Werewolf: The Forsaken - Blank It

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Appendix I: The Spirit World
let it grow. The spirits born from such actions learn those
tricks and hide until they grow strong enough to be a
significant problem.
HOW DOES THE CIT Y LOOK?
Cities house the greatest concentrations of people
on the planet. Given that humans affect the Shadow
more pervasively than any other species can manage, the
spiritual reflection of a city changes with greater speed
and frequency than any other area. Urban packs can’t
simply prowl through this hostile otherworld looking for
changes that hint at a problem, but must hunt for the
one change among the constant stream that could be for
the worse. So, how does this landscape look through the
eyes of a werewolf?
BUILDINGS
Not all buildings have a spirit reflection. Some
isolated cabins, suburban streets or city-center buildings
just don’t have spiritual presence of any significance.
Sometimes the building construction process strips raw
material of any spiritual power. (The resident spirit energy
in a tall pine can be sawed, planed and varnished away
as quickly as workers can cut a set of two-by-fours.) Some
buildings never gain enough affection or notoriety among
their inhabitants or neighbors to gain any sort of spiritual
presence. Some buildings gain it before they even start
construction. New office blocks of unusual design and
controversial location might rise in the Shadow before
they’re seen in the real world, as the debate births a new
spirit with nothing but a cleared site or some basic foundations
to call its own.
It’s worth remembering that it’s not just human
reactions that make a building appear in spirit, though.
An animal research facility might not be significant
to enough people to make it appear, but the pain and
suffering endured there by the animals is more than
enough to give it a diseased, septic spiritual life to rival
any nest of humanity.
When they appear, buildings in the Shadow Realm
keep the same basic structure and design as their material
world counterparts, but they’re twisted in ways that
would shock and dismay their architects. Buildings hated
by people take on negative characteristics: small doors
and windows, gloomy aspect, deep shadow and increased
height. They seem to loom over passers-by in the spirit
world, spreading their depression and tainting the streets
around with spirits of despair, depression and fear. As
with the rest of the Shadow, symbolism isn’t just a literary
device — it’s the visual language of resonance.
Buildings can develop spirits of their own over
time. Such spirits either grow out of the affection or
loathing people have for a building or through the
amalgamation of spirits that make up a building’s
components, like wood-spirits, stone-spirits and even
electricity-spirits. Spirits generated by the inhabitants
of the building tend to be insular, isolated creatures,
only really interested in dealing with the spirits within
their own domain and virtually disinterested in dealing
with those outside. Those that grow from a building’s
component parts are even less predictable, drawing
their personalities less from the inhabitants of the
building than a haphazard assembly of different spirit
types. These quirky characters can have an effect on
the inhabitants of the building in turn. Many of the
most unusual bars and restaurants or most creative or
tormented companies are based in such buildings. Of
course, some such spirits make the buildings uninhabitable,
assailing any would-be residents with wrath and
hatred that the poor humans can’t even understand.
OBJECT S
An urban section of the Shadow is particularly
conducive to man-made objects developing spirits of their
own. These spirits sometimes appear just as they are in the
physical world and sometimes develop vaguely humanlike
(or animalistic) faces and “personalities.” The details of
their appearance take notes from both the object’s condition
in the physical world and the uses to which it was
put. A well-maintained gun that’s been carried for security
for years but never used might appear as a polished version
of its physical form in the Shadow and might not even
be capable of firing. A similar model that has been used
repeatedly for violent acts and threats might be stained
and tarnished, exuding a palpable feeling of danger, death
or even hate. Neither gun is likely to develop anthropomorphic
features, although the spirit of the murderous gun
might twist and bend like a poisonous snake or centipede
when denied an opportunity to kill.
Affecting the spirit reflection of an object can affect
the condition of the actual physical object, though not
immediately. If a pack of Uratha razes the spirit reflection
of a house, the house itself begins to deteriorate a little
more quickly, becomes subject to dry rot and faulty wiring.
Conversely, “healing” the spirit reflection of a car by infusing
it with Essence might make the physical car itself run
a little more smoothly. Changes made to a spiritual echo
affect the original object much more slowly, however, than
changes to an object affect the object’s reflection. Destroying
a car’s spirit reflection will gradually make the car
more subject to mechanical failure, or perhaps even make
it more accident-prone, but the car will continue to work
for some time.
STREET S
The physical elements of a street, like the curbstones,
the signs and the hydrants, rarely have a spirit
presence at all. Nobody cares enough about such things
to give them any form of spiritual life. The street itself,
though, is a different matter. Streets with a particular
reputation, such as Broadway in New York, Fleet Street
in London or the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem can develop
their own spirits. Such streets are rare, though. Most
cities have only a handful, and a small town would be