Hunters Entertainment is no longer part of W5. Paradox brought everything in house about a month ago and Ragnarok will be publishing all of the core content going forward
@@TheMapleTable Sadly Hunters took down all refrences to W5 from thier site and locked down discord the day of the original announcement. Paradox has since clarifidd that the consolidation is applicable to W5 and other WoD properties across the board
Yeah, becoming a vampire doesn't seem like such a curse, when you consider that literally everything in the Underworld was forged out of tortured, human souls.
Tainted ones. Terrible creatures, an eternal reminder of what you can turn into if you forget about morality and surrender yourself to hedonism. They are almost as hopeless as Fomori, their bodies and spirits saturated with Wyrm poison to their very core. For most of them there is no salvation, death is the most merciful we can give them. Great job as always. Thank you for the exciting story about an interesting, but no less terrifying and monstrous tribe. It would also be interesting to hear about other Garou tribes which you haven't talked about yet, such as Hakken, Siberakh, Singing Dogs, Skin Dancers, etc.
I love the BSDs. Cuz they prove that no good deed goes unpunished. And in terms of bad guys, they're elegantly simple to play. Just tease your group that they can be redeemed, and ride the chaos to their collective doom. Because no group can resist that redemption story, but no BSD, PC or NPC, should be moved by such trite sentimentality.
Can we get a video on how the black spirals actually fit into the world? How do they interact with vampires? Pentex? Whats a pit? All i ever hear is the white howlers story. Also i love you and your content
I've been playing a white Howler in our little Dark Age group for a few days and I'm getting goosebumps right now. How hard it must be for a Howler to fight the Spirals whose souls are so torn. Thanks for the nice explanation :)
@@TheMapleTable Well we don't play directly in a P&P but rather in a Rp chat and on our last plot a small pack of white howls showed up to the rescue, we got permission from the sl to take over a few of them in a playful way. And I'm still working on the story. So the character isn't finished yet, but I'd love to hear your explanations and imagine I'll let my thoughts drift :) anyway, Cinioch (that's his name) is Team Tearlach^^ and wants to follow in their footsteps.
i'm currently running a mage20 game and BSDs have been introduced. Half of the sept(?) is friend, half are foe at the moment. This video was integral to my formation of the BSDs and their "morals".
I ran a campaign where a major villain was a "sane" BSD. I say sane, but that's because for five sessions they faced loud, explosive, gibbering BSDs so suddenly this quiet, well spoken, silently powerful werewolf seemed scary but certainly not insane. I based him heavily off Hannibal Lechter with all the insanity that followed. I may bring him into other campaigns, a cannibalistic psycho that uses urbane wit, confidence, and intelligence covering up the barely controlled psychotics under the skin.
@@TheMapleTable one would assume (though I've learned incorrectly) the 'games for mature minds' label on the front, and the fact that some of the art depicts Vampires feeding and Werewolves tearing things a new one, would result in some people putting the book down and stepping away. Sadly, that is not the case.
I had a player who is obsessed with WoD but flipped the table when mental health issues comes up for his characters.... The defiler is my favourite head of the wyrm - It's world of darkness not "Super Furry Friends" damn it! Garou have a rage score - they're already pretty mentally ill by human standards!
I thought of a concept for a Black Spiral Dancer Pit which was built on an old, forgotten Wyrm-tainted burial ground. Besides Banes it is also inhabited by Spectres and often visited by Skull Pigs while a Fomori Family lives nearby who farm Wyrm-tainted honey and the Black Spiral Dancers use them as breeding stock for Kinfolk.
Is it conceivably possible to return to the light? Like Drizzit Do Urdern a drow elf was born simply good? (Understand in a fantasy game anything is possible?) Could it ever be cannon?
I think so, I'm not going to tell you what can or can't happen at your table. Thougj I enjoy the idea of a personal redemption arc. Not the whole tribe imo
I have a question are there descendants of the white howlers that managed to resist or not be corrupted by the wyrm and still exist in modern nights? Like Ryan in the cancelled game Werewolf the Apocalypse Heart of Gaia.
In cannon as i have seen, no. The entire tribe was wiped out. Having said that theres nothing stopping you from encouraging finding a hidden blood line or small tribe that was hidden / lost in the umbra and have them reintegrate back into Garou society.
Per canon, White Howlers went corrupt or died to the last. However, IIRC, W20 gives you the tools to create a Howler if you really wish so, but its very much up to the ST to allow it and even if they do, its bound to be top priority for each and every Wyrm minion alive to either kill them or corrupt them, and it tends up to make said character a "de facto" main character in the campaign for lore reasons.
@@TheMapleTable How humans/Garou screw around it will not be too surprising you have kinfolk all over the place, " son of a wh0re." The old core book stated that kinfolk could use 2nd to 3rd level gifts or end up as Mage Dream Speakers. Just enough to create minor Fetish/ magic spirit item that holds 1st & 2nd level gifts " charms ". One BSD knocks up a couple of dozen women and 15 to 20 years later his pack mate knocks up all of his daughters, hench new blood line of kinfolk. Look at all the religious cults in America history, there is a trailer park located near you.
In the game Werewolf the Apocalypse: Earthblood, the very first boss fight is a Black Spiral Dancer, then unfortunately as far as I've seen, never show up or get mentioned again
No backstory on the White Howlers? You should say how they were victims of the Vampire controled Romans and how the rest of the Garou forsaken them when they begged for help.
I don't know if you can do this, but you could enable fans of your channel to subtitle videos for different languages. I think it would help people who don't speak english.
@@rafaelverissimo8705 I have a growing Spanish audience as well, I don't know how im going to be able to add those languages to my channel as I would really like to.
@@TheMapleTable the fans can will help you to figure this out. Maybe you can try another platform else them youtube, that has this function. You may link these videos in the description of the original videos.
I played in a Vampire-Chronicle, where a young Kinfolg had her first change at school, killed 2 class members and ran away, in our domain. We met a guy, who told us, he would help us dealing with it. It became clear that he wasn't a vampire and didn't know the other werwolf of the area. we had an encounter, but out of plot reasons survived. (The Malkavian-Baron has a deal with the Glaswalkers of this area, to not go there will all Anarchs of a city to get rid of them, but to use tham as kind of a no-go-area towad the camarilla) 2 players understood that he was propably a BSD, but our characters didn't. In the end we had a trucewith the glaswalkers, to get rid of that guy, becaus he was an ass and vampire politics.
