Basic Gifts

 

Call the Breeze

Required: You must whistle. 

Cost: One Willpower

Effect: You whistle up a cold wind, as strong as 20 miles per hour. It's strongest in a particular 20-foot area anywhere you choose within line of sight; in that area, your targets suffer a two-Trait penalty to perception and attacking challenges. It may also dispel smoke, gas, hostile insect swarms and the life.

Duration: One scene, or until you choose to end it

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Camouflage

Activation Time: Two turns of concentration 

Effect: You blend in with your surroundings, becoming difficult to detect. You gain a three-Trait bonus against those who try to detect you.

Duration: Until you end the effect

 

Cutting Wind

Cost: One Willpower, plus 0-5 Mental Traits

Effect: You conjure a focused, sharp wind against targets within 20 yards. The wind comes automatically upon spending the Willpower, but setting its direction correctly requires the Physical Challenge. Those caught in the wind suffer a two-Trait penalty for the duration of the Gift, rather than 2 Traits in the first turn and one Trait in the second. To use this Gift to knock down opponents, the Gift-user must defeat the target in a Physical Challenge (retest Athletics). Success knocks the target away fifteen feet, and requires an action for the target to stand back up. Multiple targets can be knocked down at once, but the user must bid a Trait and test against each character individually. Targets that would be knocked off of a height may attempt to make a Static Physical Challenge (difficulty set by presiding Storyteller, retest Athletics) to hang on to the edge. This Gift can only be activated during the Everyman action.

Duration: One turn, plus another turn for each Mental Trait you spent

 

Devouring Rime

Cost: One Gnosis

Challenge: Physical vs. target

Retest: Brawl or Athletics

Follow up: 1-5 Mental Traits

Effect:This Gift lasts for one round and an additional round for each Mental Trait spent. While this Gift is in effect the movement of the target is halved (round down, minimum one step), and each turn for a number of turns equal to the Mental Traits the Gift-user spent, the victim gains a cumulative one-Trait penalty to all Physical actions. A victim can spend a Rage Trait (or activate a similar action-giving power) to negate gaining a one-Trait penalty in that round. Once the duration of the Gift ends, the accumulated Trait penalties fade at a rate of one per round as the victim thaws. The Gift-user can only use this Gift on an individual victim once per scene.

Duration: One round plus one round per mental trait spent.

 

Ice Echo

Cost: One Gnosis

Effect: You conjure an illusory duplicate of yourself, like a mirror reflection in sheer ice. It looks and sounds exactly like you, but is intangible. You must actively focus on controlling this image, which puts you at a two-Trait concentration penalty to all your other actions. People who are suspicious of what they're seeing may defeat you in a Mental Test (retest with Enigmas) to realize it's an illusion; because the image gives off no heat or scent, Garou observers get a free retest on this challenge.

Duration: Until you end the effect

 

Lift-Your-Leg

Required: Mark your territory using blood, urine or saliva, and invoke your totem or an ancestor.

Cost: One Gnosis

Effect: You leave a distinctive supernatural mark on an object or in a place. All Garou or beings with supernatural senses can detect your mark; it is unique and distinctive as your own to all who know it. Mundane humans may detect the mark as well, depending on how you make it.

Duration: One lunar month

 

Nose-to-Tail

Required: Curl yourself into a tight ball as you activate this gift. (You can leave this position once the gift is activated.)

Cost: One Physical Trait, plus an additional Trait if you're using this in Glabro or Homid form.

Effect: You attune yourself to the skill of wolves to keep themselves warm in winter. Once you have activated this gift, you become immune to all negative effects of cold weather for the rest of the scene.

Duration: One Scene

 

Resist Pain

Activation Time: At will (Reflexively)

Cost: One Willpower

Effect: You push on through the pain of injury with superhuman resilience. You stop suffering wound penalties for the duration of this Gift. This Gift allows you to ignore the wound penalties for the Bruised, Wounded, and Incapacitated wound levels. Death is still the same. Sorry.

Duration: One Scene or Hour

 

Salmon Swim

Required: You may only use this gift in a natural body of fresh water.

