The other half of an Uratha is her spirit side. While many (though not all) of an Uratha’s physical qualities are simply enhanced versions of familiar things, her relationship with the Hisil is entirely unique to the Forsaken. Her very nature mystifies. She bubbles with spiritual energy and resonance. She can traverse the Hisil the way some people go to the train station. To her, the spirit world is as real as a hamburger, a car crash, or a foreclosure. It’s half of her being, disconnected from the other half in many ways, connected in others.

Renown

Renown tracks an Uratha’s progress and accomplishment over the course of her life. Unlike many character traits, Renown is a palpable, measurable thing. Lunes award Renown for a Forsaken’s achievements, and brand that record into the werewolf’s flesh with glowing silver runes. These mysterious First Tongue runes only appear in the Hisil, but mark the Uratha as Forsaken to any onlooker. The runes of the Pure, by contrast, glow a dull, angry red in the Shadow.

In game terms, when a character has achieved a Renown-worthy task, the player may spend 3 Experiences to seal the deal. Renown comes in five categories, Cunning, Glory, Honor, Purity, and Wisdom. Each type is rated between one and five dots.

As your character increases in Renown, she also increases her Gift dice pools and hunter’s aspect rolls, and she also gains Facets of her Gifts. Each time your character increases her auspice Renown, she unlocks a Facet of her Moon Gift. Every time she increases a different Renown, she gains a Facet of a Shadow or Wolf Gift. Her total Renown also determines her effective Spirit Rank, according to the chart below.

Total Renown/Effective Rank

0-3/1

4-7/2

8-12/3

13-18/4

19+/5

Once per story, an Uratha can intensify her spirit brands by spending a point of Essence, letting her Renown speak for itself. This even makes the brands faintly visible in the physical world. Uratha, spirits, Wolf-Blooded, and others attuned to the spirit world intuitively understand not only what Renown the brands reflect but the deeds she accomplished to get them. When a werewolf displays her brands in this manner, choose a Renown category. She gains a Condition based on that Renown. She does not have to choose her auspice Renown, but the Renown rating determines the degree of the Condition’s effects, so her auspice or tribal Renown will often be her strongest option.

The werewolf is taking a stand by calling on her Renown in this way. She tempts the crowd to challenge her. Most Forsaken do not consider this a hostile action. If an Uratha pushes her Renown to the surface, she expects others to respond, to challenge, in order to allow her to show her ability. To outsiders, including some Wolf-Blooded, this interaction looks like confrontation, backtalk, and hostility. To the Uratha, it’s a sign of mutual respect. In fact, a leader who punishes such a challenger tends to face censure, mutiny, or at very least dissent.

Increasing Renown

An Uratha might, soon after his First Change, undertake massive efforts to impress his peers. Many young Forsaken die less than a year after the First Change in efforts to impress their new families. Sometimes, success results in downright epic accomplishments that shower a young werewolf with Renown. The problem is, a character sets her own bar for Renown. With every increase, she raises that bar. To go further, she must improve upon her previous achievements. Some Uratha accomplish themselves into a proverbial corner this way; They do something so remarkable that they can’t hope to do better. Particularly during character creation, consider how the character achieved her starting Renown dots. Did she shoot too high? Did she block herself out of future advancements? Or did she barely make the grade? Particularly consider this if she has multiple dots in one category at the start of play.

What constitutes an additional dot comes down to the fickle natures of Lunes, and how the Uratha spin the tale. It’s a pack Cahalith’s job to sing the virtues of her mates, but the Lunes favor sacrifice most of all. Acts of great virtue mean nothing if the Forsaken had nothing to lose by the act. Loss, or the great risk of loss, impresses the Lunes like nothing else. As a Storyteller, look to the stakes when making that judgment call. Without stakes or sacrifice, there is no Renown.

Cunning

Uratha hunt things greater than they are. They can’t always win through brute force or superior numbers. Sometimes, raw creativity and clever planning win the day. Cunning, Renown of the Irraka and the Iron Masters, governs these behaviors.

Sample Acts of Cunning: Infiltrating an enemy nest, luring prey into a trap, convincing the Pure’s Wolf-Blooded to bug their territory, tricking a spirit into accepting an unbalanced deal, using legal loopholes to secure the deed to a territory, proving a task doesn’t need to be accomplished instead of accomplishing it, baiting spirits away from a locus.

Renown Condition: Cunning

Glory

Uratha stand strong, and fight until their muscles tear apart. They boil with epic fury, storm into battle, and remain in the fray in spite of overwhelming threats. Glory, Renown of the Cahalith and the Blood Talons, reflects these behaviors.

Sample Acts of Glory: Defeating a superior foe, facing overwhelming numbers (victorious or not), holding a daunting foe off to save innocents, confronting an Uratha in Kuruth, participating in a suicide mission (with the intent to survive) to remember and tell the story, challenging an Uratha leader.

Renown Condition: Glorious

Honor

The Forsaken fight not because they must, but because it’s right. A werewolf could eschew her ancestral duties, and find a place to hide away from her role. An honorable Uratha grabs that role and owns it proudly, standing as a judges and shepherd. Honor, Renown of the Elodoth and the Storm Lords, rewards these behaviors.

Sample Acts of Honor: Acting as a neutral party when a packmate is judged from outside, standing as mediator for an in-pack dispute, submitting yourself to judgment, making restitution to a victim, announcing an attack beforehand, seeking diplomacy with rivals, hampering your abilities for a fair fight, remaining honest even when it could hurt your pack, ceding territory to a more suitable owner, refusing to hunt an inferior foe.