Here is what I made as a Black Spiral Dance Character, just to toss ideas. Anakin McManaman is a model husband, but not yet father, he works as a social worker and does elegantly and legaly all that a social worker can do, giving advice to married couples how to have a good life, helping prisoners to rehabilitate in society etc etc. He is by all means a wonderful person, he loves nature and everything that is natural, forests trees, flowers, gardens and he hates it when he hears that a natural habitat gets hurt, especially when it is close to him. He also loves social life and living in a normal every day routine away from trouble. So far so good Right ? NO SIR, Anakin is a Black Spiral Dancer ! He is extremely territorial, to the point that I will eat you if you touch my wife, even if you do it in a friendly manner, and suspect that you try to ruin my normal life, even if you don't even try to do just that: ''you are misbehaving sir and I don't like that''. And yes Anakin has a habit for revenge even when it is just for the wrong idea, I am right because you are wrong and you have to be punished afterall, you looked at my house with an ill eye and you want to harm my normal life sir. Also Anakin is personally blessed by the Defiler Wyrm, the Defiler loves him and gave him one delicious blessing: hey Anakin you will never have a normal life because there will always be someone guaranteed to ruin it even slightly, and this very someone will always have an abettor to the crime, your very own lovely wife, yes the one you love and cradle so much, you have to kill her and leave no clues, hey there is one delicious way to do just that, and yes that one over there in the dark corner is Anakin sad and full of tears as he disposes his last lovely ex wife in his stomach. But Hey! The next day is an absolutely lovely and perfectly normal day, and an absolutely wonderfuly perfect normal life is waiting for you, lets make some new friends, how about you dear neighbour ? -Hope you liked it - 😁
@@chomskyhonk2366 well it was instictual reflex, probably inspired subconsciously by star wars, not intentiotal by all means . And to confess my sin, I am not a star wars fan 😛
This is really more of a White howler video than a BSD video. I've played BSD for 20+ years. BSDs are as playable as any vampire character, and can fit just fine in a vampire game actually.
My only experience with the Black Spirals is in the game Werewolf The Apocalypse, to me they came off as mindless, feral beasts. So for someone like myself who's only experience with this world is via that game and Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodline, it was very interesting to hear their background and learn there's more to them than just being animalistic/corrupt Garou.
Don't remember ever meting one in a story. What is interesting now that I think about, since they are basically He-Man's Skeletor, Batman's Joker, for garrou. Perhaps all Werewolf narrators I met judged them a bit too 'tacky'? The 'absolute evil' dilema of how to honestly acknowledge the absolute evil has a point of view (without make if NOT absolute evil) is an interesting one. Not just for this one tribe, but for the Werewolf slice of World of Darkness. It is deeply about fight Evil, with big "e" this game. Unlike Vampire or Mage (where you may include this element but it is not the most obvious option). And as the Dancers show it is not a PERSONAL kind of evil, this absolute metaphysic taint, does not have to came from your individual decisions as a free person. You get the misfortune of be born in the wrong family, withing the wrong tribe, and hey! Sucks to be you!! It is interesting as a taught experiment. Brings to mind the now classic "Orc Crib Argument" of Fever Dream author against Tolkien. Do good kings order genocides of orcs? Racial extermination to the extreme of killing babies in their cribs?? If not, then where all those orcs have gone? Well, if orcs are, by definition, Evil, then should not good human kings order purges like that? If there is no actual chance of redemption for orcs, or for BSDs then perhaps the kind thing to do is to kill those babies before they grow enough to understand how deeply screwed they are. Not allow the chance of more garrou to be born in this tribe, destined to suffer this fate. Only way to be sure of that is by killing every individual cursed by that heritage. Babies included. But then, on the other hand, once you (the good guy) is comfortably killing newborn babies on purpose, what is left to mark the bad guys as "bad", really? Besides, the 3 basic forces of reality are BASIC forces of reality. In the end of day, what makes the Wyrm "Evil" is a combination of a contextual unbalance (which could change any time) and mistranslation. The Wyrm is just as necessary to Gaia as her 2 sisters are. Perhaps next century it will join the Wild against the Weaver, after the Weaver turn the table against her. Then the garrou will be fighting shoulder by shoulder with the Dancers, and the Glass Walkers will be the "new Black Spiral Dancers". Unlike Tolkien's mythos it is NOT an essentially unchangeable conflict between Good and Evil. It is a powerplay between 3 sisters.
I once surprised my 'pack' by becoming a BSD, despite my being a Glasswalker originally. The Storyteller was also surprise I did this but understood due to our pack dynamics. Well in the end, I proved that BSD were a threat and broke the proud Get of Fenris and Black Fury that really made our pack hard to deal with. I did feel some sympathy for the Child of Gaia and the Bone Gnawer, but they were too passive and I deemed them too weak in resolve to do what must be done. The tragedy was I had to descend into madness to get them to understand with their final moments. - And no I did not fight honorably with any of them. Though the players were also shocked of my heel turn, they realize it was inevitable with how they ruined a hard to establish friendship and pact with a Moakole we chance met...
Always wondered if there was any way to cure a Black Spiral Dancer of the Wyrm, like if that is even possible. Have no idea if this was went over since very new to WoD and Werewolf in general.
It would technically be possible, though extremely difficult. You would have to remove the Wyrm taint, preform a right of cleansing and even then the mental derangements would still be part of the cleansed dancer after the ritual
@@TheMapleTable That honestly sounds like a good side story during a game. Maybe tough, but if pulled off, could be interesting. Thanks for the infomation!
The rulebook says the White Howlers made the fatal mistake of trying to attack the Wyrm directly within the Umbra and that's when they were twisted into Black Spiral Dancers. Direct attacks on the Wyrm itself is not only a suicide mission but also a recruitment drive for the god of death and decay.
I'm a Highlander myself, from the North West coast (Lochalsh). I've always been fascinated by the White Howlers, and I consider the BSD to be fantastic villains. Totally unsuitable for non-Black Dog games as Player Characters, but I'll be getting the BSD Tribebook purely for the information. Good video mate!
Good job on the Black Spiral Dancers or should I call them the White Howlers my friend. I kinda liked the Black Spiral Dancers but pity and despise them because of their desire of insanity, madness and destruction they have caused themselves for serving the Wyrm. The only I really like is the White Howlers because they're ferocious and savage in their nature (only in their previously before they're corrupted themselves). And the deformity of the Black Spiral Dancers are terrible looking like they have this bat-like face or their mutant pwers of some kind. If I were a powerful and indestructible dragon I would cast a curse upon the Black Spiral Dancers and the other changing breeds that are serving the Wyrm by turning them into dragon and werewolf hybrids and by stripping their corrupted selves and leaving the unconscious White Howlers behind and by breaking their minds and used them to destroy the Wyrm for good. But not just the Wyrm but the Weaver as well for trapping the Wyrm by making it gone mad from entropy to corruption itself. This is only opinion to both the Wyrm and the Black Spiral Dancers for humiliating the Garou Nation. And I hope you understand about commit of these mutant hell pit abominations of doom and destruction.
Oh yes and I grew pity on them as well. It makes sick just look them and some their froms are uglier than Freddy Kruger, Jason Vorhees and the zombies alike. Especially the Thing as well. And again I do like the White Howlers because of their fur is pure white.
