Werewolf: The Forsaken - Blank It

264
Appendix I: The Spirit World
it, but this is a risky tactic — any local spirits will definitely
resist, and it takes considerably more time than can
be practical.
RESHAPING THE SPIRIT WORLD
Packs don’t take territories just to keep things the
way they are, like museum curators. Even with the most
obvious spirit threats destroyed or chased away, the spirit
world is still hostile ground for werewolves. But a pack can
also reshape the spiritual landscape to give it an advantage
and promote its own vision of how the territory should be.
The safest places in the Shadow are those that have been
carefully tended by a pack. Rather, they’re the safest places
for their packs, like manor estates where the well-trained
guard dogs won’t mangle and kill the master of the estate.
Newly changed werewolves learn the basic secrets of
reshaping the Shadow from their mentors, but it’s only
once the pack forms that the werewolves get to put this
knowledge into effect. Reshaping the spirit world is a
cooperative effort. No lone werewolf could possibly keep
track of all the elements required to effect a truly significant
change.
SPIRIT BARGAINS
The first, and possibly most important, step in the
process is to strike bargains with the local spirits. The
process is doomed to failure if they can’t be made to cooperate,
and virtually no spirit is willing to cooperate with a
werewolf without serious encouragement of some form.
• The werewolves might need to drive some spirits
from their nests to banish any unwanted influence. All too
often, this means actively fighting or binding spiteful spirits
that would rather sabotage or injure the hated Uratha.
A pack with silver tongues and the ability to understand
the strange entities, however, might be able to convince
some unwanted spirits to move. This will almost certainly
require that they offer some reward and prepare a suitable
new home for the spirits elsewhere in the pack’s territory.
• Those spirits that are allowed to stay might need to
stand guard over the area to make sure that other spirits
don’t consume the Essence that’s vital to reshaping a section
of the Shadow Realm.
• The spirits might need bribing just to keep them
from consuming the Essence themselves.
Once of the most persuasive offers a pack can make
is to let favored spirits share in the benefits of the work.
This is rarely enough in its own right, but when coupled
with other bargains, it can swing the balance in the pack’s
favor. Of course, some packs decide that the price is worth
more than the benefit, depending on what the pitiless
spirits ask for.
For more details on negotiating and bargaining with
spirits, see p. 273.
MATERIAL CHANGES
The pack also needs to make changes to the material
aspect of the place. The material world is the source of
the Essence that powers the change in the spirit world.
All the werewolves have to do is persuade the material
world to generate that Essence. If it can be managed, the
most reliable method is to manipulate the people within
the area to display emotions with the relevant resonance
— bravery from a resonance of endurance, for example,
or contentment for a resonance of peace.
The werewolves can reinforce this part of the
process by physically reshaping the place to reflect the
resonance they want. A resonance of endurance might
require that the Uratha clear away all sickly and dying
plants and animals from the area and make sure all
machinery or structures are in good order. A few stout,
defensive walls wouldn’t go amiss, either. A resonance of
peace might require that the werewolves create a setting
that induces feelings of relaxation in people who visit,
while ruthlessly patrolling its boundaries so that nothing
that might disrupt that serene atmosphere can interfere.
TWO-WAY STREET?
The material world shapes the spirit world,
and the reverse is also true. It’s even more
difficult, however, to make a permanent change
from the Shadow than it is the other way
around. For example, if the local werewolves
decide to cleanse an alley where several rapes
have taken place, they could slaughter all the
hostile spirits in the area, in hopes of making
the alley in the material world feel like a better
place to be. Memories of the attacks remain
strong in women who walk down that alley in
the following weeks, however, and their fears
draw back more hostile spirits. The alley quickly
returns to its original state. The best way for a
pack to effect a permanent change in the area
would be to both cleanse the alley’s spiritual
reflection and find the rapist and make sure no
more attacks happen. They could simply tear
him apart, which would stop the attacks, and
allow the alley to slowly recover as memories
fade, but to effect a quicker change, they must
somehow make the alley a visibly safer place
to be. The dismembered corpse of someone
who only might have been the attacker will
do little to reassure people that a place is
safer. Reshaping the spirit world is a difficult
proposition, even for a pack of werewolves.
RESONANCE
The first two requirements for reshaping the spirit
world are essentially roleplaying and plot issues. This is
where the hard-and-fast rules kick in. To properly reshape
an area of the Shadow Realm, the pack needs to infuse
it with Essence of the appropriate resonance. The two