Chapter 1: To Look Up

Sense Wyrm (Level One) — The werewolf can sense nearby manifestations of the Wyrm. This Gift involves a mystical sense, not a visual or olfactory image, although Garou often describe the Wyrm’s spiritual emanations as a stench. This Gift doesn’t necessarily sense dedication to the Wyrm, merely contact with its spiritual essence, which can cling to even blameless souls. Sense
Wyrm requires active concentration; the spiritual sense it provides doesn’t function passively. The Gift may be taught by any Gaian spirit.
System: The player rolls Perception + Occult. The difficulty depends on the concentration and strength of the Wyrm’s influence: sensing a single fomor in the next room would be difficulty 6, while detecting the stench of a Bane that was in the room an hour ago would be difficulty 7. Vampires register as Wyrm-tainted, save those with Humanity ratings of 7 or higher.

Sense Wyrm (Level One) — The werewolf can sense nearby manifestations of the Wyrm. This Gift involves a mystical sense, not a visual or olfactory image, although Garou often describe the Wyrm’s spiritual emanations as a stench. This Gift doesn’t necessarily sense dedication to the Wyrm, merely contact with its spiritual essence, which can cling to even blameless souls. Sense
Wyrm requires active concentration; the spiritual sense it provides doesn’t function passively. The Gift may be taught by any Gaian spirit.
System: The player rolls Perception + Occult. The difficulty depends on the concentration and strength of the Wyrm’s influence: sensing a single fomor in the next room would be difficulty 6, while detecting the stench of a Bane that was in the room an hour ago would be difficulty 7. Vampires register as Wyrm-tainted, save those with Humanity ratings of 7 or higher.

You find mysteries of any sort irresistible. Whether it’s a closed drawer, a whispered conversation, or a mysterious light just beyond the trees, you have to know what is going on at all times. Anytime you are presented with the unknown, make a Wits roll or else you must go investigate. The difficulty varies with the roll involved: 5 for simple things ("What is in that storage unit?") and up to 9 for intense circumstances ("I wonder what those fomori are planning. I’d better go listen in. What could possibly go wrong?")

You remember, with perfect detail, things you see and hear. Documents, photographs, conversations, etc., can be committed to memory with only minor concentration, as can complicated trails, complex scents, or detailed howls. Under stressful conditions involving numerous distractions, you must make a Perception + Alertness roll (difficulty 6) to summon enough concentration to absorb what your senses detect.

You have a little knowledge about a lot of things. If making a roll on a Skill you do not possess, you do not suffer the usual penalty to the roll’s difficulty. You may attempt a roll on a Knowledge that you do not possess, although the difficulty for the roll is raised by 2. Only homid or metis characters may take this Merit.

You have an irrational dislike of a certain thing: an animal, class of person, situation, or object. You gain a +2 difficulty on all dice rolls involving the focus of your intolerance. The Storyteller is the final arbiter of what you can choose to have an Intolerance of: some dislikes may be too trivial to count (doughnuts or mechanical pencils) while disliking "the Wyrm" is already a common mindset for Garou and hardly counts as a Flaw.

Ancestral memory in humans is no more than pseudo-scientific nonsense. To the Garou, who can contact the spirits of their ancestors, it’s a fact of life. Many werewolves carry some of the memories of a distant ancestor; some even allow their forebears to take over their bodies.
Once per game session, the player of a Garou with this Background may roll his Ancestors Background (difficulty 8, or 10 if he’s trying to contact the spirit of a specific ancestor). Each success allows the character to increase any Ability by one for the purposes of a single dice pool, even if he has no dots in the Ability — and he doesn’t suffer the penalty for not having the Ability. For example, young Michel, a pure flatlander, must scale an immense cliff to come to the aid of his embattled pack. Michel has an Ancestors rating of 4 and Athletics 0. He calls on his forebears to guide him, and Michel’s player rolls four dice at difficulty 8. He scores three successes. Michel contacts his great-great-great granduncle Cragtamer, who guides him over the sheer face and over the top. Now the player has an effective Athletics rating of 3 to make his climbing roll.
If the Garou had an Athletics rating of 2, then his effective dice pool would be 5. All effects last for the rest of the scene. While it is more difficult to contact a specific ancestor, successful contact provides either useful advice or precognitive visions at the discretion of the Storyteller. Botching an Ancestors roll may indicate that the character becomes catatonic for the remainder of the scene as he’s overwhelmed by the memories of thousands of lives. Alternatively, the ancestral spirit refuses to relinquish the body. How long the ancestor stays depends on the Storyteller.
••• You put names to faces among your ancestors

You have a little knowledge about a lot of things. If making a roll on a Skill you do not possess, you do not suffer the usual penalty to the roll’s difficulty. You may attempt a roll on a Knowledge that you do not possess, although the difficulty for the roll is raised by 2. Only homid or metis characters may take this Merit.