Something I think needs to be mentioned is that some writers gave them an absolute want for the weaver’s absolute destruction, to return the sanity of the wyrm, to save Gaia’s corpse, and reclaim their own sanity. They view the weaver as the truest of enemies, the truest cancer upon Gaia, and only in the destruction of the weaver, will all be made well again. Other writers view this as too sympathetic, but I can understand the appeal of these deranged, depressed hedonists fighting for a true goal that is still deeply rooted in an experience and view only they could explore.
I'm late to the party but I have to say it I once made a prototype Dancer-Howler... It has never been used but I'm patiently waiting for the opportunity The idea revolves around something that the Spirit Heritage background says... You can pick the background and choose to have a great affinity to banes, at the expense of having every Garou, be it from the nation or a dancer, at best being highly suspicious of your every action, and at worst outright hunting you Well, what if you combine that with a sort of half-step corrupted Howler born by a miracle? And to round it up, the miracle Garou not only was abducted by the nation and fights for Gaia... But it ALSO has the Fate background, saying in fancy words that this miracle Garou WILL enter the spiral labyrinth because universal balance and whatshit... And now the miracle Garou is constantly feeling like the worst thing that ever happened to the world, fighting his own creeping corruption and trying to push others for when it comes the time to go to the spiral labyrinth he could do so betraying the least amount of friends and packmates possible (And parallel to that, he is trying to make the best out of the worst, sharpening his will and rage and cultivating his mind and spirit so that when time comes, he could try to harness his inner corruption to go as far as possible in the spiral, with the only goal of having an audience with the true wyrm, so that with some luck, he can ask do be destroyed before succumbing to corruption) The Garou is part of a bulk of characters (most of them, concepts only) collectively known as "The playable impossibilities" Basically some of the best of my worst ideas, with combinations of traits, personalities, merits, flaws, backgrounds, lore, etc... That a first glance are complete bullshit unplayable, but in action (if) they work (they do it) like a charm... This one is one of the hardest to work with... Purely because it needs the approval of the Narrator to be a White Howler, and it needs to be handled in a certain specific way to not steal the spotlight (this are characters after all, not plot devices... And it can be pretty frustrating to join a table were the sole focus of a narration ends up becoming exclusively ONE of the player characters) that's the only reason I haven't used him yet... Most of my "impossibilities" are not suitable to the mayority of Stories, but I still create them for love to art... And TRPGs
I despise werewolves in this setting. Everytime i hear about their history its just more of them shooting themselves in the foot. If they were never created the wyrm would have been defeated. They cause nothing but problems and act like spoiled children, or they would if they didnt have this obsession with impregnating fucking EVERYTHING! They are unredeemable monsters with no one to blame for their problems but themselves. This, fourtunatly, makes it very easy to convince to my players in vtm to work with pentex. ;)
How sanitised today’s world is really saddens me, we have films that are screaming out to be made R rated/18+ but the studios flat out refuse to become they want to sell toys based on them to kids, take Morbius for as bad as that film is even in the trailer there is scenes that are meant to be bloody where morbius rips out a guys throat and you see the guy clutch at the “”wound”” but for whatever reason they decided to not add in the CGI blood but kept the scene that now just looks goofy. Most companies treat the General population as babies that need to be coddled (granted some people act like that but that’s besides the point) so it’s always refreshing when we see something willing to stretch the boundaries a little, I just hope that whoever owns TWOD at the min is willing to actually stick with the darkness part of the name.
Also, they're some known Black Spiral Dancers who are in the league with the Wyrm and manipulating those in the Garou Nation. Dancers like Old One Eye and Dimitri the fallen Silver Fang who aligned with the Wyrm for their own devious deeds. One of the them manipulating Mara the Scream who used Wyrmbaiter of the Red Talons as her instrument to declare war against the Bunyip Tribe in the War of Tears. Some of them are super strong like Zhyzak, chosen of the Green Dragon wanted to destroy all Garou once for all. In one day the Black Spiral Dancers will become the largest population of all werewolf kind. The question remains is: Will the Dancers serve the Wyrm for eternity? Or will they be devoured or die for the mad god who served?
I'm kinda tired of it being assumed that just because I wanna play Sabbat or BSDs, I must be a power gamer. That's such a narrow point of view. There is so much potential in exploring Vampire Paths of Enlightenment, or morality and tough choices in Sabbat or BSD games. While I have never played a BSD game, I've played in a Sabbat game for about 20 years. I know the book of the Wyrm has lots of info on them, but I would love to have a BSD Tribebook. ,Even if I didn't want to play a BSD game, it would be handy for making a detailed NPC or antagonist. After all, we have Whitehowlers Tribebooks, and they're extinct. We have Mokole and SPIDER tribe books... but no BSDs and no Ajaba? Shame! In the last plot I ran, the pack went to the Abyss and were forced to team up with a rather powerful but oddly sane high powered BSD to achieve a common goal. To my surprise, the pack Alpha decided to adopt him when the Hive declared him Ronin, and she's making a redemption project out of him. I'm eager to see where it goes.
I stick to 20th anniversary because it stays truest to the lore. 5th edition seems to shy away from the darker aspects of the world of darkness, and that puts me off the whole edition.
Who should not be dealing with a Lasombra and 3 spiral dancers. The dancers were running an under age trafficking ring. Wow they hit hard. 3 companions in torpor and me with only 2 superficial left... and only getting two shots off We just started a game of vampire are playing fresh characters We wear given 15 xp to round out our characters. I am playing a Toreador that is a bit based on Gotham version Harvey Bullock. He was changed to hunt down a volgery hiding in the court before the prince found out.. I don't have the look of most Toreador and the clan though I could be disposed of after. The prince found me to useful and a pain to the his Toreador main rival. He named me the Beast not for my brute force but for my looks being high auxpecs and a little celerity. He found it humorous like the story Beauty and the beast We have a Tremer Librarian mad scientist, a Assimite military sniper, and a very confused Thinbood that has little common sense and less survival instinct.
