Bone Gnawers Gifts

When it rains, it pours. Thankfully, Bone Gnawers with this Gift don't need to worry about that. The Gift turns any appropriately sized box into a windproof, waterproof, soundproof home that is always warm and dry, regardless of what it's like outside. If large enough, the box may house more than one person as long as everyone is friendly toward each other. The Bone Gnawer may also set up a house for someone else, but that person must accept a gesture of affection (a handshake is sufficient) from the Bone Gnawer first. The Gift is taught by a hearth-spirit

The Garou must have a small pot (a coffee can will do) and a ladle or spoon to use this Gift. He places whatever he can find into the pot -- trash, beer cans, old newspapers, etc. -- adds water (spit counts) and stirs. The result is a pasty, bland-tasting mush that is nevertheless edible and filling.

By spending at least an hour studying a written text, the Garou can memorize vast passages of information word for word. The effects work like a cross between speed-reading and eidetic memory. Actually understanding or accessing the information is difficult, but repeating it by rote is simple. Lupus Garou cannot learn this Gift, but remarkably enough, illiterate homids can; for the Gift's duration, they can decipher all sorts of "funny little squiggles" on paper. The Garou must be fluent in speaking the language he is reading. This Gift is often taught by Rat Finks and Frankweilers. Rat Finks use this Gift to transfer sensitive information in a format that's difficult to steal. Frankweiler Galliards use this Gift repeatedly on their favorite plays and novels. This Gift is taught by a bookworm-spirit, a favorite Gaffling of Frankweilers.

In times of great trauma, desperate people have displayed amazing feats of strength and endurance. With a burst of adrenaline, a mother can lift a truck off a pinned child, or a father may smash through a wall to save his family. Through strength of will, a Bone Gnawer may channel that same desperate energy. If another packmate has fallen or been captured, the Garou may use this hideous strength in a desperate effort to help his pack.

With ten minutes, a bit of rage, and everyday household chemicals, you can unleash a firestorm of vengeance against an uncaring world. You have a deep and instinctive understanding of the principles of modern chemistry, one that allows you to scratch-build and detonate explosives. (This Gift exists to cancel out the need for any sort of "realistic" explosive rules in the game.) Rat-spirits teach this Gift, occasionally with the help of a few furtive cranks on the internet.

Many Bone Gnawers learn a preternatural resistance to poisons and toxins of all kinds, doubtless due to their diet of refuse and American beer. A trash-spirit teaches this Gift.

A target the Garou touched at some point during the last hour begins to exude a wonderfully sweet aroma, and becomes slightly sticky to the touch. All manner of vermin quickly appear and coat the victim. The resulting coat of gnats, flies, bees and beetles crawls, stings, and generally impairs vision and hearing. Insect-spirits teach this Gift.

You're good at sizing people up. With a few sniffs, you can smell how successful someone really is. Even on a bad day, you can sense whether he's got money in his pocket, a steady job, or a place to stay. When passing by street folk begging for change, some people claim they don't have anything to give. By repeatedly sizing up people on the street, Bone Gnawers learn to distinguish a real bad-luck case from a cheap bastard who doesn't give a damn. After mastering this elemental talent, the Garou can then sniff out deeper secrets from passers-by.

Many city Garou use this Gift when facing off against just about anything with a particularly sensitive nose: this can include other Garou, Black Spiral Dancers, and a host of normal animals or Wyrm-creatures. The Gift incapacitates its target by overwhelming its sense of smell with the stink of the city: sweat, blood, human waste, rot, smoke, and car exhaust.

Commonly used by Bone Gnawers residing in a sept controlled by other tribes, this Gift ingratiates the Bone Gnawer to a pack's or caern's totem for a short time. While the Gift is in effect, the Gnawer is treated as a member of a pack with regards to using the totem's blessings and any pack tactics the pack knows. If used on a caern toem, the totem looks favorably upon the Bone Gnawer. The Gnawer may then perform the Rite of the Opened Caern, if he knows it, without fear of retribution. A lost-dog-spirit, a spirit servant of Rat, teaches this Gift.

