Werewolf: The Forsaken - Blank It

previous steps are both designed to create the right kind
of Essence. The pack’s most learned occultist should be
constantly patrolling the chosen area’s spiritscape, looking
for the changes in the environment that hint at the
presence of significant quantities of the right resonant
Essence. The arrival of spirits with a similar resonance or
the appearance of landscape features within the Shadow
that support the idea are strong signs that the process is
proceeding well. Increasing numbers of rocks, stone and
trees of unusual girth and solidity are favorable signs when
the pack is endeavoring to give the area a resonance of
endurance. Once she’s satisfied that the changes made
have been effective, the pack and its allied spirits perform
the Rite of Chosen Ground, which seeks to take the right
resonant Essence and work it into the very fabric of the
Shadow Realm. This demanding rite can take up to a
week to play out in its entirety, as the participants play out
their chosen roles across the whole of the area.
THE RESULT S
For its endeavors, the pack gets an element of its
territory that has adapted itself to the werewolves’ aims.
Success in the rite roll gives an extra die that spirits or
werewolves can add to their dice pools for appropriate activities
once per day. For example, if the pack has worked
hard to create an area with a resonance of endurance, its
members and allied spirits will be able to add a +1 bonus
to rolls involving Stamina. If it had been working to create
an area with the resonance of calm, its members would
be able to use the extra die in any rolls to pacify or negotiate
with adversaries.
From a broader perspective, a carefully pruned territory
is one that, if still not quite “safe” for its owners, is
unquestionably theirs. Although the residents spirits still
bear no love for the pack, they defer to the pack as long as
the pack remains strong. Those who attack the pack on
their home ground find themselves at a great disadvantage,
as the pack now knows the spirit reflection of their
territory inside and out, and can move almost unopposed
from locus to locus there. It takes a great deal of effort,
insight and strength to shape a territory so effectively, and
the packs who manage to do so are justly feared on their
own hunting ground.
SPIRIT S
Just as the Shadow Realm reflects the physical lands
in form and substance, so too do the spirits. Each object,
plant or place births its own spirit over time. As that
thing comes into being, so too is there the germ of a spirit
within it — a mote no larger (or more self-aware) than a
gnat. As the object sees use, the plant or animal grows or
the place endures, so too does its spirit grow in power until
it’s fully formed, albeit as the least powerful of self-aware
spirits: a lesser Gaffling. Such spirits remain dormant and
effectively hidden from other spirits until they awake, or
are forced into wakefulness.
These spirits are a strange dichotomy of individuality
and sameness, shackled by drives more powerful than
any animal’s instinct yet with the possibility to become
inhuman gods. All tree spirits share a certain slowness
of thought and action, but a pine-spirit is different from
an oak-spirit, and each oak-spirit has its own character,
depending on its level of power. While people’s personalities
only sometimes reflect their jobs or heritage, such is
always the case with a spirit. The spirit is the true nature
of the object, given form in the Shadow. The appearance,
form and function of a spirit’s host object all affect its personality.
All gun spirits are innately vicious and prone to
violence, yet emotionally cold — the spirit of a thing that
has no purpose but killing. Yet the spirit of a gun used in
a murder feels a greater bloodlust than the spirit of a rifle
that has rarely left its display case above a fireplace. Just
as a person’s personality develops throughout her life, so
does a spirit’s personality develop as its birth object is used,
or as it feeds and becomes stronger in other ways. Gradually,
a spirit can take on additional aspects. The spirit of a
murderer’s knife might become as much a spirit of fear and
death as of sharp metal.
These aren’t the wise and knowing spirit guides of
some beliefs, but strange entities as predatory and vicious
as any beast in the physical world. They fight with, and
prey upon, each other, just as creatures do in the wild.
There are two significant twists to the food chains of the
Shadow Realm, however:
• While one type of animal preys on another in
the physical world, if a spirit wants to grow in power and
status, the quickest route is to prey on weaker spirits of its
own type.
• The spirits of inanimate objects and places are
just as liable to prey on each other as those of natural
creatures.
SPIRIT PREDATION
Spirits don’t need to eat or drink as we do. They have
only a single source of sustenance: Essence. This spiritual
energy fuels their being, and it can either regenerate over
time or be boosted by consuming smaller creatures. Each
act of consumption has a consequence, though. It can
change the nature of the spirit that does the consuming,
creating something that’s a mixture of both beings. For
the most part, then, spirits prefer to feed upon prey that
reinforces their own nature. For a dove-spirit to grow
stronger while retaining its nature, it needs to feed upon
other dove-spirits in a freakish parody of natural law.
Some spirits can feed upon “prey spirits” of other, appropriate
kinds, however, and increase their own nature. A
fox-spirit that devours a hare-spirit will retain its vulpine
self, as feeding upon hares is part of what it is to be a fox.
Yet the spirit food chains aren’t limited to mimicking what
science calls “ecology.” The spirit of a truck might “feed”
by devouring not just other truck-spirits, but by feeding on
the emotion released by a dying human — one struck by
Spirits
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