Chiminage
Mastering the Gifts of the spirit world begins with a desire. A young Galliard wants to impress his elders by recalling every detail of an hours-long epic poem. A weathered Stargazer warrior prepares to infiltrate a neighboring sept to expose the Wyrm's corruption, and wants a leg up on their hidden evidence in the Umbra. But desire is not enough. The spirits do not give up their secrets freely, or out of the goodness of their hearts. Ancient laws govern their dealings with Gaia's chosen champions, mimicking the primal forces
that govern the natural world. Something does not come from nothing, and nothing is taken without reciprocity one way or another. To keep as many allies as they can, the Garou prefer to show respect and offer chiminage for the spirits' help in their war against the Wyrm. Of course, one werewolf's idea of respect is not necessarily the same as another's, and sometimes one must coerce or even trick recalcitrant spirits into upholding their end of the bargain.
Tracking down the right spirit can be an adventure in and of itself. If the Galliard's sept elders are to summon one of the wise elephant-spirits from its Penumbral home for his benefit, he must prove himself worthy of their time. The Stargazer veteran must undertake a quest into an Epiph to hunt for an evasive Truth spirit willing to deal before she can negotiate for its aid. Not all spirits of the same type are approachable as though they're identical, either; where one Wyldling is perfectly willing to imbue a werewolf with
its magic for a pittance, another goes on the attack at the mere suggestion, and yet another makes nigh-impossible demands for its own amusement.
Those Garou who entreat spirits of the Weaver to learn Gifts do so at their own peril. While the Glass Walkers see the Weaver as a tool they can use against the Wyrm, most other Garou recognize that the spinner is just as great a threat. As such, those who do learn from the Weaver take it upon themselves to fight against it; a Garou who uses the Weaver’s tools redoubles her efforts to tear down the webs that calcify the world, as she is in part responsible for its actions.
Once a werewolf finds the right spirit, the real challenge starts. Some do their homework and present their trades up front. The Stargazer learns that a particular Epiphling is known to covet fetishes in the form of rare books, and decides to bring such a fetish along into the Penumbra to offer in exchange for knowledge. She first tries to bargain with septmates, but no one has the kind of fetish she needs. She travels to a faraway caern to barter with its elders, but they place little value on what she offers to trade and turn her down. Finally, frustrated and growing impatient, she goes tomb raiding in ancient subterranean battlegrounds to find a suitable tome. One of her packmates suffers injuries along the way, and she questions whether all this was worth it. But when the chips are down and she manages to evade death at the hands of the enemy by slipping into the Umbra where the Gauntlet should not yield, she and her pack agree: it was worth it.
Another takes part in a sacred hunt. Spirits cross the Gauntlet to possess exemplary spirits or powerful people in the physical world. By sniffing out such a creature, the werewolf drives her pack to hunt it down so that she may kill it and consume its power. A Gaffling may only provide a gift of Gnosis, while a more powerful spirit may grant a Gift in return. The hunt itself is chiminage: proving that
the werewolf is a skilled enough hunter to track down creatures from the spirit world in the physical. Though they do not take place in the Umbra, such hunts often see the pack faced with symbols and challenges related to the spirit’s nature.
Sometimes, trades are not so simple; Griffin's avatars, for instance, have been known to demand werewolves offer the bones of humans who they have hunted and sacrificed before they consent to pass on their talents. Most Red Talons care nothing for these sacrifices, but Garou of other tribes may weigh the bloodshed that would result from giving the spirit what it wants against their need for the secrets it possesses. Cat spirits are notoriously unwilling to take a werewolf's need at face value, and often insist on offerings with sentimental value to the petitioner as proof that he is serious about his request. Werewolves have given away the last tokens of their pre-Change lives, treasured favors from lovers, and beloved trophies of battle to skeptical felines in exchange for Gifts. Animal sacrifices to honor a spirit’s name are common as well, which can be as simple as hunting a rabbit in the nearby woods, or as complicated as traveling halfway across the world to find a nearly-extinct species of monkey.
