Galliard Gifts W20th
The Moon Dancers burn with passion and song, and so Luna gives them Gifts that allow them to weave dream, fantasy and emotion into a tapestry that serves Gaia’s best interests.
• Beast Speech (Level One) — The werewolf may instinctively understand and communicate with any natural animals, from fish to mammals. She need only speak normally to be understood by animals, along with a touch of appropriate body language — there is no need to bark like a dog. This Gift doesn’t change animals’ basic reactions or dispositions; most are still afraid of predators such as werewolves. Any animal spirit can teach this Gift.
System: This Gift’s effects are permanent.
• Call of the Wyld (Level One) — The werewolf may send her howl far beyond the normal range of hearing and imbue it with great emotion, stirring the hearts of fellow Garou and chilling the bones of all others. A wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.
System: The player rolls Stamina + Empathy; the number of successes determines how far away the Call can be heard (double the normal range for each success) and how stirring it is to those who hear it. This Gift should be used in conjunction with one of the Garou howls (see p. 58).
The Storyteller determines the effects as appropriate to the purpose to which it is put, perhaps awarding a bonus die to revel participants for each two successes, or granting a point of Rage to all listeners for an exceptional battlefield howl.
• Heightened Senses (Level One) — This Gift sharpens the werewolf’s senses to an incredible degree. She enjoys the olfactory and auditory acuity of a wolf whenever she is in Homid and Glabro forms, along with superior night vision. In Crinos, Hispo and Lupus, her senses become preternaturally potent, allowing sensory feats that border on precognition. Sudden loud noises, bright lights or overwhelming scents can be disorienting, however. Wolf-spirits teach this Gift.
System: The player spends a Gnosis point to activate this Gift for a scene. In Homid and Glabro, the werewolf’s Perception difficulties decrease by two and she may roll Perception + Primal-Urge to perform uncanny sensory feats such as tracking by scent. In Crinos, Hispo, and Lupus, Perception difficulties decrease by three (this is not cumulative with the ordinary Lupus-form Perception bonuses) and the werewolf gains an extra die to Primal-Urge dice pools.
• Mindspeak (Level One) — Invoking the power of a waking dream, the Garou can place any chosen characters into silent communication. A Chimerling teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends one Willpower point per chosen sentient being and makes a Manipulation + Expression roll (difficulty of the victim’s Willpower) if any participants are unwilling. All those included in the waking dream may interact normally through the Mindspeak, although they can inflict no damage through it. Their real bodies can still act, although all dice pools decrease by two. The Mindspeak ends when all the participants want it to, or on the turn the Galliard fails the roll against an unwilling member. All beings affected must be within line of sight. The Garou may include her entire pack in the waking dream for only one Willpower point, if she desires.
• Perfect Recall (Level One) — The werewolf is able to remember and relive any memory with perfect clarity. An elephant-spirit teaches this Gift.
System: The player may spend one Gnosis point to perfectly remember any one detail, no matter how small, from any point in her character’s entire life.
• Call of the Wyrm (Level Two) — This dangerous Gift attracts creatures of the Wyrm, luring them into traps and ambushes or flushing them from hiding. Any spirit servant of Gaia can teach this Gift.
System: The player makes a resisted roll of Manipulation + Performance against the Wyrm creature’s Willpower (both rolls are difficulty 7). If the Wyrm creature loses the contest, it must come to the source of the Call.
• Command the Gathering (Level Two) — The Philodox draws all eyes to herself with a great exclamation, a clap of her hands, the striking of klaive to shield, or some other such gesture. Until she has had her say, none may depart or interrupt her. A lion-spirit teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends one Willpower point and rolls Appearance + Leadership (difficulty equals the highest Willpower among those whose attention she seeks to gain). If the roll succeeds, all in attendance fall quiet and listen. Any individual who wishes to interrupt the Philodox or walk out before she has finished speaking must spend two points of Willpower to do so.
• Distractions (Level Two) — The werewolf can make distracting yips, yelps, and howls to divert the attention of his target. A coyote-spirit teaches this Gift.
System: The player rolls Wits + Performance (difficulty equals the victim’s Willpower). Each success subtracts one die from the target’s dice pool for the next three turns.
• Dreamspeak (Level Two) — The Galliard can walk among another’s dreams and thereby affect their course. The werewolf doesn’t have to be anywhere near the target, but she must know or have seen the dreamer. A Chimerling teaches this Gift.
System: The player rolls Wits + Empathy (difficulty 8). If the dreamer awakens while the Galliard is still within the dream, the werewolf is thrown out of the dream world and loses a Gnosis point.
