Stargazer Gifts

The Stargazer is able to walk across any ledge, rope, etc., no matter how thin or slippery. Wind-spirits teach this Gift.

Rage is both a boon and a bane to the Garou, and the Stargazers feel this doubly so. Rage, while certainly a vital resource, is also a dangerous element. Many Stargazers seek new ways to harness and direct their Rage, and those with this Gift have at least one more option. A Garou using this Gift can channel her Rage into a single action, helping her perform that one action as best as she is able. This Gift is taught by a fire-spirit.

This Gift allows the Garou to send her foe sprawling with but a touch. Any aerial spirit can teach this Gift.

A Stargazer possessing this Gift causes considerable problems to all attackers. Those attacking find themselves clumsier and less nimble with every successful strike. An earth elemental teaches this Gift.

Through the blessings of the spirits, the Stargazer’s resolve is tempered like steel, allowing great feats through application of sheer will. An ancestor-spirit teaches this Gift.

Awakening the Serpent Fire Gift: The Serpent Fire gifts must be learned in order, from 1 - 5.

Ancient court magicians of the Chinese emperor were able to conjure a cloud of paper butterflies out of thin air. Stargazers who have mastered this trick use it to create a mood of tranquility, or can use them to distract an opponent. This Gift is taught, appropriately enough, by a butterfly or moth-spirit.

Mantra Gift

Camp: Demon Eaters

The difference between a servitor of the Wyrm and a demon-possessed mortal is subtle. While most demons emanate perceptible Wyrm-taint, strangely some seem able to mask themselves and escape such notice. Plus, Sense Wyrm doesn't identify the nature of the taint, so the nature of the creature (that it's a demon) goes unknown until it's potentially too late. This Gift helps circumvent that problem. It doesn't provide a literal sense so much as a spiritual one - the eye in the Demon Eater's mind registers the disruption in the fabric of reality, and senses the demonic source. This Gift is taught by a chimerling.

The werewolf can sense manifestations of the Wyrm in the nearby area. This Gift involves a mystical sense, not a visual or olfactory image, although werewolves using the Gift sometimes say things like, "This place stinks of the Wyrm" (with a few more colorful adjectives). Garou should remember that the Wyrm's taint can cling to relatively blameless souls. Werewolves may sense an innocent person who happens to work in a Wyrm-controlled factory or who has eated tainted food. This power requires active concentration. Any spirit of Gaia may teach this Gift.

The Stargazer can step sideways into the Umbra using only his own inner light; he has no need of a reflection or bright light to guide him. This Gift is taught by an Epiphling of Truth.

After brief meditation, the Garou may convert her inner anger into iron resolve. Stargazer ancestor-spirits teach this Gift.

Awakening the Serpent Fire Gift: The Serpent Fire gifts must be learned in order, from 1 - 5.

Using gestures to her chakras, as Klaital did, the Stargazer can resist worldly, mental and spiritual temptations, including corruption. This Gift is taught by an earth-spirit.

Camp: Demon Eaters

Demons are malicious tricksters bent on chaos. Their souls have been corrupted by the Wyrm so badly, there's little real humanity left inside, regardless of how they appear on the outside. They can't be trusted. They can't be left alone. This Gift helps to trap them and keep them still for a time. The Stargazer's eyes become pale mirrors, glowing faintly even in daylight. Any demon looking into the Stargazer's eyes is held transfixed, unable to move or speak. It's said that this ability was passed down from the group's progenitor, Zhong Kui, who used it to hold one demon at bay while his pack eased in for the kill. This Gift is taught by a Lune.

Mantra Gift

The Stargazer may attune herself to the surrounding environment, thereby gaining the ability to walk at normal speed across such surfaces as mud, water, snow and quicksand without falling through or leaving tracks. The spirits of small animals that are often overlooked by other tribes (such as rabbits, sparrows and mice) teach this Gift.

Camp: Sacred Thread

The Stargazers of the Sacred Thread are teachers, first and forever. They hold a great love of sharing information and enlightening others to knowledge, and those with this Gift may find their students a little more "enlightened" than others. With it, a ksatriya may actually open a student's mind a little further than it already was, allowing the learner to absorb more information, more quickly. This Gift is taught by a Stargazer ancestor-spirit.

