The werewolf with this GIft may communicate with any animals from fish to mammals. This Gift does not change their basic reactions; most animals are still afraid of predators such as werewolves. Any spirit of nature can teach this Gift.
Camp: Whelp's Compromise
Lupus Garou often have difficulty when walking among humans, even as part of a pack. Those few Red Talons that are intrigued rather than enraged by human behavior have even bigger problems, as they cannot expect instruction from the tribe in human ways. This Gift allows a lupus werewolf to learn from a mistake and gain a better understanding of human devices and customs, albeit temporarily. Weaver-spirits and (strangely enough) some ancestor-spirits teach this Gift.
Wolves can sense which animal from a herd is sick or weak and therefore the easiest prey. Red Talons can do so normally when confronted with a herd of deer, but more complex creatures like predators or pseudo-predators (like humans) make this difficult. This Gift, taught by a wolf-spirit, allows the Talon to pick out the weakest member of a group at a glance. It does not reveal why the target is the weak link in a herd, only that she is, but that alone is often enough to give the Garou an edge.
(Kucha Ekundu)
This Gift allows the werewolf to “eat for the pack.” Any food the Kucha Ekundu ingests feeds not only him, but the rest of his pack as well. The spirit of a hunting dog teaches this Gift.
The Red Talons did not survive for so many years without learning ways to conceal themselves. This Gift allows a Garou to leave behind no physical evidence that would betray her hand (or claws and teeth) in a slaying. This Gift is taught my a snake-spirit.
Camp: Lodge of the Predator Kings
With this Gift, the Talon may emit a cry for help designed to lead a human into an ambush. In years past, the Talons would use this Gift to mimic the death-cry of a deer or a similar animal, since many humans still hunted their own food. In recent years, since most humans wouldn't know how to kill a wounded animal if their lives depended on it, the Talons use Prey's Cry to imitate the call of a favored pet or another human. A Raven-spirit teaches this Gift.
While some Red Talons abstain from eating humans because of the Litany, the more common reason for hunting more conventional game is that humans are befouled by the chemicals they put into their bodies. In some parts of the world, this isn't such a problem, but in most countries, human flesh is foul-tasting and unhealthy, even for Garou. In other places, the land is so corrupted that other game animals begin to taste rubbery and disgusting. With this Gift, a Red Talon can purge chemicals and other poisons from dead flesh. A water elemental teaches this Gift.
The Garou can mask her scent completely, making herself virtually impossible to track. A fox-spirit teaches this Gift.
Camp: Winter Packs
Perhaps the most disturbing Gift the Red Talons as a tribe have access to, Silence the Slain allows a Garou to cut a victim off from any means of help by rendering him unable to make sounds of any kind. Even pounding his fists on the windows of a passing car will not disturb the passengers therein. A pain-spirit teaches this Gift, the better to enjoy the agony of being hunted down when potential aid stands deafly by.
(Kucha Ekundu)
The Garou doubles her running speed. A roadrunner- or cheetah-spirit teaches this Gift.
Some humans can't just be splattered all over the nearest tree. Some of them have to be taught a lesson and left alive, for whatever reason. however, the Red Talons know how to make the message stick. This Gift induces a terrible dread of and respect for the forest, and it makes a human target afraid to tamper with it in any way. Any predator spirit can teach this Gift.
(Camp: Glorious Fist of Wotan)
The Garou can reduce the mental faculties of his victim to that of an animal for a short time. An avatar of Griffin teaches this Gift.
A Red Talon using this Gift measures the vitality of her prey to plan her attack strategy effectively. During the Impergium, Red Talons used this Gift to pick the weakest of the humans and destroy them. Occasionally, the Red Talons killed the strongest of the humans to remove them from the breeding pool. Today, the Gift continues to help Red talons hunt and kill their prey. An avatar of wolf teaches his children how to detect the easiest prey.
The werewolf sends a full-throated howl shivering into the night sky, evoking primal terror in Gaia’s enemies. Creatures of the Wyrm who hear the howl find themselves troubled and unable to rest easily while their enemies are on the prowl. A wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.
Camp: Whelp's Compromise
The Red talons of Whelp's Compromise are willing to let the humans who respect Gaia continue to exist. However, despite what some of their tribemates might accuse them of, they are not "soft" on transgressors against Her. With this Gift, the werewolf can judge a human according to the laws of Gaia and decide if she is living in accordance with the natural laws or not. A human who is living well is left alone. A human who is not is shown no mercy. A wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.