Cost: One Gnosis and 0-5 Physical Traits

Effect: Calling on the secrets of the salmon, you can act freely underwater. You can leap out of the water as if using the Lupus gift Hare's Leap. If you spent Physical Traits, you may also walk on water (not run) for a short duration.

Duration: One scene of acting underwater and leaping; if walking on water, a number of turns equal to the Physical Traits you spent.

 

Scent of the Man-Eater

Challenge: Mental vs. target

Retest: Primal Urge

Followup Cost: optionally, one Gnosis

Effect: You detect the spiritual stain of cannibalism on a target. If you win the challenge, you discover if your target has eaten the flesh of wolf or human since the last full moon. If you spend the Gnosis, you also learn if this crime was a shameful lapse, or a vile habit.

 

Speak with Wind Spirits

Initial Cost: Free in the Umbra; One Gnosis in the physical world

Challenge: Social vs. eight Traits

Retest: Expression

Followup Cost: 0-2 Mental Traits

Effect: You call on local wind-spirits to learn about the immediate area. You may ask a single question. The quality of your answer relies on the number of Mental Traits you spend: zero Traits elicit a very general answer, one Trait elicits a clear answer, and two Traits elicit a precise answer.

 

Tourniquet

Activation Time: At will (using this gift is not an action)

Initial Cost: One Willpower

Followup Cost: 0-5 Physical Traits

Effect: Your body staunches its bleeding, making lethal wounds less life-threatening. Each Physical Trait you spend allows you to convert one level of Lethal damage into Bashing damage. Each Physical Trait spent also adds one to the number of turns you have before dying at Mortally Wounded (barring a coup de grace). Wendigo consider it dishonorable to use this Gift on your own self-inclicted wounds, particularly if you are engaged in a ritual that uses your Tough Traits (or synonyms).

Duration: Converting the wounds is instant; and each Physical Trait spent adds to the number of turns before you die from being Mortally Wounded this scene.

 

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Intermediate Gifts

 

Bark of Willow

Cost: One Gnosis

Effect: The gift Resist Pain lets you ignore your wounds; this gift numbs you completely. Not only do you ignore all wound penalties, but your complete imperviousness to pain becomes intimidating. If you have any open wounds, your opponents must defeat you in a Social Challenge (retestIntimidation) in order to strike the first blow against you. (Once the attack is joined, they may continue normally.) While in this state, you do not know how badly wounded you are; figuring this out requires a Mental Challenge (retest Medicine) against ten Traits.

Duration: One scene

 

Bloody Feast

Required: You must bite for at least one level of damage, and taste non-toxic blood.

Activation Time: At will, once per bite

Challenge: Gnosis vs. target

Retest: Primal Urge

Followup Cost: 0-5 Mental Traits, and make a test for Frenzy (with the usual effects)

Effect: The taste of blood carries you to new heights of ferocity. Upon successfully invoking the gift, you gain one extra Strong or Tough Physical Trait for every Health Level of damage you inflict with your bite, up to a limit of five such Traits. These Traits last for the duration; they may be bid, lost and spent as usual. Using this gift on a human or wolf target is considered violating the Litany.

Duration: One turn, plus one for each Mental Trait you spent

 

Call the Cannibal Spirit

Required: Dance under the night sky, holding a piece of your target.

Activation Time: Three turns spent in a summoning dance.

Frequency: You may only have one Cannibal Spirit active at a time.

Cost: One Rage and one Gnosis (yes, this exception lets you spend both)

Challenge: static Social vs. 12 Traits

Retest: Occult

Effect: Your dance of summoning brings forth an avatar of Wendigo, who uses a piece of the target you possess (like a sample of blood or fur) to hunt down a target and devour their heart. This avatar appears as a blue-skinned humanoid figure with claws and fangs, blazing eyes, and black stumps where its feet have frozen off. It has 7 Willpower, 10 Rage, 5 Gnosis, 42 Essence, and the Charms Blast (Ice), Create Wind, Freeze, Materialize, and Tracking. If you fail the summoning challenge, attempt two Simple Tests: fail both, and the spirit attacks you instead. The spirit also attacks you if it is prevented from attacking its target in some way.

