Werewolf: The Forsaken - Blank It

potentially fill in the gaps with characters of your own design.
If you do have enough players but none of them wants
to play a certain auspice, there’s nothing inherently wrong
with that, as long as the characters under your control play
a clearly secondary role and let the players’ characters hold
center stage. Just take their character preference as a sign of
the kind of game they want to play and tailor your narrative
to fit them. Spend the first arc of your chronicle designing
challenges that call on their characters’ strengths and to
which they are ideally suited, glossing over those aspects
that the non-represented auspice(s) would take on. Once
the characters have grown more experienced and those
regular challenges start to get easier, you can always throw
them a curve by designing a threat that falls outside their
accepted auspice roles. Also remember that the specific
auspice abilities such as spirit envoy and warrior’s eye aren’t
just advantages, they’re roleplaying hooks. Each one should
provide particular ideas for involving a character more
deeply in a story.
RAHU
There are several ways to give a Rahu’s player the
chance to broaden her character’s role beyond being the
one who sheds the most blood (both hers and others’). The
first is to consider that the Rahu’s job is to plan combat
strategy as much as it is to lead the fight. That’s her area of
expertise. Werewolves aren’t just opportunists like wolves
are — they have the ability to plan strategically, just like a
human general does. That’s the Rahu’s role. Equally, they’re
responsible for the combat skills of the whole pack and
should be encouraged to help train the other pack members.
You can bring a Rahu’s special skills into the chronicle
by:
• engineering fights that require planning for the
pack to stand any chance of winning
• controlling the amount of combat in the game so
the Rahu excels in his field rather than dominates the
chronicle
• pitting an overconfident or undisciplined pack
against opponents who are just out of their league, so as to
encourage them to train and improve under the Rahu
The warrior’s eye ability allows a Rahu to play to her
strength outside of combat. Being able to assess a potential
foe’s relative strength allows the Rahu to gather information
that can prove tactically useful. It also gives the
Rahu a point of common empathy with other Full Moons,
allowing them to relate to one another without having to
first test one another’s boasts. There are few werewolves as
honest with one another as Rahu. Being able to read one
another’s strength tends to strip away some of the bullshit
that other warrior fraternities can accumulate.
CAHALITH
The pack Cahalith is the repository of both werewolf
lore and stories of the local area. He’s also the pack’s
prophet and seer. You can give the player of such a character
specially written legends of the territory or of the
People, stories that have a bearing on current events in the
chronicle (or on plots you envision including in future sessions).
You can also afflict and tantalize him with prophetic
dreams of stories you have yet to tell. The Cahalith is also
more adept at using howls for communication than anyone
else is. If the packmates are separated for any reason, and it
does happen, the Cahalith is the one with the best chance
to put them back in communication with one another. He
might not howl alone, but he certainly howls first.
You can bring a Cahalith’s special skills into the
chronicle by:
• granting the Cahalith dreams or nightmares that
hint at the true nature of the challenge the pack faces or
at upcoming plots
• rooting an antagonist’s origins in the history of
the pack’s territory, one that requires knowledge of both
werewolf legends and human history to uncover
• giving the Cahalith’s half of a split pack information
that the other packmates desperately need to know
A Cahalith’s prophetic dreams might seem like a
challenge, but look on them as a singular opportunity.
Think of them not as the player trying to “cheat” by
learning your plot twists ahead of time, but rather as a
chance to plant exciting bits of foreshadowing or tease
the players with new clues. A prophetic dream can also
be a wonderful opportunity to frighten your players with
horrific visions of something they don’t want to come true.
Be careful not to overuse this last option, though. The
last thing you want is for your Cahalith player to become
desensitized or unwilling to use his auspice ability.
ELODOTH
An Elodoth’s place between light and dark gives her
a number of potential roles in a pack. Externally, she plays
the part of diplomat (as much as is possible for a beast in
human skin), in particular with rival werewolf packs and
with such spirits as can be negotiated with. Internally, she
is the one who has the greatest duty to make certain that
all pack members are receiving their fair due — their fair
share of the spoils, their fair allotment of Essence, their
fair chance to serve the pack as suits their specialty. She
may also have to serve as the one who passes sentence
on a packmate who violates the Oath or otherwise does
something to the detriment of the pack, balancing justice
with necessity. She may also be able to best sense if a pack
is “falling out of balance” by ignoring part of their nature
— living too long in human form, or avoiding the duty
to walk in Shadow. When the pack spends too long on
one aspect of its life, you can suggest to the player of an
Elodoth that her character feels an urge to spend more
time in wolf form, visit the Shadow or otherwise address
whatever aspect of Forsaken life has been missing.
You can bring an Elodoth’s special skills into the
chronicle by:
• setting up a mystery that can be solved only by
negotiating with the spirits for information
Pack
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