(called Nose of the Hungry Hound in the 1st Bone Gnawers tribebook and just Hungry Hound in the revised)

The Garou can mark a person or place with a scent only other werewolves can sense. The mark is subtle; placing it isn't. This Gift is taught by lost-dog-spirits.

The refuse of humanity provides all the canny Bone Gnawer needs. Through the use of this Gift, any broken object can be temporarily restored to full functionality and usefulness. A raccoon-spirit teaches this Gift.

If your home has no walls, sleeping can be a nightmare. There's no guarantee that someone won't sneak up on you to steal your stuff... or even take your life. Some werewolves solve this problem by sleeping in packs, but it never hurts to take extra precautions. Rural Garou set twigs and branches that easily snap underfoot; Bone Gnawers rig the same warnings with tin cans, tripwires, or even broken glass. With a little mystical aid, a werewolf can enlist spirits in similar defenses. The werewolf can never be sure exactly where the boundary of the urban ward is set but he may be paranoid enough to spend more time setting multiple layers of trash around his encampment. This Gift is taught by a Rat-spirit, who usually warns its student to always collect trash and shy things for just this purpose.

Urban blight is the very underbelly of the Wyrm, and the Bone Gnawers know it better than any other tribe. The werewolf’s instincts guide him to the nearest barren spot within an urban area — a place where no human has set foot in at least a week, one which is not only isolated and currently unoccupied, but also likely to remain so for the rest of the night. This may be a boarded-up, abandoned building, a vacant apartment, or even a dead subway station. Bone Gnawers find this Gift useful for securing ritual spaces, setting up ambushes while preserving the Litany, and finding a place to sleep for the night. Any urban spirit can teach this Gift.

The Garou can become completely invisible to all senses, spirits or monitoring devices by remaining still. A chameleon-spirit teaches this Gift.

When backed into a corner with nowhere to run, there are only two options — beg for mercy or turn and fight. Rat-spirits teach Bone Gnawers to excel at the latter.

Through a bit of graffiti and casual sabotage, the Garou can discourage anyone who wants to track him, follow him, or even take interest in his affairs. The werewolf can alter a sign, spray-paint directional information, or perhaps just simply turn street signs the wrong way to misdirect people who find it. This Gift works far better on humans than supernatural creatures. Some urban werewolves attempt this Gift two or three times a week to keep their stomping grounds hidden (rather like a lesser version of the Rite of the Signpost, listed below).

The Garou employing this Gift closes her eyes and thinks about finding a thing of great value, either a specific item or a general class of things. She then spends a Gnosis point and rolls Perception + Enigmas (the difficulty depends on the rarity/uniqueness of the item being sought). Each success on the roll gives one clue concerning the whereabouts of this item. The clue is decided by the Storyteller and must be worked into the story: "Turning the corner, you see an ad for the Hound Dog Cafe... perhaps the Elvis plate could be there?" Note that just because an item has been located does not mean it can be easily gotten.

The Bone Gnawer masks herself so that she blends into the urban landscape, disguising her Lupus form so that it appears as a large dog rather than a wolf. Despite its enormous utility, most other tribes spurn this Gift as degrading to the dignity of the Garou. A dog-spirit teaches this Gift.

Bone Gnawer Hillfolk invented this Gift, and they've been teaching it to Galliards everywhere.  A good old-fashioned hootenanny involves music plaed really fast and incredibly well - "Dueling Banjos" is currently the most common song used with it.

Instead of throwing a weapon to cause greater injury, the werewolf throws projectiles with greater accuracy. This Gift is taught by an air-spirit.

The Bone Gnawer can amplify his (probably already formidable) body odor to the point that it debilitates any who can smell it. A stinkbug-spirit teaches this Gift.

This Gift extends the duration and range of Scent of the True Form or Sense the Unnatural; the Garou needn't have either one of those Gifts before learning this one, but this Gift is useless without them. Bone Gnawers who hang out on strategically chosen street corners have a chance to sniff out supernatural creatures in the neighborhood. Using the Gift takes about an hour. During that time, if a Wyrm-tainted creature passes within about a city block, there's a chance the werewolf will pick up his scent. Galliards use this Gift while performing on street corners; Ragabash do the same thing while begging for change. Lost-dog spirits teach this Gift.