 

Chill of Early Frost

Initial Cost: One Gnosis

Challenge: Mental vs. difficulty based on the weather -- 6 Traits in deep winter, 9 Traits in a temperate climate, 15 in a hot summer

Retest: Survival

Followup Cost: 0-5 Mental Traits

Effect: You plunge the region -- everything in a five-mile radius -- into bitter cold. Temperatures above freezing drop a few degrees below freezing; temperatures already below freezing drop an additional twenty degrees. Everyone in the area who does not have a natural coat of fur takes a two-Trait penalty to all challenges. Regional havoc occurs at Storyteller discretion as roads ice up, pipes burst, people run for shelter, etc.

Duration: One hour, plus one for each Mental Trait you spent

 

Curse of Harano

Cost: One Rage

Challenge: Social vs Target

Frequency: An individual may only be successfully affected by this gift once per scene

Retest: Expression

Effect: Upon success the target falls into a deep depressive state.  While so afflicted they may only bid half their normal traits on any challenge.  At any time the victim may expend a Willpower trait to ignore the effect for the remainder of the scene.  Despite its name, this gift does not inflict true Harano on their target, only a semblance of its agony (though a significant failing while under the effects of this gift may justify a character truly falling into Harano).

Duration: One Session

 

Icicle-Hide

Cost: One Gnosis

Effect: You transmute your body and your gear into simulacra of living ice. You look like an expert ice sculpture, but you can move and fight as capably as ever. The first level of any damage you take is nullified, glancing off your icy body. You ignore all cold-related damage.

Duration: One scene, or until you end the effect. Ending the gift takes a full turn, during which all its effects are still in place.

 

Last Stand

Cost: One Willpower

Challenge: Willpower vs. six Traits

Retest: Survival

Effect: You link yourself with the earth where you stand, drawing incredible power from the connection -- as long as you maintain it. You gain a number of bonus Strong or Tough Physical Traits equal to your Willpower; you are immune to the Ahroun gift Falling Touch; and you cannot be moved from your spot by any means save epic supernatural strength or your own volition.

Duration: Until you move from the spot where you activate the gift.

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Sky Running

Activation Time: One full turn of concentration

Cost: One Willpower

Effect: You not only gain the ability to run at 50 miles per hour, but also the ability to do so through the sky itself. You leave a trail of fire streaking across the heavens in your wake. Obviously this is a Gift best used in the Umbra -- as it's something of a spectacular breach of the Veil.

Duration: Four hours, or until you stop running -- at which point you start falling.

 

Strength of Pine

Required: You are standing on a natural surface.

Cost: One Gnosis, or two if you're in contact with metal or a large body of water

Challenge: Gnosis vs. Storyteller-determined difficulty based on your current connection to the living earth

Retest: Survival

Effect: You create a grounding-spot on the earth where you stand (with a diameter of your Gnosis, in feet) that grants you astonishing protection. You are completely immune to electrical damage, and the physical damage you take during a turn regenerates instantly at the beginning of the next (assuming it doesn't kill you first). Only damage taken to your Health Levels regenerates; armor levels are lost normally. If you leave the grounding-spot, you lose these protections; but you can return to the spot to regain them (if the gift hasn't ended by then).

Duration: One turn for each permanent Gnosis you possess, or until you reach Mortally Wounded.

 

Whiteout

Required: You must be outdoors.

Cost: One Gnosis

Challenge: Social vs. difficulty based on local weather -- six Traits on a snowy day, twenty Traits on a summer afternoon

Retest: Survival

Effect: You summon a localized blizzard that only your senses, and those of other Wendigo, can pierce. A roaring, windy globe of whipping snow and ice engulfs everything where you stand, within a radius of steps equal to your permanent Gnosis plus your permanent Willpower. Sight is blinded, ears are deafened, and scents are deadened within the storm -- except for those of you and your fellow Wendigo, of course. Others caught in the storm immediately lose a Willpower Trait as the cold saps their resolve, and they suffer a two-Trait penalty to any test of vision they attempt.

Duration: A number of turns equal to your permanent Willpower, or until you choose to end the effect.

