Werewolf: the Forsaken RPG

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Werewolf is a table top role playing game (pen and paper to you old timers out there) developed as a supplement to the World of Darkness game published by White Wolf.

In it, players design role playing characters who are (or are about to become) werewolves, and then tell a story together of what goes on in their characters lives.

Werewolves in the World of Darkness aren't the horror movie monsters of classic fiction. They are another species that has been interbreeding with humans for centuries. Originally the children of spirits, they walk in two worlds.

Some of the key themes in Werewolf: the Forsaken are -

• Coming to terms with being a werewolf
• Finding a balance between human and wolf
• Finding a balance between the spirit and the physical
• Self control - werewolves are cursed with a mad rage
• The Forlorn Hope . . .

At the beginning of the world, Luna and Father Wolf, the great wolf spirit, loved and had children. These children were the first werewolves.

Like their mother, they are changeable, able to take five forms

• Hishu - the human form that werewolves are born in, and think of as their own
• Dalu - a bestial human, taller then normal with claws and fangs
• Gauru - the man beast, this is the monster form, standing easily 9 feet tall, and constantly enraged
• Urshul - the dire wolf, about the size of a small pony, but otherwise looking like a normal wolf
• Urhan - the true wolf form

Werewolves reflect Luna's changes in another way - each one is blessed with gifts from one of her five phases.

Rahu - wolves who go through their First Change under the Full Moon are called Rahu. They are the warriors of the werewolves. Luna has blessed them with the ability to judge the strength of a foe.

Cahalith - these werewolves change for the first time under the Gibbous moon. Luna blesses them with visions of what is to come.

Elodoth - the Half moon is the balanced moon, and the werewolves who change under it are called Elodoth, judges, negotiators and walkers of the middle road. They are the negotiators with the world of Spirits, and Luna has made it easier for them to understand and appease the spirits they deal with.

Ithaeur - the ritualists and occult masters of the werewolves have their First Change under a crescent moon. Luna has gifted them with an ease in learning the rituals that allow spirits to be bound and controlled.

Irraka - the new moon is there, but unseen. So are the Irraka. Scouts, adventurers and stalkers, the irraka walk the boundaries, probing for weakness. Thanks to Luna, they know when a spirit is trying to manipulate the physical world.

Sometimes an alternate world setting can come from a very simple change. This world setting began with a mutation . . . a mutation in the flu virus to be exact.

About 15 years ago an unusually deadly version of the flu broke out. Similiar to the Spanish Flu of 1918, it killed by causing a feed back loop in the bodies immune system. The stronger the immune system, the more likely to kill.

Luckily the virus was weak enough (especially compared to the Spanish Flu) that human's got through with relatively little loss of life. Werewolves, with their stronger immune systems, were hit much harder. Only 1 in 10 werewolves who were infected by the flu survived. Wolf-Blooded were effected as well, though not as severely. They lost approximately 1 in 5.

Many Uratha who were not lost to the flu were lost later, when much weakened packs could no longer hold against other supernaturals or powerful spirits. Many of the survivors pulled out of the cities to regroup in the wilderness. Entire lines of Wolf-Blooded were forgotten, children of Uratha became wards of the state, with no one knowing their true history. The only blessing, is that the Pure were hit just as hard as the Forsaken.

Over the past 15 years, a few of the surviving wolf blooded have experienced first change. Some knew enough to seek out other Uratha, others became Ghost Wolves. Mages, Vampires and other supernaturals have laid claim to territory traditionally held by Uratha. The spirits have run wild.

Now, those children too young to have been killed by the plague are coming of age. 15-20 years old, with little to no memory of the parents they lost, little to no guidance for the hell about to break loose in their lives.

The number of cubs going through First Change has been slowly increasing, this year will see a huge jump in First Changes, more then in the last two years combined.

The Wolf Cubs are ready to come into their own.

• What does this mean?
• Most cubs have no guidance, no idea of what they are, or what is happening to them.
• An entire generation of Mages has grown into their power knowing werewolves only in the stories of their elders.


• The same applies to vampires, but vampires gain power and prominence at a slower pace then Mages.


• There will be an increase in the number of wolves lost to Harmony, as the new cubs lose their way without guidance.


• There will be territory wars, as the young cubs return to claim what was their parent's, or try to carve out their own territories.


• Mages and Vampires will need to decide how to deal with the sudden incursion of Uratha into their cities


• There wil be power struggles among the Uratha, as young wolves, now outnumbering the surviving elders, challenge the old ways.

Obviously, the effect on a Werewolf game is huge. Storytellers can get very creative in the way the Uratha have changed in the previous 15 years, or they can ignore the Uratha society entirely, and design a game around group of young cubs trying to understand what has happened to them. I had a lot of fun in one campaign by using the plague as an excuse to resurrect some of my favorite NPCs from oWoD - King Albrecht and his pack. I decided that in face of so much loss and disruption, the traditional independence of the Uratha Pack broke down enough so that one central figure was needed to coordinate the finding of survivors and new cubs. Albrecht's position was held through respect, not power, and he can't force any pack to do anything they don't want to do. But few will gainsay him, when the survival of their species may be at stake.

Hunters are humans who have learned about the monsters in the world and try to destroy them. Some hunters have learned to steal the powers of supernatural creatures and use them themselves.

Hunters generally view werewolves as ravenous beasts to be destroyed at all costs. Werewolves do everything they can to keep hunters from finding them, both because revealing themselves to humans is a violation of the Oath of the Moon, and because as long as hunters don't know they are there, the werewolves are safe from them.

Werewolves generally don't care about hunters as a group, they would be perfectly happy to live and let live, but if a hunter targets a wolf pack, the werewolves will do everything possible to get rid of them, from laying false trails to outright destroying them.