Called Ward of the Road in the 1st Bone Gnawers Tribebook and Road Ward in revised)

Anything you can throw as a weapon becomes deadlier. If your Garou is the sort of bastard that throws rocks during city riots, dumps garbage on policemen from a fire escape, or tosses around furniture in bar brawls, then this Gift is for you.

One of the crucial lessons for survival is simple: use whatever comes to hand. Bone Gnawers that know this Gift use one of the most common things to come to hand in the streets, that is, garbage. Upon using this Gift, a specific target is buried beneath rubbish and litter. A garbage spirit teaches this Gift, though rat-spirits teach a similar Gift using sewer flotsam instead of trash.

Playing upon the compassion of others, Bone Gnawers can generate an amazing amount of pity. By exaggerating her miserable state, a clever Bone Gnawer can gain favor with people who have too much anyway. By groveling or telling her particular sob story, she might get a handout, a favor or at least a good meal. A pigeon-spirit teaches this Gift, which is one reason only Bone Gnawers ever learn it.

By whistling softly through his teeth, the werewolf can summon sudden and destructive rust onto any metal within his immediate vicinity. Guns corrode and jam, knives crumble, and cars become flaking hunks of junk. This Gift is taught by a water elemental.

Any Bone Gnawer who watches too much television knows about Cooter. He's got a tow truck parked down the street from the Dukes of Hazzard, and he always has the right tool for the right job. Followers of the tribe's automotive totem (described under "Totems") train extensively with automotive tools, and wouldn't be caught dead without them. This Gift not only makes proper repairs much easier, but can also save your life if you're caught unaware while changing a tire by the side of the freeway.

One of the less sanitary tribal totems, the Great Trash Heap, has dissipated its consciousness throughout the dumping grounds, landfills, and trash piles of the world. Bone Gnawers who follow this totem commune with the Incarna by defending, protecting and even obeying these festering heaps. When a Garou has reached this rank of renown, he may be called upon to travel between festering sacred sates to carry out the totem's demands.

It takes a lot for a pack to accept a Bone Gnawer as an equal, but once they do, the Bone Gnawer's loyalty is unshakable. This Gift allows a Bone Gnawer to risk all, even his own life, to aid a packmate or tribemate. A dog-spirit teaches this Gift.

With this Gift, the Garou can swell his musk glands, allowing him to spray musk like a skunk. It is, of course, taught by a skunk-spirit.

The Bone Gnawer can cause wood and paper to rot with astonishing speed. Furniture falls apart, documents disintegrate, and even buildings collapse. Obviously, the best instructor of this Gift is a termite-spirit.

Hyena follows no one; instead, he laughs and mocks anyone who tries to command him. In the same fashion, a Garou who can actually convince a Hyena-spirit to teach him such defiance can steal the spirit's mocking laughter. The Garou can learn to resist any attempt to command, cajole, force, or demand him to do something he doesn't want to do. This is never subtle. The Garou (and the player) must cackle like a hyena-spirit when calling upon this Gift.

By performing an epic feat to please the spirits, you've found a way to overcome the curse of your jackal's blood. This Gift is taught by a jackal-spirit, usually as an act of forgiveness after an appropriate Umbral quest lasting at least one game session.

Suffused with the pure energy of the Wyld, the user of this Gift rants and raves in a torrent of nonsensical language. Only others who are properly attuned to his magic silver-hammer disco ball dimension can penetrate his tinfoil hat. More precisely, any member of his pack or the Bone Gnawer tribe can decode whaterver nonsense he is saying. He can also project these thoughts at a distance to one listener; the ranting Garou chooses which individual receives his psychic transmission.

The werewolf can shape once-living material (but not undead!) into a variety of objects instantly. Trees may become shelter, buck antlers become spears, animal hides become armor, and flowers become perfumes. The item will resemble the object from which it was shaped (e.g., the aforementioned spear is made of antler, not wood). A Pattern Spider -- one of the Weaver's spirits -- teaches this Gift.