 

Wisdom of the Ancient Ways

Activation Time: One turn

Challenge: Gnosis vs. 9 Traits (minus one Trait per level of Ancestors you have)

Retest: Occult

Followup Cost: 1 or 2 Mental Traits

Effect: Through a moment of meditation, you reach out for answers to the Garou who have gone before, be they your own ancestors or other warriors of yore. You recall their memories or summon up ancient lore. Ask the Storyteller for the information you seek: if you spend one Mental Trait it is clear but broad information, while if you spend two Traits the information is detailed and specific.

 

Wsitiplaju's Bow

Required: A bow and arrow.

Cost: One Gnosis

Effect: You can fire an arrow so that it weaves unerringly through the air, even turning corners and reversing direction if necessary, to strike its target. You get a free retest on your next archery attack, and your opponent cannot bid Quick Traits (or synonyms) or use any Dodge or Athletics to avoid the shot. The arrow will not travel beyond regular range for a bow and it does not gain any special damage or armor-piercing enchantments beyond what it already has, and if the target is completely enclosed by a barrier, the arrow can be stopped as usual by that substance.

Duration: Your next archery challenge

 

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Advanced Gifts

 

Attunement

Required: You must be in a wilderness area to use this gift.

Initial Cost: One Gnosis

Challenge: Mental vs. Storyteller-determined difficulty

Retest: Survival

Followup Cost: 0-5 Mental Traits

Effect: You commune with the ambient spirits of the area, learning useful information about the region. Success gets you general information on a topic, such as the human population count, locations of supernatural hideouts, the presence of hidden tunnels, etc. Each Mental Trait you spend gives you an accurate answer to one specific yes-or-no question about the area.

 

Balance of Wormwood

Cost: One Gnosis

Challenge: Willpower vs. a Garou target who is in active service to the Wyrm

Retest: Empathy

Effect: The taste of the wormwood plant clears the mind, and this powerful gift can ease even the Wyrm's chains on its thralls. For the duration of the gift, the target regains their free will, uncoerced by the influence of the Wyrm. They gain a chance to act justly, choose a Gaian path, and seek redemption. This gift does not cleanse the target: that is something they must seek out on their own.

Duration: One Scene

 

Heart of Ice

Required: You must whisper your victim's name to the wind.

Frequency: Once per target per session

Initial Cost: One Gnosis

Challenge: Mental vs. target

Retest: Occult

Effect: You call Wendigo's attention to your target and commence freezing them alive, from the inside out. Upon a successful activation, you immediately deal one Aggravated damage. Once each following turn, you may make another identical Mental Challenge against the target; each success deals another Aggravated damage. When you lose one of these challenges or when you have dealt ten damage, the gift ends.

Duration: Until you lose one of the Mental Challenges or deal ten damage.

 

Invoke the Spirits of the Storm

Cost: One Gnosis

Challenge: Willpower vs. difficulty based on your changes to the weather -- 4 Traits for minor changes, 9 Traits for radical changes

Retest: Science

Effect: You change the weather within ten miles, calming the skies or bringing down the heavens' wrath as you please. If you summon a thunderstorm, you may call down lightning from the sky. Each bolt requires you to spend one Gnosis and make a Physical Challenge (retest Science) against your target. If they are struck, they take seven Aggravated damage.

Duration: As long as such weather naturally lasts

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Shelter of Needles

Required: The targets you want to protect must be no further away than your permanent Gnosis plus your permanent Willpower in steps. They must be Garou, humans, or Gaian creatures.

Initial Cost: One Gnosis

Challenge: Willpower vs. the number of targets you want to protect, plus three

Retest: Survival

Followup Cost: 0-5 Willpower

Effect: Like a protective canopy of pine branches against a storm, you extend the protections of Strength of Pine to a group of nearby targets. (See that gift below for details.) It also disables all electrical devices within its range (your Gnosis plus your Willpower in steps), as their power is drawn down into the earth. This gift doesn't extend any protections to you at all, although you're free to invoke Strength of Pine yourself as a separate action.

Duration: One turn per permanent Gnosis you possess, plus one for each Willpower Trait you spent activating the gift. The benefits for an individual target end prematurely if that target moves from their grounding-spot, as Strength of Pine.