“Unlike the Garou who would be bound by honour in many cases” Really? Don’t think I’ve ever heard of honour in a garou story 😂 they are usually stupid bricks that kill innocents and then cry that they’re getting kicked out
At my last D&D/larp shop 15 to 17 years ago had two play areas, the posers play VtM in the basement. The up stairs group put together a different tabletop game compared to the basement larp group. Not bothering about going into all the petty drama. My character. Male second generation kinfolk of BSD starting of as a Dream Speaker/ Hollow one mage self taught dealing with Bane spirit gifts. Only 3rd level gift was Create Fetish. D&D spells translated into WW. spell: Blindness, blurring of vision from sinus build up. spell: Scent Blindness, allergies sinus blockage. Basically allergy head cold from hell with multiple successes. Along with runny nose. spell: Swollen Tongue, dry mouth and can taste anything, dry throat and can't breathe. These three spells grouping clots blood in a vampire's face. Think of waking up in bed with server mucus blockage and having a real hard time breathing and coughing fit. I active these gifts just by politely talking to people about the weather and the problems with seasonal allergies. Then offer them a cough drop which holds a bane spirit to inter their body. The character is blind in his left eye and speaks with a clog sinus, he can't smell anything. I handed out and traded hand drawn index cards as Fetishes holding 1st to 2nd level gifts and bane spirits. As a back-alley street trader of favors I had too many wins in dice rolls and three card Montey which beat out the other larpers rock, paper, scissors hand gestures. And my Fetishes of 1st level gifts on Fear and Shadows just out creep everyone. Also I took drama class in high school along with watching Hitchcock villains in speaking as a creepy as possible. Background plot, minor countryside US witch doctor trolling the edges of cities along a highway hub. Already an evil bastard before my first change and after willfully dancing a reverse spiral around campfires on my own calling banes who I realize were not my Imaginary childhood friends. Since becoming a Garou BSD I just been dumping five years worth of Xp into a bunch of minor fetish charms. The posers just hated my character for having such a good back story and my homemade index card artwork. Overall I was the only person they let play a changeling the lost character in any vampire game, I just knew the rules that well. I am mostly a gangrel. Then again there was a limit to the changeling trader/collector I could play. There is a trick where you monotone rattle talk a bunch of information where people try to follow you on, and then their brain just shuts down and blank out for a moment. It is a hypnosis trick. Then I bent the rules in Changeling the Lost, about Getting Lost in the Hedge and how humans become Hedge creatures, or how a mage,vampire,werewolf can become a Hedge creature/changeling. So the character urban myth ghost story background rumor is, .. Is he a Garou BSD that got pulled into the Hedge and became a Hedge Changeling, or was he a Changeling that became a werewolf BSD by stripping away and binding a BSD soul to his own ? I twisted the rules in Changeling the Lost where you could do that. Out of five WoD storytellers that ran games there said that is a possible way at looking at the rules and people could do that, But YOU are not going to play that character ! Reason, I walked into a game, start a character as is, and used social Bluff and acting to cover Dominate to spread rumors the " CAIN " and the OTHERS were in town. Snobbish player, " My vampire has seven dice plus Willpower, that won't work on him ! " Six other players yelled, " Roll for it ! " Snobbish player, " ZHIT ! I just rolled ten 1's ! " Since half the shop's players were into Wicca, .. and the down town red brick building was over seventy years old. That basement did have a creep factor. Along with the Dice having a Mind of their OWn at street level.
The White Howlers actually were the greatest example of the Nations problem with Hubris. They were never the greatest of the nation lol...not with that massive frailty of theirs. Pride has ALWAYS been their biggest failing. Unless Hubris and Pride are the best quality a Garou can ever expect to have, I would never call them the greatest tribe of the nation, nor the embodiment of what it means to be Garou.
I'd say that is their way to "cope" with said tragedy, while also making it bigger and more "glorious" than what it actually was: the Garou failing miserably out of hubris. Ofc they're gonna say "yeah, they were great warriors" because suggesting otherwise would end up on uncomfortable questions by some Ragabash being like "yo seriously why didnt they kill them to the last?" Or even better: "why did nobody answer to their call for help?".
The wyrm is the only truthfull greater spirit. It is the one that does not hide behind false pretenses in hopes of getting the job done. As a matter of fact, the wyrm is trying to save whatever is left of the world. Humans are out of control, subject to the weaver's desires. The wyrm helps the human feed on their deepest, most hidden desires and frailties, indulge in their most basic instincts. The wyrm does not care for humans, he knows they are to be the tools required to restore Gaia to her former glory and bring balance back in the triumvirat. Like when a forest fire destroys the forest, it will grow back, cleaned of impurities and healthier. The same with the rest of the world, once the humans weakens themselves enough by destroying their very own homes in pursuit of false dreams, they will perish at the hands of the servants of the wyrm. Only then will the wild be able to thrive again, may it be a lesson for that wreched weaver. Order is needed, but not in the way it is today. In ten thousand years from now, you will understand, the Garou will undestand how the wyrm is the true savior of Gaia. Garou fear for Gaia because of all the sickness the wyrms brings to her. They forgot, they do not think straight. Gaia has a fever, fever is the way the body produces more anti-bodies while preventing the ennemy from reproducing. When the fields will die, when the seas will swallow your cities, when the whole population get so concentrated because there is no more room, sickness will strike, hunger will be there also, the time of mankind will come to an end. See the beautiful documentary "Life after people", you will understand the purpose of the wyrm. One of the healthiest wildlife reserve in the world is Chernobyl, why? Because men fled the place. Destruction is the only way.
Hunters Entertainment is no longer part of W5. Paradox brought everything in house about a month ago and Ragnarok will be publishing all of the core content going forward
Thanks, i had seen this but thought it only applied to the vampire franchise not all of them.
@@TheMapleTable Sadly Hunters took down all refrences to W5 from thier site and locked down discord the day of the original announcement. Paradox has since clarifidd that the consolidation is applicable to W5 and other WoD properties across the board
"this is some of the darkest aspects of WoD"
**Wraith the Oblivion has entered the chat**
Yeah, becoming a vampire doesn't seem like such a curse, when you consider that literally everything in the Underworld was forged out of tortured, human souls.
Tainted ones. Terrible creatures, an eternal reminder of what you can turn into if you forget about morality and surrender yourself to hedonism. They are almost as hopeless as Fomori, their bodies and spirits saturated with Wyrm poison to their very core. For most of them there is no salvation, death is the most merciful we can give them.
Great job as always. Thank you for the exciting story about an interesting, but no less terrifying and monstrous tribe.
It would also be interesting to hear about other Garou tribes which you haven't talked about yet, such as Hakken, Siberakh, Singing Dogs, Skin Dancers, etc.
I really want to do one on the skin dancers! So gruesome and so interesting.
i don't know if you were wondering, but the algorithm led me to your channel so whatever you're doing it's working.
thanks! hope you enjoyed the video!
I love the BSDs. Cuz they prove that no good deed goes unpunished. And in terms of bad guys, they're elegantly simple to play. Just tease your group that they can be redeemed, and ride the chaos to their collective doom. Because no group can resist that redemption story, but no BSD, PC or NPC, should be moved by such trite sentimentality.
Its so evil.... i like it.