You've got an ear to the sidewalk... literally. By touching a road, sidewalk, or path of some kind, you recieve a flash of impressions about what has transpired there during the last twenty-four hours. Urban spirits whisper words, waft scents, and even give a taste of events in the neighborhood. This Gift is bestowed by a City Mother or City Father Totem, usually as a reward for acting in defense of the city.

(Lay of the Land)

The Garou may commune with the spirits of a city or town and gain information about the area from them, including rough population, enclaves of Garou or other being and secret tunnels. This Gift does not function in the wilderness, since the Bone Gnawers have lost the knack for conversing with such spirits easily. A rat-spirit teaches this Gift.

The Bone Gnawer can duck into a shaded area (an open dumpster, a dark alley, beneath a parked car) and pop out in another shaded area some distance away. A rat-spirit teaches this Gift.

From Roger Ebert's Little Bigger Movie Glossary, "Clichéphobia. Condition affecting people raised on movies. Symptoms occur when real life situations echo movie clichés, and the sufferers must take action to avoid what would be the inevitable denouement in a movie."

You thrive in the midst of riots, angry mobs, lynchings, civil disturbances, or any other situation where a crowd of humans rebels revolts or resists authority. The Gift doesn't actually enrage a crowd; it just adds direction to a riot already in progress. Wyldlings and Ratkin Twitchers teach this Gift

The Garou can summon a horde of vermin to invade a structure (no bigger than a large building). The Gift summons any kind of vermin common to the area, which usually includes a lively variety of insect, slugs, and rodents, and it may also include carrion birds and snakes. These creatures will not attack humans mindlessly. They will act according to their natures, which often means fleeing to dark places and hiding out. Any vermin spirit can teach this Gift.

Rats are known for their resilience, persistence, and ruthlessness. Since Rat serves as the Bone Gnawer's tribal totem, Garou of this tribe may learn a great deal about survival under the tutelage of rat-spirits.

Once each game session, a Bone Gnawer with this Gift can tell an outrageous lie so well that ordinary humans accept it as truth. The story must at least be vaguely possible and end with the words, "Trust me." What the human does with this knowledge is entirely a matter of roleplaying. Munchmausen Ratkin teach this Gift.

The Bone Gnawer can open his jaws far wider than is normally physically possible, and can swallow things or beings whole. A werewolf with this Gift is even capable of gulping down an entire buffalo, or a whole pack of Black Spiral Dancers, only to regurgitate the creatures later This Gift is taught by a catfish-spirit.

Once each game session, a Bone Gnawer with this Gift can tell a tale of suffering so pitiful that he can elicit the help of an average human. With enough successes, he may convince the human to go out of his way to help the poor suffering bastard get on his feet. Masters of this Gift have managed to walk with a mark to the ATM for a sizable donation, borrow the keys to a car for an evening, or sleep on someone's floor. The tribe has spent millennia watching over the human race; after realizing on some subconscious level this great service, the human pays his protector back with a grand favor. Great Bone Gnawer heroes use this Gift when they need help protecting humans from the evils around them.

In times of great need, an elder can issue a call to his tribe that echoes through the Umbra of an entire city. First, hordes of spirits appear before him in the spirit world. They then swarm out to find everyone of the same tribe. Bone Gnawers use this Gift more than any other tribe, usually relying on hordes of rat-spirits to find all their hidden brothers and sisters. The tribalists don't need to answer the call, but the spirit can relay a brief message exhorting the Garou to aid her brothers and sisters. Using this Gift for a trivial purpose may cost the Garou temporary Honor.

This Gift summons a horde of malevolent spirits to provoke the inhabitants of a city into violent rioting. The Gift plays on the hatred and fear of the down-and-outs of the city: the homeless, the poor and even stray animals. The Gnawer can direct the riot to a degree, but such things tend to escalate, and the Garou has no power to stop the riot from doing so. A rat-spirit teaches this Gift.

This Gift confers temporary immunity to many environmental factors. The Garou has no need of food, water or sleep, and she does not suffer from temperature extremes. She is also immune to natural diseases and poisons. Wyrm toxins will still affect her, but at half their normal potency.