 2, Wits 3, Resolve 3 Physical Attributes: Strength 1 (2/4/3/1), Dexterity 3 (3/4/5/5), Stamina 2 (3/4/4/3)
Social Attributes: Presence 2, Manipulation 2 (2/1/0/2), Composure 1
Mental Skills: Crafts (Improvised Items) 2, Investigation 2, Occult (Spirits) 3
Physical Skills: Athletics 3, Brawl (Gauru) 2, Larceny (Lock- picking) 2, Stealth 4
Social Skills: Animal Ken (Dogs) 4, Intimidation (Unnerv- ing Stare) 3, Streetwise 1
Merits: Danger Sense, Fast Reflexes 2, Fleet of Foot 2, Iron Stomach
Willpower: 4 Harmony: 2 Virtue: Fortitude Vice: Sloth
Initiative: 4 (4/5/6/6 including Fast Reflexes) Defense: 3
Speed: 11 (12/15/18/16 including Fleet of Foot)
Health: 6 (8/10/9/6; as a child, Mark’s Size is 4 instead of 5) Primal Urge: 3
Renown: Honor 1, Wisdom 2, Cunning 3
Gifts: (1) Call Water, Two-World Eyes, Warning Growl; (2) Father Wolf’s Speed
Rituals: 1 Rites: Rite of Dedication, Rite of the Spirit Brand Essence/per Turn: 12/1
Weapons/Attacks:
Type Damage Range Dice Pool Special Claw (Gauru) 1(L) Melee 8 — Bite (Gauru) 2(L) Melee 9 —
Story hookS
• While it might be easy to mistake him for one, Mark is not yet Zi’ir. He’s very close, but if a pack managed to break through his psychoses and reach him, he might yet be pulled back from the brink. A group might seek him out, thinking they were going to lay a ghost to rest, only to discover that their intelligence was very much off base. Rehabilitating a feral boy who can fly into Death Rage at the drop of a hat isn’t exactly an easy task, and especially for mortal or wolf- blooded characters, it might require arranging peaceful contact with a pack of werewolves.
• The Beshilu infection running rampant through Barag-Lugal has finally corrupted the spirit’s mind. The wolf-spirit has begun gnaw- ing at the Gauntlet around the loci in Mark’s territory, wearing the wall down and allowing all manner of spirits to slip through. The spirit needs to be put down, but the boy will fight to the death to defend his “best friend.” There might be a rite that would allow a more-experienced Ithaeur to purge the taint from the spirit — but even then, with the infection gone, Barag-Lugal would have no reason to stay with Mark.
• The players’ pack has moved into the (supposedly) unoccupied former territory of the Crescent Street Shadows. Perhaps they were displaced from their old territory by a rival pack, or maybe they’re looking to expand, or maybe they’re just starting out and were offered this territory by more established packs. In any case, shortly after setting up shop, they begin to be harried by Pure ambushes and occasionally spot a kid tailing them around the loci in their territory. Is the kid a Predator King? Why are the Pure de-