How delightfully evil
Can we get a video on how the black spirals actually fit into the world? How do they interact with vampires? Pentex? Whats a pit? All i ever hear is the white howlers story. Also i love you and your content
Thanks so much, I'll see what I can do around the world of black spiral
I think they get along very well with Pentex. Hell, their board of directors has some BSDs on it.
afaik, the Black Spiral Dancers have seats on Pentex Board of Directors
I've been playing a white Howler in our little Dark Age group for a few days and I'm getting goosebumps right now. How hard it must be for a Howler to fight the Spirals whose souls are so torn. Thanks for the nice explanation :)
My pleasure. How are you working the backstory of the character?
@@TheMapleTable Well we don't play directly in a P&P but rather in a Rp chat and on our last plot a small pack of white howls showed up to the rescue, we got permission from the sl to take over a few of them in a playful way. And I'm still working on the story. So the character isn't finished yet, but I'd love to hear your explanations and imagine I'll let my thoughts drift :) anyway, Cinioch (that's his name) is Team Tearlach^^ and wants to follow in their footsteps.
i'm currently running a mage20 game and BSDs have been introduced. Half of the sept(?) is friend, half are foe at the moment. This video was integral to my formation of the BSDs and their "morals".
That sounds like a great story
I ran a campaign where a major villain was a "sane" BSD. I say sane, but that's because for five sessions they faced loud, explosive, gibbering BSDs so suddenly this quiet, well spoken, silently powerful werewolf seemed scary but certainly not insane.
I based him heavily off Hannibal Lechter with all the insanity that followed.
I may bring him into other campaigns, a cannibalistic psycho that uses urbane wit, confidence, and intelligence covering up the barely controlled psychotics under the skin.
"why are you playing Werewolf the Apocalypse" Yup... exactly that.
Im all for exploration of mature themes, but also be respectful of your players boundaries too. Setting proper expectations at the start is important!
@@TheMapleTable one would assume (though I've learned incorrectly) the 'games for mature minds' label on the front, and the fact that some of the art depicts Vampires feeding and Werewolves tearing things a new one, would result in some people putting the book down and stepping away.
Sadly, that is not the case.
@@VancouverbyNight sadly common sense is uncommon
I had a player who is obsessed with WoD but flipped the table when mental health issues comes up for his characters.... The defiler is my favourite head of the wyrm - It's world of darkness not "Super Furry Friends" damn it! Garou have a rage score - they're already pretty mentally ill by human standards!
I thought of a concept for a Black Spiral Dancer Pit which was built on an old, forgotten Wyrm-tainted burial ground. Besides Banes it is also inhabited by Spectres and often visited by Skull Pigs while a Fomori Family lives nearby who farm Wyrm-tainted honey and the Black Spiral Dancers use them as breeding stock for Kinfolk.
Another fascinating video :) I really love watching/listening to you; you impart such passion and interest into the subjects.
Thanks as always mate :)
Im a passionate guy :p I really love doing this, its such a good creative outlet from my rather opposite day job lol
Thanks. Help me a lot with research.
Im glad to help out with your research
Is it conceivably possible to return to the light? Like Drizzit Do Urdern a drow elf was born simply good? (Understand in a fantasy game anything is possible?) Could it ever be cannon?
I think so, I'm not going to tell you what can or can't happen at your table. Thougj I enjoy the idea of a personal redemption arc. Not the whole tribe imo
I have a question are there descendants of the white howlers that managed to resist or not be corrupted by the wyrm and still exist in modern nights? Like Ryan in the cancelled game Werewolf the Apocalypse Heart of Gaia.
In cannon as i have seen, no. The entire tribe was wiped out. Having said that theres nothing stopping you from encouraging finding a hidden blood line or small tribe that was hidden / lost in the umbra and have them reintegrate back into Garou society.
Per canon, White Howlers went corrupt or died to the last. However, IIRC, W20 gives you the tools to create a Howler if you really wish so, but its very much up to the ST to allow it and even if they do, its bound to be top priority for each and every Wyrm minion alive to either kill them or corrupt them, and it tends up to make said character a "de facto" main character in the campaign for lore reasons.
@@TheMapleTable How humans/Garou screw around it will not be too surprising you have kinfolk all over the place, " son of a wh0re."
The old core book stated that kinfolk could use 2nd to 3rd level gifts or end up as Mage Dream Speakers. Just enough to create minor Fetish/ magic spirit item that holds 1st & 2nd level gifts " charms ".
One BSD knocks up a couple of dozen women and 15 to 20 years later his pack mate knocks up all of his daughters, hench new blood line of kinfolk.
Look at all the religious cults in America history, there is a trailer park located near you.
11:33 yep, thank you
In the game Werewolf the Apocalypse: Earthblood, the very first boss fight is a Black Spiral Dancer, then unfortunately as far as I've seen, never show up or get mentioned again
That's to bad. There is so much that couod be done with them as bad guys
@@TheMapleTable I know right, it would've been awesome if they were to show up at least a couple more times
@@TheMapleTable I jumped the gun a bit, 2 more show up right at the end
I would love to play one one day. Preferably a corporate wolf
There is something to be said about doing an evil campaign
They are my 2nd favorite tribe, after the Red Talons. And yes, I have played them quite a few times.
No backstory on the White Howlers? You should say how they were victims of the Vampire controled Romans and how the rest of the Garou forsaken them when they begged for help.
I haven't done a video on the white howlers yet, i felt like they needed their own. There is a lot to cover with them
And how the Talons, Lords, Fangs, and their "closest brothers" betrayed them harder than all other tribes
Once did a story solely based on Garou dancing the spiral...
That did not end well for the player's
Funfact if you have pentex building in your story odds are there will be at least one Black Spiral Dancer no matter what line you're using.
They are an easy bad guy to use
@@TheMapleTable Yep :D most fun I had with them is the Wan Kuei attempting to ambush kindred but accidentally finding a black spiral dancer hive.
WADDUP? I'm the new sub on the block boiiiiiiii
Awe snap, word up son!
I don't know if you can do this, but you could enable fans of your channel to subtitle videos for different languages. I think it would help people who don't speak english.
I think there is a way actually, i thought i had it turned on but maybe I dont.
Turns out youtube disabled this feature.
thenextweb.com/insights/2020/07/31/youtube-commuity-contributions-discontinued/
Sad. I've some friends that could use legends in portuguese. Shame on youtube.
@@rafaelverissimo8705 I have a growing Spanish audience as well, I don't know how im going to be able to add those languages to my channel as I would really like to.
@@TheMapleTable the fans can will help you to figure this out. Maybe you can try another platform else them youtube, that has this function. You may link these videos in the description of the original videos.
Dance the night away or something clever like that
You don't want to dance with these guys let me tell you!
I played in a Vampire-Chronicle, where a young Kinfolg had her first change at school, killed 2 class members and ran away, in our domain. We met a guy, who told us, he would help us dealing with it. It became clear that he wasn't a vampire and didn't know the other werwolf of the area. we had an encounter, but out of plot reasons survived. (The Malkavian-Baron has a deal with the Glaswalkers of this area, to not go there will all Anarchs of a city to get rid of them, but to use tham as kind of a no-go-area towad the camarilla)
2 players understood that he was propably a BSD, but our characters didn't. In the end we had a trucewith the glaswalkers, to get rid of that guy, becaus he was an ass and vampire politics.