Camp: Sacred Thread

The warrior-teacher caste of the Sacred Thread is able to focus in on the mystic power underlying each and every word. Even a ksatriya without a weapon may conjure one using nothing more than the sound of his own voice. This Gift is taught by a wind-spirit.

There is a mystical resonance — wuxing — that exists between the elements of water, fire, earth, metal and wood. These elements are the basic forces underlying everything in the world, and the resonance between them is something that a Stargazer with this Gift can hear and tap into. The Stargazer can take the reverberation between elements and tweak it temporarily; the result is, for a short time, that one element can be changed into the other. This Gift may only be taught by an avatar of Chimera.

Awakening the Serpent Fire Gift: The Serpent Fire gifts must be learned in order, from 1 - 5.

Camp: Trance Runners

Trance Runners are known for being notoriously light. Their bodies, little more than bones and tightly-corded muscle, can move fast and flexible partly due to their legendary "hollow" bones. It allows them to run quickly over almost any surface.

Mantra Gift

This Gift grants the ability to see through fog, pitch darkness and even recognize illusions or invisibility. A wind-spirit teaches this Gift.

A Stargazer with this Gift can introduce an unsolvable problem into a victim's mind. Depending on the effectiveness, the target could be completely immobilized by her new, fascinating train of thought. The effect varies with every individual, but it usually derives from the target's personality: A computer-hacking Glass Walker might try to discover the last digit of pi, while a Bone Gnawer might try to reason why, indeed, did the chicken cross the road. An avatar of the Chimera teaches this Gift, but the Garou must first solve her instructor's puzzle.

The character can cut through any falsity, illusion or bullshit with a few choice words. The words cannot be profane and must come in the form of a short haiku poem or koan. This Gift is taught by a crow-spirit or a Chimerling.

The Garou can subdue a foe in combat without harming him. A mongoose-spirit teaches this Gift.

According to an old and almost forgotten Stargazer tradition, a dying Garou may ask for a "mouthpiece" to come sit by his side and listen to him. The mouthpiece would then go to the rest of the sept and deliver the departed Stargazer's secrets, stories, or last wishes during a funerary moot. Somewhere along the way, this Gift was concocted to aid in this tradition. With it, the mouthpiece may literally "record" the dying Garou's voice and "play" it back through her own mouth later. The recording is literal - it's the same exact voice, not the voice of the mouthpiece. Those who know the Gift now rarely use it for its original purpose, for it can be used to record anybody's voice, for any reason at all. This Gift can be taught by either a mockingbird spirit or an avatar of Raven.

As the arbitrators of the Garou Nation, the Philodox have developed an attunement with the precarious forces that balance the world and the individual alike. This Gift allows the user to detect an overabundance of any of the prime forces of the universe, whether Wyrm, Wyld or Weaver. It can point out a Bane manifestation at an industrial plant or mental instability in a packmate. A cat-spirit teaches a friendly Garou this Gift in exchange for  a warm fire and promise not to chase her kin.

Camp: Trance Runners

The name of this Gift is a bit of a misnomer, since it doesn't technically allow a Trance-Runner to leap seven miles up into the air. What it does do, however, is effectively increase the tautness and tension of her muscles, making her a light and powerful adversary. She can move quickly, jump to obscene heights, and land safely. This Gift is taught by any bird-spirit.

The Stargzer can walk through Weaver realms without attracting attention. Pattern Spiders will ignore her and go about their business. The character must chant a mantra through sub-vocalization (mouthing it silently). This Gift is taught by various Enigmatics. However, if the Stargazer takes direct action against any Weaver minions, the effect of the Gift is canceled and the spiders will come.

A Stargazer may use weapons, but most need none. This Gift allows a Stargazer to take an opponent's weapon upon their attack. This Gift is taught by a wind-spirit.

With this Gift, the Stargazer can dodge the wheels of fate for the moment. Through a preternatural connection between herself and the universe, she avoids certain disaster. A cat-spirit teaches the Garou this Gift.

