Bone Shadow Rites
Bone Shadow Rites are rites that are only available to the Bone Shadows.
The rites described below were created by the Hirfathra Hissu, and they aren't in the habit of sharing rites. This isn't out of selfishness, per se, but more out of concern - many of the rites that the tribe keeps secret were the results of agreements between the Bone Shadows and certain powerful entities of the spirit world. While not all specifically prohibit the tribe from sharing their knowledge, the Bone Shadows aren't convinced that doing so wouldn't result in revocation of privilege (or worse).
Regardless of any consequences the Storyteller sees fit to impose should the Bone Shadows let these rites out of their control, the rites are difficult for other werewolves to attempt. The player of a non Bone-Shadow attempting to mimic any of these rites suffers a -4 to the Harmony roll to enact them.
First Edition Rite List
New Rites
Rite of the Spirit's Promise: Bone Shadows deal with spirits on a regular basis, and it helps to speak from a position of strength. The best way to gain such a position, of course, is to know a spirit's ban, but finding out this information is a matter of careful investigation (the Gift: Read Spirit works, tooo, but not every pack has a Crescent Moon). The Rite of the Spirit's Promise determines a spirit's ban fairly quickly, but the rite also risks reprisal - spirits don't like being so closely investigated by Uratha. A Bone Shadow performing this rite on a spirit more powerful that he is ha better have his pack handy.- Create Talen: Creating a talen is usually a matter for a fetish-crafter, and requires the Fetish Rite. But the Bone Shadows make frequent use of these minor fetishes, and discovered that a less complicated rite suffices for creating such fetishes, providing that the Bone Shadows "grease the wheels" a bit. A sacrifice of blood and pain is necessary to create fetishes without using the tried-and-true ritual, but sometimes it's worth it to get a useful tool quickly.
- For this rite to function, the spirit that is to power the talen must enter the object willingly (the spirit can be coerced, bribed, threatened or even lied to for this to take place, but it can't be forced). Once the talen is created, it lasts for one lunar month, and then the bindings loosen and the spirit escapes. The spirit escapes if the talen is used, as well. Most spirits simply flee upon their release, but some hold a grudge and try to find a way to exact revenge upon the Bone Shadow. Some even grow accustomed to being in a talen and volunteer to undergo the process again.
- Rite of the Grave's Bounty: Graves are seldom anchors for ghosts. Many ghosts don't even realize that they are dead, and so don't know they have graves. And yet, a person's grave is the focus of a great deal of emotion, and that energy has to go somewhere. Years ago, a Bone Shadow Ithaeur learned that the energy tends to "soak" into the headstone or monument, and that a patient werewolf can harvest it.
- The Bone Shadow who discovered this rite was a member of the Lodge of Death, and he made a vow that if anyone teaches the rite to a werewolf outside the tribe, there must be a price extracted in blood. It's not a very commonly rite anyway, and Bone Shadows tend to be possessive of it, but sometimes a werewolf teaches it to a non-Bone Shadow packmate. If she does so, she must make the learner bleed, usually by slashing, biting or just punching him in the nose. If the werewolf exacts any retribution, even a snarl or a curse, the rite will never function for either of them (which is one reason that it doesn't spread beyond the tribe very often). The Bone Shadow isn't forbidden from explaining the rules to her packmate, but werewolves respond instinctively when attacked (and the Storyteller should call for a Resolve + Composure roll from the recipient's player to make sure the character doesn't respond).
- The rite itself allows a werewolf to harvest a tiny carving from a monument and gain a bit of Essence. When Bone Shadows learn this rite, they are admonished not to be greedy. It could be fatal.
- Rite of Slaying the Truth: Some secrets should remain secret. But information, the Bone Shadows note, seeks to flow into places of lesser concentration. This means that people seem to have a way of learning things that they shouldn't, and sometimes it rankles the werewolves' consciences that someone who learned a truth that they cannot be allowed to possess should die for it. This is especially true if the offending person isn't a scholar or an investigator, but just a normal human who picked up the wrong book or turned down the wrong path.
- The Rite of Slaying the Truth provides a way to hide the secret again and prevent needless killing. The rite is highly esoteric, and werewolves without a good grounding in spiritual matters and medicine often have trouble learning it. Everything has a spirit, as every werewolf knows, and every thought, feeling and memory in the human mind has a chemical representation. Therefore, each individual memory must have a spirit and a chemical that represents the memory. If the spirit of a memory can be targeted and destroyed, the memory can be erased entirely.