Not all offerings are material things. Esoteric beings of the Near Realms and spirits of concepts may demand that the Garou give up memories, or allow them to temporarily inhabit the werewolf's mind to experience her life and emotions firsthand. Some spirits want — or can be convinced to want — simple services like companionship, a sparring match, a hunting partner, or a liaison to the material world. Others ride the werewolf’s body to carry out their own agenda, slaughtering humans responsible for defiling the material world. One legendary Galliard persuaded a servant of Raven to accept one full day and night of nonstop storytelling in exchange for its most jealously guarded Gift.
Some spirits are more difficult to shop for and not as easily predictable. The broods of spirits such as Sphinx, Boar, and Chimera are fond of forcing a petitioner to pass a test or face a challenge before they will lend their aid, ranging from solving riddles to defeating champions in battle or navigating mind-bending labyrinths to fetch prizes. Others take it a step further and demand that the Garou embark on a quest or perform a favor for them. Still others refuse to teach a werewolf anything until she convinces them she can defeat them in battle; and the consequences for proving unworthy are, at times, dire.
Dawning
If mastering Gifts begins with a desire, it ends with a revelation. No training montage is needed to show long weeks of arduous work or hours of painstaking practice — “learning” power from a spirit is more akin to a blind man suddenly being granted sight. Merely-human understanding might compare it to the mind forming subconscious connections after stepping away from a frustrating problem, such that the next day it presents no challenge. But even this is inadequate to describe the instantaneous expansion of horizons a werewolf enjoys when a spirit bestows its power upon him.
The experience of learning a Gift is different for everyone, and different each time. The type of Gift, the nature of the spirit and even the werewolf's own preconceptions and expectations color the encounter. A Stargazer who seeks the arcane mysteries of spirit-hunting in the frozen north meets an owl-spirit who values insight over words. The result is a vivid hallucination that puts the Garou in the mindset of the bird-of-prey, translating the concept of“being an owl that hunts by snaring its food in its talons” into the concept of “trapping spirits in a mystical net” through direct understanding. The same Gift might be taught to a Get of Fenris by forcing her to actually hunt down the owl-spirit itself, gaining the same experience through a more familiar lens. Or, if a spirit likes to show werewolves what it's like to step outside their comfort zones, it might reverse those tactics, making the Stargazer get her
paws dirty and giving the Get a new perspective.
Another age-old favorite is the symbolic vision. A homid looking to protect himself from the dangers of raging fire might experience a waking dream in which everywhere he turns, his enemies fling bitter insults at him, tearing him down and pissing on everything he loves. Before he can end the vision and learn the Gift, he must overcome his urge to fly into a Rage and instead feel the insults roll off his back as he laughs in the faces of those who would hurt him. But many spirits don't bother walking the werewolf through the experience this way, preferring to simply get the job done without catering to her human side by giving her little narratives to latch onto. In the spirit world, things can be simple. The strong survive, the weak perish, and power is power regardless of the shape it takes. In cases like this, the spirit temporarily possesses the Garou and writes the Gift directly into her mind, searing it into the recipient like a brand. From the werewolf's perspective, she is shunted to the back of her own mind and feels the change happening
second by second. Some describe this as pain, as though a hot poker were scrawling the power into her flesh. Others describe it as a shapeshifting of the soul, mimicking the feeling of the First Change. Still others say stranger things: the impression that they grow larger than their own skin, a high akin to an adrenaline rush or being stoned, ecstasy not unlike a spiritual orgasm, or the sensation of things crawling around inside them. Again, it all depends on the spirit and the Gift. The Wendigo temporarily possessed by an avatar of her tribe's bloody patron is unlikely to have a pleasant experience, but the Child of Gaia who gives herself to a
servant of Helios to learn how to shine like the sun feels warm and fulfilled, like a baking cookie.
To some spirits, the Garou who can dish it out but can't take it isn't worth their time. Teaching the Gift itself is as much a test as the demand for chiminage was. These spirits insist that the werewolf bear the full brunt of the Gift's effects as a brute force transfer of power. Many an Ahroun bears the scars of learning to transform her claws into silver, and many a Shadow Lord knows the sting of
shame at being spooked into complacency. Some Garou who learn this way occasionally express sympathy, or at least empathy, for their prey. Others use these Gifts with even more ferocity and ruthlessness than their fellows do, lashing out in retribution against the memory every time.