Here is what I made as a Black Spiral Dance Character, just to toss ideas.
Anakin McManaman is a model husband, but not yet father, he works as a social worker and does elegantly and legaly all that a social worker can do, giving advice to married couples how to have a good life, helping prisoners to rehabilitate in society etc etc. He is by all means a wonderful person, he loves nature and everything that is natural, forests trees, flowers, gardens and he hates it when he hears that a natural habitat gets hurt, especially when it is close to him. He also loves social life and living in a normal every day routine away from trouble. So far so good Right ? NO SIR, Anakin is a Black Spiral Dancer ! He is extremely territorial, to the point that I will eat you if you touch my wife, even if you do it in a friendly manner, and suspect that you try to ruin my normal life, even if you don't even try to do just that: ''you are misbehaving sir and I don't like that''. And yes Anakin has a habit for revenge even when it is just for the wrong idea, I am right because you are wrong and you have to be punished afterall, you looked at my house with an ill eye and you want to harm my normal life sir. Also Anakin is personally blessed by the Defiler Wyrm, the Defiler loves him and gave him one delicious blessing: hey Anakin you will never have a normal life because there will always be someone guaranteed to ruin it even slightly, and this very someone will always have an abettor to the crime, your very own lovely wife, yes the one you love and cradle so much, you have to kill her and leave no clues, hey there is one delicious way to do just that, and yes that one over there in the dark corner is Anakin sad and full of tears as he disposes his last lovely ex wife in his stomach.
But Hey! The next day is an absolutely lovely and perfectly normal day, and an absolutely wonderfuly perfect normal life is waiting for you, lets make some new friends, how about you dear neighbour ?
-Hope you liked it - 😁
You named him Anakin? Is that a name outside of star wars?
@@chomskyhonk2366 well it was instictual reflex, probably inspired subconsciously by star wars, not intentiotal by all means . And to confess my sin, I am not a star wars fan 😛
I would love to see you make a video about the Midnight Carnival.
The way he explains BSD’s reminds me of the Reavers from Firefly.
a little bit, just add more menacing auras
This is really more of a White howler video than a BSD video.
I've played BSD for 20+ years.
BSDs are as playable as any vampire character, and can fit just fine in a vampire game actually.
My only experience with the Black Spirals is in the game Werewolf The Apocalypse, to me they came off as mindless, feral beasts.
So for someone like myself who's only experience with this world is via that game and Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodline, it was very interesting to hear their background and learn there's more to them than just being animalistic/corrupt Garou.
Don't remember ever meting one in a story. What is interesting now that I think about, since they are basically He-Man's Skeletor, Batman's Joker, for garrou. Perhaps all Werewolf narrators I met judged them a bit too 'tacky'? The 'absolute evil' dilema of how to honestly acknowledge the absolute evil has a point of view (without make if NOT absolute evil) is an interesting one. Not just for this one tribe, but for the Werewolf slice of World of Darkness.
It is deeply about fight Evil, with big "e" this game. Unlike Vampire or Mage (where you may include this element but it is not the most obvious option). And as the Dancers show it is not a PERSONAL kind of evil, this absolute metaphysic taint, does not have to came from your individual decisions as a free person. You get the misfortune of be born in the wrong family, withing the wrong tribe, and hey! Sucks to be you!! It is interesting as a taught experiment.
Brings to mind the now classic "Orc Crib Argument" of Fever Dream author against Tolkien. Do good kings order genocides of orcs? Racial extermination to the extreme of killing babies in their cribs?? If not, then where all those orcs have gone? Well, if orcs are, by definition, Evil, then should not good human kings order purges like that? If there is no actual chance of redemption for orcs, or for BSDs then perhaps the kind thing to do is to kill those babies before they grow enough to understand how deeply screwed they are.
Not allow the chance of more garrou to be born in this tribe, destined to suffer this fate. Only way to be sure of that is by killing every individual cursed by that heritage. Babies included.
But then, on the other hand, once you (the good guy) is comfortably killing newborn babies on purpose, what is left to mark the bad guys as "bad", really?
Besides, the 3 basic forces of reality are BASIC forces of reality. In the end of day, what makes the Wyrm "Evil" is a combination of a contextual unbalance (which could change any time) and mistranslation. The Wyrm is just as necessary to Gaia as her 2 sisters are. Perhaps next century it will join the Wild against the Weaver, after the Weaver turn the table against her. Then the garrou will be fighting shoulder by shoulder with the Dancers, and the Glass Walkers will be the "new Black Spiral Dancers".
Unlike Tolkien's mythos it is NOT an essentially unchangeable conflict between Good and Evil. It is a powerplay between 3 sisters.
I once surprised my 'pack' by becoming a BSD, despite my being a Glasswalker originally. The Storyteller was also surprise I did this but understood due to our pack dynamics. Well in the end, I proved that BSD were a threat and broke the proud Get of Fenris and Black Fury that really made our pack hard to deal with. I did feel some sympathy for the Child of Gaia and the Bone Gnawer, but they were too passive and I deemed them too weak in resolve to do what must be done. The tragedy was I had to descend into madness to get them to understand with their final moments.
-
And no I did not fight honorably with any of them. Though the players were also shocked of my heel turn, they realize it was inevitable with how they ruined a hard to establish friendship and pact with a Moakole we chance met...
Always wondered if there was any way to cure a Black Spiral Dancer of the Wyrm, like if that is even possible. Have no idea if this was went over since very new to WoD and Werewolf in general.
It would technically be possible, though extremely difficult. You would have to remove the Wyrm taint, preform a right of cleansing and even then the mental derangements would still be part of the cleansed dancer after the ritual
@@TheMapleTable That honestly sounds like a good side story during a game. Maybe tough, but if pulled off, could be interesting. Thanks for the infomation!
The rulebook says the White Howlers made the fatal mistake of trying to attack the Wyrm directly within the Umbra and that's when they were twisted into Black Spiral Dancers. Direct attacks on the Wyrm itself is not only a suicide mission but also a recruitment drive for the god of death and decay.
Still a better tribe than the red talons.
Lol
I will be including them in a Vampire V5 game with some homebrew translation of abilities, though admittedly that part will feel a bit exasperating.
Awww... I wanna hug a black spiral dancer...do you think they would let me
Likely not
@@TheMapleTable aww why not?
I'm a Highlander myself, from the North West coast (Lochalsh). I've always been fascinated by the White Howlers, and I consider the BSD to be fantastic villains.
Totally unsuitable for non-Black Dog games as Player Characters, but I'll be getting the BSD Tribebook purely for the information.
Good video mate!
