Werewolf: The Forsaken - Blank It

consumes Essence with wrathful resonance will be full
sooner than if it consumed Essence touched with resonance
of hope.
The ambient resonance in area can also influence
the landscape. A site of repeated murders might develop
pools of blood, piles of skulls or echoes of death rattles
in the Shadow. Once the landscape has been affected by
the spiritual resonance of the acts, all Essence produced
within that area is tainted by that resonance. For more on
resonance, see p. 275.
THE URBAN SCENE
Humans have more effect on the Hisil than any
other creature on Earth does, and precious few people
have any idea what they’re doing. Werewolves have the
ability to tame the Shadow around their territory to some
degree, but the sheer numbers of people and availability of
technology can undo all their work in an instant. Imagine
a pack whose territory is chosen as the battleground in a
modern war. Death, misery and destruction rains down on
the pack’s territory before the werewolves are even aware
that trouble is coming. Many of the battlefields of the
two World Wars are still blighted utterly in the Shadow,
no matter how recovered they look in the material world.
Poppy fields alone aren’t enough to undo spiritual damage
on that scale, especially as the wounds of those wars still
linger in humanity’s collective memory. Urban expansion
can also reshape the reflection of an area very quickly.
The houses of a new suburban development take months
or years to make their presence felt in the Shadow, if they
ever do — the suburbs aren’t noted for the passion people
feel for their homes. Yet the construction work, vegetation
clearance and increased traffic drive out the more neutral
spirits and draw less pleasant varieties who feed on the
negative aspects of human life.
Packs of werewolves with territory in urban areas
have their work cut out for them. The sheer density of
people and machines in the area inflict dramatic changes
on its spiritual reflection. The spirit world changes daily.
New, unfamiliar and unpredictable spirits are born every
day, gestated in the possessions of the residents and shaped
by their hopes and fears. The rapid spread of cultural reference
points through the mass media can shape fear-spirits
into the latest cultural bogeyman and spirits of vanity and
desire into the latest surgically enhanced supermodel. The
motes of numerous small bits of electronic kits fuse into
incomprehensible machine- or computer-spirits that think
in ways more traditional Ithaeur find hard to comprehend.
Their needs and wants will be different in six months
than they are now. As the cultural changes come ever
faster, even the wisdom passed down from an elder urban
Ithaeur to a newly changed werewolf is of little value.
The constant pace of cultural evolution and the change it
brings to the local spirits is just too much for such traditional
methods to track.
Broods of spirits attuned to violence can prosper inside
the spirit reflection of an apartment block for months
before their stain becomes apparent on the outside. Animals
display their pain quickly and openly and get on with
their lives. Humans conceal it, brood on it and sometimes
The Other World
255