Werewolf: The Forsaken - Blank It

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Appendix I: The Spirit World
car’s spirit follows the car wherever it goes, and is the
only part of the car visible in the spirit world. Even the
shortest-lived things in the living world, such as a bolt
of lightning, creates a spirit — an electricity-spirit that
lives a short, bright existence before dispersing or being
absorbed by another spirit.
It’s not just things that are reflected in the Shadow,
though. Actions, emotions and situations can all leave
their fingerprints on the spirit world. A fatal stabbing
might create a murder-spirit, just as a mugging can create
fear- and pain-spirits. A really good party can birth tiny
spirits of joy and lust, as well as spirits of friendship and
intoxication. These spirits seek to propagate themselves,
as pain-spirits encourage others in the physical world (by
whispering across the Gauntlet with their spirit powers)
to hurt the people around them. Spirits of celebration
make a party run and run, and give the neighborhood a
spiritual boost that can be seen in the light footsteps and
cheery whistling of the people as they head to work the
next morning. Maybe one of those joy-spirits will follow a
reveler to the office, where the spirits of obligation or conformity
that linger there destroy it. If the joy-spirit is truly
powerful, it might overcome them, taking up residence
in the reveler’s desk and starting a spiritual change in the
office — but this is greatly unlikely. The Shadow has its
own Darwinian ecosystem of predator and prey, one that
reflects the pitiless state of life in the World of Darkness.
Most spirits are tiny motes, virtually the size of insects
and with mayfly life spans to match. They have very little
influence on the physical world, and they generally affect
the realm of the flesh only if they’re present in large
numbers. They’re hardly visible as more than pinpricks of
light, too small to even emanate a particular resonance.
But with enough “food,” these tiny spirits can grow much
larger. A mote that survives, sometimes by devouring
its own brethren, could eventually grow large and aware
enough to become a Gaffling.
This link between the spiritual and physical worlds,
and between event and consequence, is the one unbreakable
law of the Shadow. Nowhere is this more apparent
than in urban areas, where the constant changes and unpredictable
behavior of humanity creates an ever-widening
circle of cause and effect. It can still be seen in the depths
of the countryside, but often in more predictable patterns,
and the cycles of nature turn through the seasons, helped
on by the spirits that depend on them. Yet, even here
the passage of humanity is felt, with everyone from local
farmers to giant agribusinesses disrupting those age-old
patterns, promoting some existing spirits over other native
ones and introducing spirits from entirely different choirs.
Although something as simple as a dying man can
create a small change in the spiritual world, most such
changes are brief. Very quickly after the man dies, the
pain-spirits move on to find other prey and the deathmotes
disperse or merge to form a larger, more powerful
death-spirit. It’s when suffering (or any other powerful
emotion) is magnified and sustained over time that spirits
live on in a place long after the humans who birthed
them are gone. An abandoned jail that was once run by a
cruel jailer who tortured his inmates might be the lair of a
greater pain-spirit for years after the jailer and his prey are
dead and buried.
WEREWOLVES AND FAITH
Werewolves are often quite entrenched
in their human lives when they undergo their
First Change. Many of them are already deeply
involved in earthly religions or hold passionate
beliefs about the nature of the world. How does
a devout Christian, Muslim or Sikh deal with discovering
the spiritual truth of reality? In some
cases, very badly indeed. The shattering of their
beliefs is yet another massive change in their
lives, which can unhinge them for a little while.
Others simply let go of what they believed
before and adapt rapidly to the reality of what
they can see in the Shadow.
A number, though, actually integrate their
old beliefs with what they see before them.
The isolated nature of werewolf life means that
many bizarre crossbreeds of human faiths and
the animism that infects the Uratha’s daily lives
thrive all over the world. Some are more persuasive
than others, spreading out through moots
to influence packs across wide areas. Sometimes
a faith’s influence spreads no further than the
werewolf or pack who came up with it.
The Shadow Realm doesn’t provide the
answers to any of the great questions of creation,
and the werewolves are seeking answers and
a way to redeem themselves for the murder of
Father Wolf. Is it any wonder that some seek
solutions in the same faiths they turned to before
their true nature asserted itself?
SPIRIT UAL RESONANCE
Actions within the physical world have an effect in
the spirit world beyond just creating new spirits. The act
itself, and the emotions it generates, creates Essence, the
raw spiritual food of the Shadow Realm. This substance
is consumed and bartered by spirits, acting as much as
money as food with the spirit courts. The emotion taints
the Essence even as it creates it, giving it a resonance
that influences the spirits who consume it. Essence born
of fear can make spirits timid or aggressive, while Essence
born of happiness can make spirits happy or hedonistic. In
addition, spirits tend to be better-nourished by consuming
Essence of appropriate resonance; a spirit of hatred that