- The Bone Shadow who developed this rite, a surgeon and a member of the Lodge of the Hallowed Halls, originally created the rite to remove a comparatively innocuous secret. He wanted his daughter to forget that she had seen him change shape (because she was uragarum, she hadn't fallen to Lunacy). His attempt worked too well, and she forgot her father entirely. The werewolf, broken-hearted, set out to refine the rite so that it worked properly from there on out, but his daughter's memory was never restored.
- Now, the Bone Shadows teach this rite only to those with great standing - pack alphas, guardians of important loci, high-ranking members of lodges, etc. Using the rite is a serious undertaking, and only done when the alternative is killing a person whose death would be detrimental to the tribe. If successful, the rite removes the targeted memory and leaves the victim confused, but intact. Used incorrectly, though, the rite leaves the target a tabula rasa, a blank slate with no memories at all.
- Rite of Recollection: The Bone Shadows are the primary custodians of this uncommon rite, and claim it was learned by a shaman at the feet of Death Wolf herself. This rite is usually learned in pursuit of a particular goal of knowledge; most Ithaeur see a danger in seeking out a rite of this nature casually. It isn't something to be learned "just in case" you find a use for it later - one who plans to open those doors must do so with the will that comes only from a serious need.
- The rite uses a personal item from a dead subject as a focus to allow the participants to witness significant events from that subject's life. Over the course of an hour, the participants undergo a series of visions that may detail entire days in the subject's life. The characters have no control over which events they view; generally the memento mori is charged with the events most important to the deceased's life. The participants in the rite are unaware of the outside world while viewing the vision of recollection, and as such the rite is typically performed in as safe a location as can be arranged.[1]
- Rite of the Spirit Clay: This rite is reserved for powerful spirits that have offended the tribe, and usually used only on spirits whose bans are complex, arcane or extremely difficult to enact. The Rite of the Spirit Clay allows the Bone Shadow to reshape the targeted spirit and bestow a new ban upon it.
- Learning this rite is an undertaking in and of itself. It requires a journey into the Shadow, a quest to find a deep, dark cave - a Den of Secrets belonging to Death Wolf herself. This quest can take weeks or years, but some werewolves have reportedly completed it sooner. It depends on how much time and energy the Uratha wishes to devote. In any case, the werewolf must give over a small piece of her own Essence to Death Wolf. She replaces this Essence with a portion of her own, bestowing the power to reshape spirits. Uratha cannot teach this rite to each other, and although a werewolf might mimic the motions of the rite, it is impossible to perform without blessing from Kamduis-Ur.
- The ban that the werewolf imposes upon the spirit is the same each time the werewolf performs it. The werewolf chooses the "sculpture" she makes in the spirit clay when Death Wolf teaches her the rite, and it is usually indicative of the challenges she faced while finding the den. The ban can be simple and potent, but most be something that requires deliberate action. That is, a werewolf can name "A wave of my hand banishes the spirit" as the ban, because a wave of the hand can be accidental. A particular hand gesture, though, one too complicated to make without intent, would work.
- This rite, predictably, earns the enmity of any spirit subjected to it. The Bone Shadows use this rite as retribution against powerful spirits, or sometimes as a way to impose a check on a spirit that might cause them trouble in the future.
The Pickerings
- Mark of the Death Wolf: As stated in the text, this rite ensures that a wolf-blood will become a ghost upon dying. The Pickerings claim that Death Wolf taught one of their ancestors this rite centuries ago, but this is little more than oral legend. Whatever the rite's origin, it has no effect on werewolves or normal humans. Only uragarum may benefit from it.
- If a wolf-blood who has received the Mark of the Death Wolf undergoes the First Change, the spiritual mark the rite creates fades, but leaves a patch of darkened skin in Hishu form, visible in other forms as a patch of stark white fur.[2]
Second Edition Rite List
Wolf Rites
- Bottle Spirit: Death Wolf taught her followers many occult secrets; this rite is a strange form of the laws of binding, a loophole that those in the know can exploit.
- This rite is only taught to Bone Shadows.
References
- ↑ WTF: The War Against the Pure, p. 81-82
- ↑ WTF: Blood of the Wolf, p. 115-116
- WTF: Tribes of the Moon, p. 71-75
- WTF: Werewolf: The Forsaken Second Edition, p. 140
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