Glad I could help! And hello from across the pond.
Please check out Changeling the Lost, it give a lot of new ideals.
Can you do the hattken
I will add them to the list. There is one tribe I would like to cover still
@@TheMapleTable what tribe is that
@@blacksun6245 the skin dancers
Good job on the Black Spiral Dancers or should I call them the White Howlers my friend. I kinda liked the Black Spiral Dancers but pity and despise them because of their desire of insanity, madness and destruction they have caused themselves for serving the Wyrm. The only I really like is the White Howlers because they're ferocious and savage in their nature (only in their previously before they're corrupted themselves). And the deformity of the Black Spiral Dancers are terrible looking like they have this bat-like face or their mutant pwers of some kind. If I were a powerful and indestructible dragon I would cast a curse upon the Black Spiral Dancers and the other changing breeds that are serving the Wyrm by turning them into dragon and werewolf hybrids and by stripping their corrupted selves and leaving the unconscious White Howlers behind and by breaking their minds and used them to destroy the Wyrm for good. But not just the Wyrm but the Weaver as well for trapping the Wyrm by making it gone mad from entropy to corruption itself. This is only opinion to both the Wyrm and the Black Spiral Dancers for humiliating the Garou Nation. And I hope you understand about commit of these mutant hell pit abominations of doom and destruction.
A very final solution but effective
Oh yes and I grew pity on them as well. It makes sick just look them and some their froms are uglier than Freddy Kruger, Jason Vorhees and the zombies alike. Especially the Thing as well. And again I do like the White Howlers because of their fur is pure white.
I love seeing weird comments like that, it always put a smile on my face
Something I think needs to be mentioned is that some writers gave them an absolute want for the weaver’s absolute destruction, to return the sanity of the wyrm, to save Gaia’s corpse, and reclaim their own sanity.
They view the weaver as the truest of enemies, the truest cancer upon Gaia, and only in the destruction of the weaver, will all be made well again.
Other writers view this as too sympathetic, but I can understand the appeal of these deranged, depressed hedonists fighting for a true goal that is still deeply rooted in an experience and view only they could explore.
I'm late to the party but I have to say it
I once made a prototype Dancer-Howler... It has never been used but I'm patiently waiting for the opportunity
The idea revolves around something that the Spirit Heritage background says... You can pick the background and choose to have a great affinity to banes, at the expense of having every Garou, be it from the nation or a dancer, at best being highly suspicious of your every action, and at worst outright hunting you
Well, what if you combine that with a sort of half-step corrupted Howler born by a miracle?
And to round it up, the miracle Garou not only was abducted by the nation and fights for Gaia... But it ALSO has the Fate background, saying in fancy words that this miracle Garou WILL enter the spiral labyrinth because universal balance and whatshit...
And now the miracle Garou is constantly feeling like the worst thing that ever happened to the world, fighting his own creeping corruption and trying to push others for when it comes the time to go to the spiral labyrinth he could do so betraying the least amount of friends and packmates possible
(And parallel to that, he is trying to make the best out of the worst, sharpening his will and rage and cultivating his mind and spirit so that when time comes, he could try to harness his inner corruption to go as far as possible in the spiral, with the only goal of having an audience with the true wyrm, so that with some luck, he can ask do be destroyed before succumbing to corruption)
The Garou is part of a bulk of characters (most of them, concepts only) collectively known as "The playable impossibilities"
Basically some of the best of my worst ideas, with combinations of traits, personalities, merits, flaws, backgrounds, lore, etc... That a first glance are complete bullshit unplayable, but in action (if) they work (they do it) like a charm...
This one is one of the hardest to work with... Purely because it needs the approval of the Narrator to be a White Howler, and it needs to be handled in a certain specific way to not steal the spotlight (this are characters after all, not plot devices... And it can be pretty frustrating to join a table were the sole focus of a narration ends up becoming exclusively ONE of the player characters) that's the only reason I haven't used him yet... Most of my "impossibilities" are not suitable to the mayority of Stories, but I still create them for love to art... And TRPGs
I despise werewolves in this setting. Everytime i hear about their history its just more of them shooting themselves in the foot. If they were never created the wyrm would have been defeated. They cause nothing but problems and act like spoiled children, or they would if they didnt have this obsession with impregnating fucking EVERYTHING! They are unredeemable monsters with no one to blame for their problems but themselves. This, fourtunatly, makes it very easy to convince to my players in vtm to work with pentex. ;)
why would you want the wyrm to be defeated?
It's his time!
How many Dogmen would it take to kill one Black Spiral Dancer?
They are pretty strong so I would say usually 3 or 4 to take on a BSD
@@TheMapleTable Hell yeah!
How sanitised today’s world is really saddens me, we have films that are screaming out to be made R rated/18+ but the studios flat out refuse to become they want to sell toys based on them to kids, take Morbius for as bad as that film is even in the trailer there is scenes that are meant to be bloody where morbius rips out a guys throat and you see the guy clutch at the “”wound”” but for whatever reason they decided to not add in the CGI blood but kept the scene that now just looks goofy.
Most companies treat the General population as babies that need to be coddled (granted some people act like that but that’s besides the point) so it’s always refreshing when we see something willing to stretch the boundaries a little, I just hope that whoever owns TWOD at the min is willing to actually stick with the darkness part of the name.
Its a fine line to walk in todays world, between mature content and being insensitive.
Also, they're some known Black Spiral Dancers who are in the league with the Wyrm and manipulating those in the Garou Nation. Dancers like Old One Eye and Dimitri the fallen Silver Fang who aligned with the Wyrm for their own devious deeds. One of the them manipulating Mara the Scream who used Wyrmbaiter of the Red Talons as her instrument to declare war against the Bunyip Tribe in the War of Tears. Some of them are super strong like Zhyzak, chosen of the Green Dragon wanted to destroy all Garou once for all. In one day the Black Spiral Dancers will become the largest population of all werewolf kind. The question remains is: Will the Dancers serve the Wyrm for eternity? Or will they be devoured or die for the mad god who served?
I'm kinda tired of it being assumed that just because I wanna play Sabbat or BSDs, I must be a power gamer. That's such a narrow point of view. There is so much potential in exploring Vampire Paths of Enlightenment, or morality and tough choices in Sabbat or BSD games. While I have never played a BSD game, I've played in a Sabbat game for about 20 years.
I know the book of the Wyrm has lots of info on them, but I would love to have a BSD Tribebook. ,Even if I didn't want to play a BSD game, it would be handy for making a detailed NPC or antagonist. After all, we have Whitehowlers Tribebooks, and they're extinct. We have Mokole and SPIDER tribe books... but no BSDs and no Ajaba? Shame!
In the last plot I ran, the pack went to the Abyss and were forced to team up with a rather powerful but oddly sane high powered BSD to achieve a common goal. To my surprise, the pack Alpha decided to adopt him when the Hive declared him Ronin, and she's making a redemption project out of him. I'm eager to see where it goes.