The Stargazer can chant a mantra to banish Banality from the area and awaken Glamour. During the chanting, he must imagine the area as being inherently magical, seeing the rocks, stones and buildings as living things — he must pretend to dream while awake. This Gift is taught by a Chimerling.

(Camp: Swords of Night)

Upon learning this Gift, the Garou's mental defenses are strengthened to the utmost. A falcon-spirit teaches this Gift.

The Stargazer attunes all her senses to her surroundings, thereby becoming preternaturally aware of her opponent's doing and allowing her to anticipate them somewhat. A wind-spirit teaches this Gift.

Mantra Gift

The Garou becomes the ultimate example of passive resistance. She becomes unable to attack an opponent, but she is also unable to be hit, allowing her opponents to exhaust himself in the attempt. A mongoose-spirit teaches this Gift.

A long time ago, the Stargazers of Tibet made a pact with an ancient tribe of mountain spirits called the Chu-Mong (snow goblins). The pact was one of mutual protection, and a Stargazer using this Gift can reawaken the usefulness of the pact, at least temporarily. It summons the spirit of a Chu-Mong to help protect the Stargazer in question. Only a Chu-Mong can teach this Gift.

This Gift takes its name from an ancient Stargazer tradition. It's believe that those who are not shapechangers cannot enter the Mirror Lands of the Umbra because they are impure. They do not have a kernel of the celestial substance of cosmos within them, as the Garou and the other Fera do. But many Stargazers still wished to show mortals (or others unable to access the Umbra) the hidden truths and puzzles found only in the Mirror Lands. Once, Stargazers could purify others with a silken cloth, rubbing them with it, so that they may enter the Umbra together. Now, that ability has been made into a Gift. This Gift lets a Stargazer bring one other human (or otherwise Umbra-banned individual) with her when she Steps Sideways. This Gift is taught by an Engling.

Awakening the Serpent Fire Gift: The Serpent Fire gifts must be learned in order, from 1 - 5.

The connection of a Stargazer to his ancestors can be deemed more "intense" than that of other Garou. This Gift is proof of that. The few Stargazers with this Gift are not only able to plumb the depths of the ancestral memories for help, but are literally able to become one (or many) of their ancestors for a short time. The Stargazer glows with a pale nimbus of light and actually exhibits the physical traits (altering her appearance) of one or several of her ancestors. For a time, the Stargazer may also tap into the wealth of knowledge and ability of her forebears and use that to enhance her own actions for a time. This Gift is taught by an Epiphling of Truth.

Awakening the Serpent Fire Gift: The Serpent Fire gifts must be learned in order, from 1 - 5.

The Stargazer uses controlled cognitive dissonance to temporarily confuse Paradox and banish it. With riddles and conundrums posed to the t h in air, the Stargazer thus confuses the Weaver, who halts her spinning as she tries to solve the riddle. This Gift is taught by Chimera herself.

The greatest Stargazers have no fear of fighting even a horde of opponents. They are able to not only avoid their foes' attacks, but they can actually channel those attacks into other enemies. A Stargazer with this Gift can even redirect a single foe's attacks upon himself. A wind-spirit teaches this Gift.

Stargazers with this Gift can redirect the effects of their Rage and Gnosis. By attaining this higher control over their inner selves, they influence the world around them in their favor. This Gift is taught by an Enigmatic spirit.

Camp: Sacred Thread

The ksatriya using this Gift can look into another's eyes and, for a period of time, literally strip them of their knowledge, leaving them ignorant and empty of ability. This Gift can be taught by an owl-spirit.

The wisest of Stargazers understand that all divisions of the flesh are mere illusion. The only true separation is of spirit — Wyrm from Weaver, Weaver from Wyld, Triat from Gaia. But even then, the great forces of the universe are connected. Drawing upon this wisdom, the Garou banishes the boundaries dividing the mind and body of man from the power of the werewolf. An avatar of Gaia herself teaches this Gift.

Mantra Gift

By gazing into the night sky for an hour, the Stargazer can find the answer to almost any question among the stars. A Chimerling teaches this Gift.

Mantra Gift