• Howls in the Night (Level Two) — The werewolf sends a full-throated howl shivering into the night sky, evoking primal terror in Gaia’s enemies. Creatures of the Wyrm who hear the howl find themselves troubled and unable to rest easily while their enemies are on the prowl. A wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends a Gnosis point and rolls Charisma + Primal-Urge (difficulty 7). Creatures of the Wyrm who hear the howl will be jolted awake if asleep, and rendered unable to sleep for the next (successes x 3) hours.
• Eye of the Cobra (Level Three) — With an unearthly stare, the werewolf can draw anyone to within striking distance. A snake-spirit teaches this Gift.
System: The player rolls Appearance + Enigmas (difficulty equal to the target’s Willpower). The Garou needs three successes to bring the target to his side; fewer successes will at least start the victim moving in the right direction. Once there, the target can do as he pleases, but he must try his best to get to the Galliard until then.
• Song of Heroes (Level Three) — Reciting a tale of ancient Garou heroism, the Galliard conjures up the spirit of fallen heroes and infuses those listening with some portion of their power. An ancestor-spirit teaches this Gift.
System: This Gift requires the full recitation of a story of epic heroism, taking at least several minutes. At the end of the tale, the player spends two Gnosis points and rolls Charisma + Performance (difficulty 8). Every two successes on this roll add one point to a single Ability score for all listening Garou and Kinfolk, much like the Ancestors Background (see p. 136). This bonus lasts until the sun rises.
• Song of Rage (Level Three) — This Gift unleashes the beast in others, forcing werewolves, vampires, and other such creatures into frenzy and turning humans into berserkers. A wolverine-spirit teaches this Gift.
System: The Garou rolls Manipulation + Leadership (difficulty of the target’s Willpower). The victim flies into a violent rage (or frenzy, if naturally prone) for one turn per success.
• Song of the Siren (Level Three) — The Garou’s song or howl can entrance anyone who hears it. A songbirdspirit teaches this Gift.
System: The player rolls Charisma + Performance (difficulty equal to the target’s Willpower) and spends one Gnosis point. Packmates resist the Gift automatically; all others in earshot whose Willpower is exceeded are affected. Enchanted targets can’t perform any actions for a number of turns equal to the successes rolled, unless one Willpower point is spent per turn of free action.
• Bridge Walker (Level Four) — The Galliard may create minor moon bridges through which she alone can travel. Such travel takes one percent of the time the journey would take normally, allowing the werewolf to disappear from in front of a foe and reappear behind it instantly. These moon bridges are not protected by Lunes, and may attract the interest of spirits. A Lune teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends one Gnosis point to create the bridge. The moon bridge lasts for only one passage, unless the player spends an additional three Willpower, in which case it lasts until the next full moon. The maximum distance that can be traversed by the bridge is the Garou’s Gnosis in miles (1.6 km per Gnosis dot).
• Gift of Dreams (Level Four) — The Galliard crafts a dream, then breathes it into a sleeping individual. A Lune teaches this Gift.
System: The player rolls Wits + Expression (difficulty 6) to craft the dream; more successes allows for more vivid and impactful dreams. To ensure that an individual experiences this dream, the Galliard must breathe it into the target’s mouth while they sleep. The player spends a Gnosis point to complete the Gift. Dreams crafted with this Gift are often unusually vivid and dramatic, often
leaving even lifelong skeptics convinced that they hold some deep meaning.
• Shadows by the Firelight (Level Four) — The Galliard invokes shadows and dreams to set the stage for a play in which other werewolves play a part. The Galliard narrates the tale, and the actors are swept along in the narrative, willing or no. The Gift is often used at moots, since it allows many to participate in the retelling of legends. It is also used as an object lesson for the wayward
and stubborn. An ancestor-spirit teaches this Gift.
System: To press an unwilling actor into the shadowplay, the player spends one Gnosis point per target and rolls Manipulation + Performance (difficulty equal to the target’s Willpower). The effects last until the story ends (one scene), or until the actor is attacked. Willing participants require no roll or expenditure.
• Fabric of the Mind (Level Five) — The greatest Galliards can bring the products of their imagination to life, crafting creatures from the essence of dreams. Chimerlings teach this Gift.
System: The player makes an extended Intelligence + Performance roll (difficulty 8). She can create any form of life she can imagine, assigning it one dot of Traits for each success gained on the roll. The werewolf can take as long as she wants to form the creature, accumulating successes from turn to turn, but once she stops, the dreambeing takes form and requires one Gnosis point per scene
to keep it manifested.
• Head Games (Level Five) — Emotions become a palette with which the Galliard may paint whatever picture takes her fancy. She may change the target’s emotions as she pleases, from love to hate and back again. A coyote-spirit teaches this Gift.
System: The player rolls Manipulation + Empathy (difficulty equal to the target’s Willpower). Success allows the Garou to steer the emotions of any one individual for the rest of the scene. These emotions don’t last beyond the end of the Gift’s duration unless events naturally reinforce them (such as the Galliard acting friendly toward an individual she has forced to regard her warmly).
