Regeneration

Few things compare to watching your own bone snap in half. Most people never have to consider this truth, but the Uratha confront it frequently. For them, the snap is awful, but watching the body pull taut and knit back together is far worse. Werewolf regeneration is not a peaceful healing process. Uratha regeneration is the body’s stark defiance against anything that would destroy it. It’s the wolf’s wild instincts to survive, taken to a rapid and violent extreme. For anything but a superficial wound, regeneration looks unnatural and perverted to the average person. Muscles grind and twist to return to where they need to be. Bones fuse with a faint hiss as cells split apart and grab one another eagerly. Torn skin whips around until it finds its match across the wound. Needless to say, Uratha avoid hospitals at all cost — witnessing the regeneration of lethal damage causes Lunacy in onlookers as though the werewolf were in Dalu, regardless of the Uratha’s form. The effects of a werewolf’s regeneration depend on the wound inflicted.

Bashing Damage: Uratha heal one point of Bashing damage per dot of Primal Urge per turn.

Lethal Damage: Uratha heal one point of Lethal damage every minute. By spending a point of Essence as a reflexive action, she may regenerate Lethal damage instead of Bashing damage for the turn (see above).

Aggravated Damage: Aggravated damage regenerates much slower, comparatively speaking. Uratha heal one point of Aggravated damage every day. Only silver and supernatural powers (including Gifts, mage spells, and vampiric Disciplines) can cause Aggravated damage to Uratha directly. Any source of harm that would cause Aggravated damage to a human, including massive bodily devastation (such as being impaled by a chainsaw), only causes Lethal damage to Uratha. As such, most unwitting attackers must do enough Lethal damage to cause it to “roll over” into Aggravated damage before it poses a real problem for werewolves.

Tilts: Werewolves who suffer from Tilts inflicted by Aggravated damage, like missing arms or missing eyes, heal those Tilts when they heal the associated wound.

Gauru: When in Gauru form, Uratha heal all Bashing and Lethal damage at the start of each turn.

Toxins: Toxins can still affect Uratha. Subtract the Uratha’s Primal Urge from the Toxicity rating of any poison or disease that would ail her.

Senses

Humans have one set of senses, but some rare humans can peek beyond to see more than their five traditional senses allow. But a peek is just that — the most attuned only receive glimpses of a truth beyond the flesh. Uratha have three sets of senses; they have those of a human, those of a wolf, and those of a spirit. Bound together, these three make for an ideal hunter. A werewolf has all her senses in all of her forms. Even when walking in a human’s skin, she can tap into the senses of wolf and spirit.

Human Senses

I see a street. I see a man with a gaudy coat. He smells like cheap malt liquor. He’s probably a drug dealer. It’s dark, but the bars just closed, so he won’t be out for long.

Uratha have human senses that work like any other human’s. The First Change does perfect any existing imperfections. Uratha have 20/10 vision, impeccable hearing, and keen senses of smell. If a werewolf had lost a sense prior to the First Change, it comes back within days of the Change. This will force the regeneration of lost eyes or other sense organs. Even if she was born blind or deaf, the Change brings senses that she has never experienced before.

Human senses are considered the werewolf’s default senses in Hishu and Dalu form. If she wishes to activate her other senses, she must consciously choose to, though this is a reflexive action that doesn’t require a roll.

Wolf Senses

The pavement smells of blood and semen. The same blood and semen on that man. He victimized someone close by, not long ago. His hand trembles with fear. He’s afraid someone knows. My territory is close; he was on my grounds when he committed his crime. He knows he won’t live to hurt another person.

An Uratha’s wolf senses are still constrained by the limitations of the world of Flesh. But a wolf’s senses are based more on intuitively knowing and understanding what they experience. They don’t smell the details; they smell a holistic, deep picture.

Wolf senses are considered the werewolf’s default senses in Urhan and Urshul form. Wolf senses offer a bonus to Perception-based rolls depending on her form. Further, if she would normally suffer penalties due to deprivation (blindness, strong scents, or deafness), her other senses compensate, negating those penalties entirely.

Smell: A wolf’s sense of smell is important for identification, for navigation, and for self-defense. Uratha may use Primal Urge in place of a roll to identify a character she remembers, even if he’s hiding or disguised. If she smells a scene, then later meets another Uratha who was present, she can identify the connection with a Wits + Primal Urge roll. If the Uratha has intentionally left his scent on a scene, no roll is necessary. Werewolves can also identify each other and Wolf-Blooded by smell. Doing so requires a Wits + Primal Urge roll, though this takes an instant action and she has to get in close to the character to be sure. Uratha can smell one another and Wolf-Blooded within 10 yards per dot of Primal Urge.