Camp: Warders of the Land
Rather than take her vengeance directly on an offending human, the werewolf can choose to change the human's spiritual resonance to resemble that of a prey animal. Any predator that sees the human, no matter how small or normally afraid of humans, will see that human as prey. In most cases, this proves simply inconvenient, but if the human happens to own several large dogs, the result could be deadly. Any spirit of a prey animal teaches this Gift, sometimes under duress.
Camp: Lodge of the Predator Kings
Human corpses are problematic. They don't burn well, the Litany prohibits eating them, and if other humans find them, they tent to get offended and search the area thoroughly. Burying them isn't always an option because humans, being the curious little apes that they are, may eventually dig up an area for whatever reason and find the bodies. The Predator Kings certainly aren't willing to stop killing humans just because disposing of their bodies is a problem, hence this Gift. With but a touch, the Talon can cause dead flesh to decay and crumble to dust in seconds, giving it up as an offering to Gaia. A spirit of decay or decomposition, as well as some scavenger-spirits, can teach this Gift.
While any lupus werewolf can lean the secrets of jumping great distances, the Red Talons have refined the Gift to great effect when chasing or ambushing a foe. By employing this Gift, the Talon's leap "tracks" a moving target, allowing her to pounce on her prey even if said prey has dodged or fled while the Talon is in mid-leap. A fox- or (sometimes) a cat-spirit teaches this gift.
The Red Talon can strip away the layers of humanity that cover up man's basic instincts. A human assaulted with this Gift finds himself behaving like a beast. Momentarily losing all civility, the human strips naked, runs through the streets, growls at threats and makes numerous, uninvited overtures toward members of the opposite sex. All thoughts of business meetings, color television and BMWs vanish in favor of the basic drives of survival.
Camp: Winter Packs
No Winter Garou have yet learned this Gift, and only the older Red Talons who had a hand in the Winter Council know it. This Gift, meant as a last resort, allows the user to smash stone, rend metal, and generally destroy any man-made object within reach. A wolverine-spirit teaches this Gift.
Camp: Dying Cubs
With this Gift, the Garou can spill the blood of a foe on the ground and immediately reap the energy thus released. Talons who overuse this Gift, however, often begin to smell vaguely of charnel to any werewolf using the Gift: Sense Wyrm. A spirit of decay teaches this Gift. Banes are also capable of teaching it, however, only the Dying Cubs themselves know which type of spirit teaches it to the Red Talons most often.
(Camp: Seekers) / (Camp: Hand of Tyr)
Name changed to Pulse of the Prey in 20th Anniversary Edition
The Red Talon becomes the embodiment of all of humanity’s primal fears of the wolf, carrying a heavy miasma of ancient terror about her. A fear-spirit teaches this Gift.
When danger stalks the Garou or momentous events are in the offing, visions begin striking the Garou without warning. The nature of the danger is veiled in metaphor -- a powerful vampire may appear in the Theurge's dream as a bloody skeleton, while an impending battle might be heralded by dreams of carrion crows. Cros-spirits teach this Gift.
(Glass Walker)
By begging, threatening or cajoling an urban elemental, a Garou can convince the spirit to do her a favor by manipulating or even destroying her earthly shell. Thus, a glass sheet might explode at the Garou's foes; a door might refuse to open, even if unlocked, or a car's brakes might fail. An urban elemental teaches this Gift.
The Garou stares into the eyes of an intended victim, and communicates to them the ancient bond between predator and prey -- beginning the sacred hunt. This Gift is taught by the spirit of any predatory mammal -- wolf, mountain lion, bear, etc.
Perhaps the most unpopular Gift in the entire tribe, this Gift is hidden by Whelp's Compromise, although a few Warders of the Land use it in more... experimental ways. It turns a human child of no older than ten years old into a creature of the wild, unable to set foot in a city. Some suggest this Gift is responsible for myths such as Romulus and Remus, or the tale of Mowgli. Whelp's Compromise camp members use this to show that humans themselves can exist in harmony with Gaia, it is the City that is evil and needs to be destroyed.
A she-wolf is most dangerous when protecting her cubs, and will fight against enemies from which she would normally flee if her family is at stake. The Red Talon with this Gift is able to harness that Rage and use it in battle, although only when defending something of value. A bear- or wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.
Rank 4 in the 2nd edition Player's Guide, Rank 3 in 20th Anniversary. Different books gave this gift different names.
Camp: Warders of the Land
All Red Talons feel disgust at domesticated animals, both predator and prey. They hate prey animals that simply stand around waiting to be slaughtered, rather than being allowed to live their lives before being eaten. Domesticated predators incense the Talons, for obvious reasons. This Gift allows the werewolf to free domesticated animals from whatever enclosures hold them, physical or otherwise. Horses throw their riders, dogs turn on their masters, farm animals smash through their gates and run. While the Red Talons have known this Gift for centuries, few learned it after the rise of cities, since so few humans there kept animals. However, the Warders of the Land continue to learn the Gift occasionally. Any animal-spirit can teach this Gift.