• Break the Bonds (Level Six) — This Gift shatters all bonds, whether physical or mental, from sturdy iron chains to the slavery of a vampire’s bewitched blood. The Garou may use it to benefit any being, including herself. It is taught by any Incarna with the freedom to come and go as they please.
System: The Garou is automatically immune to any supernatural coercion, and may break bonds as though she had Strength 15. She may also break another’s physical bonds with that same Strength, or banish mental bonds from another with a Manipulation + Leadership roll (difficulty 11 – target’s Willpower).
Changing Ways 20th
Canine Call (Level One) — Ever since the Impergium and the War of Rage, everything else on the planet has lived in awe and terror of the sound of wolves howling. Pitching her voice just so, the Galliard produces a call that only canines can hear (including homid werewolves). Humans and other creatures automatically ignore the sound, feeling safe in their ignorance. City Garou and those infiltrating enemy bases find this particularly useful. A wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.
System: This Gift is used in conjunction with one of the Garou howls (W20, p. 58), or a howl performed as part of another Gift. The player spends one Gnosis point to achieve the effect. This Gift doesn't work with rites, since the spirit world must hear any howls performed as part of a rite.
• Battle Cry (Level Two) — Imbuing her battle cry with a sharp and rousing edge, the Galliard readies her packmates for a fight, stirring their blood and warning them of danger. A lion- or wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.
System: The werewolf shouts or howls to alert all Garou who can hear her, and the player rolls Charisma + Expression (difficulty 6). Any allied werewolf who hears the call and rolls for initiative in the same scene gains bonus dice equal to the Galliard's successes. This Gift can be used in conjunction with Garou howls such as the Call to Succor, Call to Hunt or Warning of the Wyrm's Approach. It can also be used together with the Gift: Call of the Wyld to extend its range.
• Ritual Tuning (Level Two) — The Galliard sets the stage for a rite, performing a prelude before it begins that helps to catch the attention of the spirit world and put the attending Garou in the right frame of mind for the ritual. Any kind of performance can accompany this Gift, including dance, music, and song, howling, a rousing story or the recitation of a grand epic. Any others who wish to join in may do so; in fact, multiple Galliards using this Gift together can boost the rite even further.
System: The player spends a Gnosis point, and the werewolf spends anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or more on a performance for the attendees of a rite that's about to begin. The performance should be appropriate to the rite; the Gift won't work if she plays a soft lullaby as a prelude to the Rite of Boasting. So long as the rite commences immediately after the performance ends, the ritemaster gains a number of bonus dice on the rite's roll equal to the Galliard's dots of Performance, plus any specialty relevant to the performance given. For each Galliard after the first who participates in the same performance and uses this Gift at the same time, the ritemaster adds another bonus die. The ritemaster cannot gain more than ten dice through use of this Gift.
• Social Butterfly (Level Three) — Flitting from one conversation to another, the Galliard makes herself associate to many but friend to none. Once she 's spent time schmoozing with the crowd, she and her pack can get information out of them as though they knew her from somewhere they can't quite place, but that has positive associations. An insect-spirit teaches this Gift.
System: The character spends between a few minutes and an hour socializing with a group of people, and then the player rolls Charisma + Etiquette or Streetwise, depending on the situation. The difficulty depends on the size of the group; an intimate party with only 20-30 people would be difficulty 5, while a large gathering of hundreds at a performance or rally might be difficulty 8. For the next week, the Galliard and her packmates may treat the group as a temporary Contacts Background consisting only of minor contacts in an area related to the gathering, at a rating equal to the successes on the activation roll (to a maximum of five). For example, if the werewolf used this Gift to socialize with the attendees of a gay pride parade, the pack would gain temporary Contacts in the LGBTQ community.
• Words Like Wind (Level Four) — Music, poetry and catchphrases are contagious, sweeping across cultures and communities like a breeze through trees. The Galliard knows how to take advantage of this habit of social creatures, sending her messages across the world one ear at a time. Wind-spirits and Net-Spiders can teach this Gift.
System: The player spends one Gnosis point when the werewolf gives a short performance or passes on a catchy message. She may make a Social roll as part of the message, or she may simply transmit it with no ulterior motive other than to spread it. For a number of days equal to her Gnosis, the snippet of communication spreads from listener to listener like a virus, reaching as far as any given listener travels. It can be transmitted digitally or over the phone, as long as it's audible (or visible, in the case of a dance or gesture). If the player included a Social roll with the message, the result of that roll applies to every listener who becomes part of the trend. Individual listeners with Willpower higher than the successes on the roll are unaffected by the influence, but they do not stop the spread of the message. While it circulates, the Galliard gains the effects of the Reputation Merit within ten miles of the point of origin.