Hearing: Wolves’ hearing is second only to their sense of smell. When accessing her wolf senses, an Uratha can hear from a distance of one mile (or two kilometers) per dot of Primal Urge. She may also hear frequencies denied to human ears. Ignore penalties based on quietness or range of hearing.

In the city, the distance of a wolf’s hearing is mostly academic. Since the city has so many sounds, focusing on a single sound is nigh impossible. The werewolf can only discern the sounds in her immediate surroundings.

Vision: Wolves see fewer colors than humans, but have excellent vision in the dark, and can see movement with frightening acuity. They see things too fast for human eyes. Uratha using their wolf senses halve all penalties for darkness, rounded down. Ignore any penalties to vision due to rapid movement; Uratha can read the license plates on a speeding car with ease.

Blood: If a werewolf has tasted her quarry’s blood, she can sense her prey’s location. This ability is not limited by distance, but it only gives the exact direction — which may be through walls, across oceans, or through danger. This applies to humans, animals, and any other living thing with blood. A werewolf can only follow one victim at a time; she loses the trail when she tastes another creature’s blood or after a lunar month. Vampires, whose Vitae is a mix of stolen blood from multiple people, cannot be tracked in this way.

Spirit Senses

Behind the caul, a spirit urges him. It’s a glob of flesh, with tendrils that look like slender fingers with red, polished nails, and a sheen and honeyed scent of a woman’s wetness. But he knows. He’s looking over his shoulder toward her. He made a deal with it. He smells of its stink, and blood will be the only thing to wash it.

Uratha are Uratha thanks to their connection to the world of Spirit. They’re attuned to the Shadow, and can peek across to experience it, extending any or all of their senses across the Gauntlet. However, the Forsaken are forever denied existing in both places at once, thanks to Father Wolf’s sins.

With an instant action to focus, the Uratha can send any of her senses across the Gauntlet. If she wishes to do so reflexively, she must spend a point of Essence. This can extend her human or wolf senses across in either direction. Without a Gift, each of her senses is binary; she can see or smell or hear in either spirit or flesh. If she sends some but not all of her senses to the Shadow, she suffers a –2 penalty to all actions that rely on Perception or concentration, and loses her ability to ignore sensory penalties from her wolf senses. A werewolf can only send her form’s default senses across the Gauntlet — she cannot pass her wolf’s sense of smell to the Hisil in Dalu form. The Gauntlet poses a further barrier; her Perception rolls suffer a penalty determined by the Gauntlet’s strength.

The werewolf does not need to focus in order to sense spirits in Twilight. Unless the spirit is intentionally trying to hide, Uratha sense spirits in Twilight as well as they would manifested.

Tracking

Werewolves are excellent hunters. With the right conditions, an Uratha will track her prey wherever he hides. It’s only a matter of time — but the hunter may not always have the luxury of time.

Resistance to a tracking maneuver is either passive or active, depending on whether the quarry knows he is being tracked and if he tries to avoid his pursuer. Which skill tracking rolls use depends on the environment the prey moves through — Survival for wilderness and Streetwise for urban areas. For pursuits that move between each, the Storyteller decides which environment dominates.

Tracking takes time, and other events don’t stop just because the hunter tracks her prey. The Storyteller should add encounters, distractions, and narrative obstacles to challenge the character and make tracking an exciting and integral part of the chronicle, rather than just a series of dice rolls.

The Storyteller may decide that tracking is impossible because the distance between hunter and prey is too great, or that too much time has passed since the prey left the trail. Some Gifts such as Impossible Spoor, or the innate tracking ability of an Uratha who has tasted her prey’s blood, can surpass even these physical tracking limitations.

Circumstance/Modifier

• Prey leaves unusually strong or weak trail/Up to +/- 3
• Time since trail was made/-1 per day
• Prey size 1-3/-1
• Prey size 4-6/0
• Prey size 7-9/+1
• Prey size 10+/+2
• Prey is bleeding/+1
• Hunter is Uratha/See Primal Urge for tracking bonus

Uncontested Tracking

Even when the quarry doesn’t actively try to conceal his trail, his knowledge and habits still subconsciously make him minimize the spoor he leaves. If the prey learns he is being hunted, the tracking maneuver may become contested (see below).

Dice Pool: Wits + (Streetwise or Survival) - Streetwise or Survival

Action: Instant

Roll Results

Dramatic failure: The hunter loses trail and is shaken by her failure, gaining the Lost Tracker Condition.

Failure: The hunter loses the trail, but may try to find it again.

Success: The hunter will find her prey. The Storyteller determines how long this takes, depending on the distance to be covered and how mobile the prey is. Extremely long distances or major changes in the environmental conditions may require further rolls to keep the trail.