(Red Talon)
Rank 4 in the Red Talon tribebook; rank 3 in the 20th Anniversary Edition
Humans have no sense of direction, the Talons assert. With this Gift, the Garou can make certain that they don't. The Talon employing Trackless Waste must have some familiarity with the terrain in question. Upon using the Gift, humans become hopelessly lost. Compasses malfunction, maps are misleading, and landmarks seem to be out of place. A spirit of the wilderness teaches this Gift.
The Garou must be in a mountainous or otherwise tectonically unstable area. The Garou causes an avalanche, mudslide, etc. to engulf his foes. The Gift is taught by an earth elemental.
(Camp: Mjolnir's Thunder) / (Kucha Ekundu)
The werewolf with this Gift can bite down with such power that her grip won't loosen until she chooses to do so; even in death, her jaws bite down. A wolf- or hyena-spirit teaches this Gift.
Inuit myth tells of Akhlut, a killer whale that turned into a wolf to walk on land. The legends are almost right, of course. This Gift allows a Red Talon to take on an aquatic form such as a fish, dolphin or whale. It is believed by some that this Gift is how the Red Talons spread from their original lands to other continents. The Gift is taught by the spirit of an appropriate pelagic animal, although the Red Talons respect the orca most of all.
Natural wolves will eat as much as possible when food is available, for they never know when their next meal will arrive. With this Gift, a Red Talon can do much the same thing with Rage, Gnosis or Willpower, storing such energy against the day when she will need it. A wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.
Camp: Dying Cubs
The Dying Cubs often take the fight to the Wyrm by waging battle in already tainted locales. This often weakens the Garou, but this Gift evens the odds somewhat. Taught by an earth elemental, Pain of the Land makes the werewolf even more deadly when fighting on tainted ground. She fights as though the putrescence of the corrupted land, be it a landfill, a factory, or simply a city spurs her on and feeds her Rage every second of the battle.
The Garou turns the ground into a sticky morass that catches foes and prevents them from escaping or even walking. An earth elemental teaches this Gift.
The Red Talons believe that the very first pack of Garou set the standards for the auspices, and that only the Talons retain a strong enough connection to that First Pack to use this Gift. This may or may not be true, but no non-Talon Garou has ever exhibited this mighty Gift (but then, very few among the Talons even know of it). To learn this Gift, the Talon must have at least one dot in Ancestors. The Garou calls upon her the originator of her auspice and is temporarily transformed into the pinnacle of her moon-sign. An avatar of Wolf or a powerful Lune may teach this Gift, but neither does so often.
(Kucha Ekundu)
When the Red Talons first came to Africa and struck their deal with the Mokolé, the mighty werecrocodiles agreed that if the Garou could breed with the hunting dogs and do their appointed task in Africa without making war on the other Fera, they could stay. The Red Talons have (thus far) made good on their promises, and the eldest of the Kucha Ekundu have been rewarded with this Gift. The werewolf may call upon the Mokolé-mbembe for aid, in battle or otherwise. The spirits of the Dragon Kings teach this Gift.
In the ultimate twist, this Gift allows a Red Talon to transform a human being into a wolf. This Gift also works on Garou, forcing them into Lupus form. A wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.
The Garou calls to the spirits of the surrounding forest to attack intruders. The terrain responds as best it can: Rocks roll and smash, vines trip, and water sucks victims under. An avatar of Gaia herself teaches this Gift.
The Red Talon suffuses a target with a superabundance of Wyld energy, making them violently allergic to the Weaver-works of man. Any artificial material blisters and abrades the target’s skin, concrete sidewalks and artificial carpet fibers shred her feet, polyester clothing causes her body to break out in weeping sores, and steel tools blister her hands. An avatar of Griffin teaches this Gift.
Legends among the Red Talons state that the wolves with the greatest connection to the Progenitor Wolf were not bound by distance, but indeed could appear anywhere where wolves were found. This was long thought to be simply lore, but in fact an elder Red Talon with strong enough lineage might well learn to fade from one location and appear anywhere else in the Realm or the Umbra, provided that the Progenitor has been there before him. Only the Progenitor Wolf himself teaches this Gift.
The Garou can become so attuned to the laws and rhythms of Gaia that the Weaver's laws cease to have any affect on her. This Gift can only be used once by any Garou who learns it; its effects are permanent. The Garou becomes immune to the effects of one form of technology, such as bullets, photography (i.e., cannot be photographed), electricity, chemical toxins, etc. This Gift is taught by an avatar of Griffin.