I stick to 20th anniversary because it stays truest to the lore. 5th edition seems to shy away from the darker aspects of the world of darkness, and that puts me off the whole edition.
Who should not be dealing with a Lasombra and 3 spiral dancers. The dancers were running an under age trafficking ring. Wow they hit hard. 3 companions in torpor and me with only 2 superficial left... and only getting two shots off
We just started a game of vampire are playing fresh characters We wear given 15 xp to round out our characters.
I am playing a Toreador that is a bit based on Gotham version Harvey Bullock. He was changed to hunt down a volgery hiding in the court before the prince found out.. I don't have the look of most Toreador and the clan though I could be disposed of after. The prince found me to useful and a pain to the his Toreador main rival. He named me the Beast not for my brute force but for my looks being high auxpecs and a little celerity. He found it humorous like the story Beauty and the beast
We have a Tremer Librarian mad scientist, a Assimite military sniper, and a very confused Thinbood that has little common sense and less survival instinct.
“Unlike the Garou who would be bound by honour in many cases”
Really? Don’t think I’ve ever heard of honour in a garou story 😂 they are usually stupid bricks that kill innocents and then cry that they’re getting kicked out
At my last D&D/larp shop 15 to 17 years ago had two play areas, the posers play VtM in the basement.
The up stairs group put together a different tabletop game compared to the basement larp group. Not bothering about going into all the petty drama.
My character.
Male second generation kinfolk of BSD starting of as a Dream Speaker/ Hollow one mage self taught dealing with Bane spirit gifts.
Only 3rd level gift was Create Fetish.
D&D spells translated into WW.
spell: Blindness, blurring of vision from sinus build up.
spell: Scent Blindness, allergies sinus blockage. Basically allergy head cold from hell with multiple successes. Along with runny nose.
spell: Swollen Tongue, dry mouth and can taste anything, dry throat and can't breathe.
These three spells grouping clots blood in a vampire's face.
Think of waking up in bed with server mucus blockage and having a real hard time breathing and coughing fit.
I active these gifts just by politely talking to people about the weather and the problems with seasonal allergies. Then offer them a cough drop which holds a bane spirit to inter their body.
The character is blind in his left eye and speaks with a clog sinus, he can't smell anything.
I handed out and traded hand drawn index cards as Fetishes holding 1st to 2nd level gifts and bane spirits. As a back-alley street trader of favors I had too many wins in dice rolls and three card Montey which beat out the other larpers rock, paper, scissors hand gestures. And my Fetishes of 1st level gifts on Fear and Shadows just out creep everyone. Also I took drama class in high school along with watching Hitchcock villains in speaking as a creepy as possible.
Background plot, minor countryside US witch doctor trolling the edges of cities along a highway hub. Already an evil bastard before my first change and after willfully dancing a reverse spiral around campfires on my own calling banes who I realize were not my Imaginary childhood friends. Since becoming a Garou BSD I just been dumping five years worth of Xp into a bunch of minor fetish charms. The posers just hated my character for having such a good back story and my homemade index card artwork.
Overall I was the only person they let play a changeling the lost character in any vampire game, I just knew the rules that well. I am mostly a gangrel. Then again there was a limit to the changeling trader/collector I could play. There is a trick where you monotone rattle talk a bunch of information where people try to follow you on, and then their brain just shuts down and blank out for a moment. It is a hypnosis trick.
Then I bent the rules in Changeling the Lost, about Getting Lost in the Hedge and how humans become Hedge creatures, or how a mage,vampire,werewolf can become a Hedge creature/changeling.
So the character urban myth ghost story background rumor is, ..
Is he a Garou BSD that got pulled into the Hedge and became a Hedge Changeling, or was he a Changeling that became a werewolf BSD by stripping away and binding a BSD soul to his own ?
I twisted the rules in Changeling the Lost where you could do that.
Out of five WoD storytellers that ran games there said that is a possible way at looking at the rules and people could do that, But YOU are not going to play that character !
Reason, I walked into a game, start a character as is, and used social Bluff and acting to cover Dominate to spread rumors the " CAIN " and the OTHERS were in town.
Snobbish player, " My vampire has seven dice plus Willpower, that won't work on him ! "
Six other players yelled, " Roll for it ! "
Snobbish player, " ZHIT ! I just rolled ten 1's ! "
Since half the shop's players were into Wicca, .. and the down town red brick building was over seventy years old.
That basement did have a creep factor.
Along with the Dice having a Mind of their OWn at street level.
The White Howlers actually were the greatest example of the Nations problem with Hubris. They were never the greatest of the nation lol...not with that massive frailty of theirs.
Pride has ALWAYS been their biggest failing. Unless Hubris and Pride are the best quality a Garou can ever expect to have, I would never call them the greatest tribe of the nation, nor the embodiment of what it means to be Garou.
I meant that as more from the Garou perspective, they seem to view the white howlers with reverence and almost deify them.
I'd say that is their way to "cope" with said tragedy, while also making it bigger and more "glorious" than what it actually was: the Garou failing miserably out of hubris.
Ofc they're gonna say "yeah, they were great warriors" because suggesting otherwise would end up on uncomfortable questions by some Ragabash being like "yo seriously why didnt they kill them to the last?" Or even better: "why did nobody answer to their call for help?".
The wyrm is the only truthfull greater spirit. It is the one that does not hide behind false pretenses in hopes of getting the job done. As a matter of fact, the wyrm is trying to save whatever is left of the world. Humans are out of control, subject to the weaver's desires. The wyrm helps the human feed on their deepest, most hidden desires and frailties, indulge in their most basic instincts. The wyrm does not care for humans, he knows they are to be the tools required to restore Gaia to her former glory and bring balance back in the triumvirat.
Like when a forest fire destroys the forest, it will grow back, cleaned of impurities and healthier. The same with the rest of the world, once the humans weakens themselves enough by destroying their very own homes in pursuit of false dreams, they will perish at the hands of the servants of the wyrm. Only then will the wild be able to thrive again, may it be a lesson for that wreched weaver. Order is needed, but not in the way it is today.
In ten thousand years from now, you will understand, the Garou will undestand how the wyrm is the true savior of Gaia.
Garou fear for Gaia because of all the sickness the wyrms brings to her. They forgot, they do not think straight. Gaia has a fever, fever is the way the body produces more anti-bodies while preventing the ennemy from reproducing. When the fields will die, when the seas will swallow your cities, when the whole population get so concentrated because there is no more room, sickness will strike, hunger will be there also, the time of mankind will come to an end.
See the beautiful documentary "Life after people", you will understand the purpose of the wyrm. One of the healthiest wildlife reserve in the world is Chernobyl, why? Because men fled the place. Destruction is the only way.