Exceptional Success: The hunter will either find her prey in half the time, or gains the Invisible Predator Condition

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Contested Tracking

Contested tracking maneuvers are more involved than uncontested tracking, as the prey tries to eliminate his traces or give out false trails, while the hunter tries to find enough of the prey’s spoor to find where he hides.

The hunter must find an amount of spoor equal to the prey’s Resolve + Streetwise or Survival. She starts the hunt with spoor equal to her Wits.

The Storyteller determines the time between each roll from the distance between hunter and prey — as a guide, rolls should take an hour per mile of distance. A werewolf can use her forms to help with contested tracking; depending on her main form during a given hour, add her form’s Perception bonus.

Time is always against the hunter as all trails go cold. For every day of tracking, subtract –1 from the hunter’s total. If this reduces the total to zero she loses the trail. This assumes cool, mild weather conditions. Under deteriorating conditions the trail decays much faster. Subtract –1 from the hunter’s total every 12 hours in warm, dry conditions, 6 hours in snow, 3 hours in light rain and every hour in heavier rain. The Storyteller may also decide that other factors alter the rate of decay, for example if the trail is subject to high traffic, or strong winds confuse the detection of scent.

Dice Pool: Wits + Streetwise or Survival versus Resolve + Streetwise or Survival

Action: Extended and Contested (see above)

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: Hunter — gains the Lost Tracker Condition; Prey — gains the Easy Prey Condition.

Failure: If both hunter and prey fail, neither gains the upper hand. Either one may choose to change the Failure to a dramatic failure and take a Beat.

Success: Hunter — adds +1 to her total. If she has gained enough spoor she has located her prey; Prey - subtracts –1 from the hunter’s total. If this reduces the total to 0 he successfully breaks the trail and escapes.

Exceptional Success: Hunter — adds +2 to her total. If she has gained enough spoor she gains the Invisible Predator Condition; Prey — subtracts –2 from the hunter’s total. If this reduces the total to 0 or less he escapes the hunter and gains the Untraceable Condition.

Hunter's Aspect

Uratha know each other at a glance. Apex predators smell their own. This crosses all three of the Uratha’s sensory fields; every single sense can identify one Uratha to another, as the man, the wolf, and the spirit all carry a prominent, forceful aura. The hunter’s aspect takes this a step further. The Uratha lets loose her predatory bearing, in order to confront and cow an onlooker. Her auspice determines just how that bearing manifests itself.

These aspects allow the Uratha to demolish her prey’s resolve. Coupled with her pack’s communal efforts, she can annihilate the prey’s chances before a fight even breaks out. The hunter’s aspect works against humans, spirits, Uratha, and other supernatural creatures. The hunter’s aspect is rarely subtle. Unleashing the hunter’s aspect against Uratha leads to grudges at best, and can set two packs against one another for years. It’s a clear statement that the offender sees his victim as prey, not as an equal.

When a character calls on the hunter’s aspect, roll a Power Attribute + Skill + Auspice Renown as an instant action.

The Power Attribute depends on the context of the interaction. If invoking the aspect while in physical pursuit, use Strength. If it’s a staredown, use Presence. If your character outsmarts her prey, use Intelligence. In forms other than Hishu, werewolves set up situations when they can use Strength.

The Skill should similarly reflect the nature of the interaction. Usually, Skills such as Intimidation, Persuasion, and Subterfuge will make the most sense for the hunter’s aspect. Sometimes Brawl, Athletics, or Survival may work. Theoretically, any Skill could be tied into the hunter’s aspect, so both player and Storyteller should be creative in deciding what’s appropriate.

If a character is chasing down her opponent through the city streets, the hunter’s aspect could use Intimidation if she’s attempting to threaten him into engagement, Streetwise if she’s trying to cut him off at the pass, Stealth if she’s trying to leap out and surprise her prey, or Survival if she’s homing in on her prey’s scent.

The prey contests the roll with Composure + Primal Urge. If the hunter succeeds, she gives her prey the hunter’s aspect Condition appropriate to her auspice for the rest of the scene. With an exceptional success, it ends after one day per dot of your character’s Primal Urge. This ‘time out’ resolution does not afford a Beat. A character can only suffer from one hunter’s aspect Condition at once; should she be affected by one, other attempts to inflict a hunter’s aspect fail. Each auspice inflicts a specific hunter’s aspect Condition.

• Cahalith: The Monstrous Aspect. When successful, it offers the Resigned Condition
• Elodoth: The Isolating Aspect. When successful, it offers the Isolated Condition.
• Irraka: The Blissful Aspect. When successful, it offers the Unaware Condition.
• Ithaeur: The Mystic Aspect. When successful, it offers the Mystified Condition.
• Rahu: The Dominant Aspect. When successful, it offers the Submissive Condition.