Renown Condition: Honorable

Purity

The Forsaken represent Father Wolf, Luna, and the Firstborn in everything they do. Uratha espousing Purity adhere strictly to the Oath of the Moon, to the exclusion of other concerns. They put their ancestral duty before friendships, work, love, and even territory. Purity, Renown of the Rahu and the Hunters in Darkness, governs such behaviors.

Sample Acts of Purity: Sacrificing in the name of the Oath of the Moon, showing deference to a higher-Renown enemy, showing respect to prey, taking a mate, killing witnesses to an Uratha revealing her nature, sparing an enemy Uratha, fasting outside of the hunt, losing face to uphold your tribal ban.

Renown Condition: Pure

Wisdom

The Uratha favor Wisdom as a counterpoint to their savage fury. Sometimes, it’s better to take a holistic approach to a problem, even when the blood of the wolf rears its violent head. After all, Uratha are beings half of spirit, and have esoteric answers to many questions. Wisdom, Renown of the Ithaeur and the Bone Shadows, governs this.

Sample Acts of Wisdom: Making a deal with a dangerous spirit, healing negative resonance, seeking the nonviolent answer, creating a fetish, uncovering and exploiting a spirit’s ban, helping another uncover and earn a rare Gift, securing a territory, creating a new rite, discovering hidden lore, bolstering a locus’ Essence.

Renown Condition: Wise

Essence

Essence is the ephemeral energy of the Hisil. It’s the food and fuel of spirits. It’s the manna that keeps the Shadow pulsing. It’s a currency, a resource that motivates an entire food chain to predate. To the Uratha, it fuels Gifts, it heals, it speeds shapeshifting, and it activates fetishes.

It flows through every spirit, and comes into existence usually at loci, but sometimes in other, stranger places.

Gaining Essence

Uratha gain Essence through a few key places:

• They can absorb Essence through the wellspring of a locus. In the Hisil, this means physically touching the locus at its heart. In the physical realms, this means devouring the strange bits of meat and vegetation that appear near the locus.

• The Sacred Hunt rite, the Siskur-Dah, allows a pack to hunt and devour spirits in the Hisil. When eaten, the spirit’s Essence flows through the Uratha.

• They can eat the flesh of wolves and humans. For every point of damage caused by an Uratha’s bite, they can choose to ingest the flesh and gain a point of Essence. This is a stark violation of the Oath of the Moon, and always a Harmony breaking point toward the spirit. When devouring flesh for Essence, the Uratha causes aggravated wounds.

• Fetishes store Essence. By destroying a fetish, the Uratha can take the Essence within.

• The first time an Uratha sees her auspice moon at night, she gains a point of Essence.

Using Essence

Uratha use Essence for numerous purposes. How much Essence a werewolf can spend in a turn is dictated by her Primal Urge score. If a Gift or other effect would require she spend more Essence than she may in a turn, she can spend the required Essence over a number of turns, with the ability activating once she has spent the total needed.

• Uratha normally regenerate bashing damage every turn. By spending a point of Essence, the werewolf regenerates lethal damage instead.

• Uratha can reach across the Gauntlet with time. Spending Essence can speed the process.

• Depending on Harmony, some werewolves need to spend Essence to change shape.

• Certain Gifts require Essence to activate.

• Fetishes often require Essence for use.

Reaching

Reaching is the art of pushing through the caul of the Gauntlet, anchoring oneself, then pulling through into the Hisil. To an outsider, it looks like vanishing into nothingness, with a quick rush and pop of air coming in to fill the void. Normally, werewolves need to Reach at a locus. The dice pool depends on which direction the werewolf is traveling. To enter the world of Spirit, roll 10 – Harmony. To enter the world of Flesh, roll Harmony. Apply the modifier from the Gauntlet to the dice pool. Werewolves with Harmony 3 or lower do not require a locus to enter the Shadow. Werewolves with Harmony 8 or higher do not require a locus to enter the physical world.

Circumstance/Modifier

• Staring into reflective surface +1
• Crossing into Shadow during the day –2
• Crossing into the Flesh during the day +2

Bodily crossing from one world to another takes a locus and time; two turns per level of Gauntlet strength. A character crossing over vanishes at the start of the transition and reappears on the other side at the end. An exceptional success or spending a point of Essence results in crossing instantly.

The Gauntlet

The membrane between worlds isn’t a simple barrier, but a medium of its own that those crossing between material and Hisil have to push through. The Gauntlet’s strength or thickness depends on a wide range of factors in both worlds, not all of which a werewolf can know. The Gauntlet is generally strengthened by the presence of humans. The tumult of human emotion and activity keeps the worlds of Flesh and Spirit apart, and simultaneously generates new spirits and the Essence they feed on.

Gauntlet strength is both a number and a dice modifier. Each has different uses. The following chart isn’t a definitive guide to Gauntlet strength; areas of high or low activity can create thin or thick spots — a deserted graveyard in an inner-city borough, for example, may have a lower Gauntlet than the surrounding blocks.

Location - Strength - Dice Modifier

Dense urban areas - 5 - –3

City suburbs, towns - 4 - –2

Small towns, villages - 3 - –1

Wilderness, countryside - 2 - 0

Locus - 1 - +2

Verge - 0 - n/a