Shadows Over The South Wiki

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New Systems

The Pack Status and Sept Standing Backgrounds presented here, along with the expanded rules on Sept Positions, can help give weight to a game focused on a pack finding their place within a sept. They’re optional, and the Storyteller should work with her group to decide whether to include them. The cost of the background is the max amount you can contribute to the pack or have in terms of sept standing. It cost 4 exp for first dot you buy then 2 exp after each one for these new Backgrounds.

Pack Status

Pack status differs from Rank or Sept Standing. Unlike the various forms of personal status respected by the Garou nation, pack status is fluid, more like a kind of social currency than a hierarchy. Packs spend their status in a variety of ways to make their lives more comfortable or open up new opportunities for glory and advancement. Pack status functions as a Pooled Background (see W20 p. 140 for details). Pack status is not formal. When the sept is pleased with a pack, everyone is happy to do them favors and lend them resources. As members of the pack justify its withdrawal from the sept’s stores by basking in their own glory, they eventually wear out their welcome and have to perform more great deeds in order to regain the social currency that they have spent. Pack status is used in the same way as the Resources background. The chart below details how packs can spend their status to acquire various benefits.

If a pack performs some extraordinary service for the sept, the Storyteller might decide that it’s appropriate to reward the pack with a dot or two of extra status that last until the pack uses it, or until the end of the story. As a general rule, any heroic deed that’s worth Renown could be worth half its highest Renown reward (round down) as dots of temporary pack status. Packs do not gain additional pack status for taking on sept duties, even though they can gain Renown for taking on sept duties. If a pack has taken on sept duties, that should be reflected with the Sept Status Background, since it is less a one-time boost and more a reliable source of goodwill.

It’s important to remember that many of these “rewards” are still available to packs that don’t have the Pack Status to pay for them, especially if the pack needs them to perform a duty for the sept. Only the most poorly run or dysfunctional sept would ask a pack to dig a ditch and then fail to lend them a shovel! The difference is in how hard it is for the pack to get its hands on sept resources. When a pack purchases a reward with pack status, the items, training, or favors are given freely by a sept that already views itself as in the pack’s debt. When a pack has to beg and borrow resources, they often find themselves having to perform favors for more influential Garou, or even kinfolk. Secondly, the Garou have more respect for packs who contribute to the sept without drawing on its resources. Nearly anyone can defend a sept with the community’s most powerful fetish; only a real hero can do so on his own, with the treasures that already belong to him. Anything that a pack acquires with Pack Status counts as something that belongs to the pack. In other words, if a pack achieves something by begging the shaman to lend them her powerful spirit guide for an Umbral journey, it counts for less than it would if they had done without any help, or if they had acquired the spirit guide by reminding the shaman of what she and the sept already owed them. Most importantly, while any sept will loan its packs resources when they are on sept business, getting ahold of sept resources for personal matters is something else entirely. Anyone can borrow a van to bury some freshly killed Pentex executives — only a respected member of the community can borrow it to move house. Most Garou don’t view using sept resources to pursue individual agendas as inappropriate or corrupt thanks to their “survival of the fittest” culture — to a point — but they are also clear that this is a “withdrawal” from an individual’s social account with the sept, and needs to be paid for, before or after

The cost of this background is 2 exp per dot, with a maximum amount equal to what is pooled, so if your pack has 3 dots total, you can only have up to 3 max. This is like resources background, while the max amount will stay fixed unless you spend exp, the amount you have may vary based on task and you spending and using it. Unlike resources, this doesn’t refresh, only through your actions and deals will it increase back up.

Go to page 22-23 of rage across the world for more information and a chart is there as well.

Sept Standing

(page 23 W20 Rage across the World) You are accorded a greater degree of respect within your sept for one reason or another. You might perform some valuable function for the sept, come from an important or influential lineage, or your deeds might speak for themselves. Either way, you can count on your sept’s support. Kinfolk characters can normally purchase up to two dots of Sept Standing, granting them some duties in the sept. A character with an unusually high Sept Standing might have been tutored by a famous Garou or come from a well-known family — or perhaps she was thrust into an unusually advanced position when her elders and betters were killed. On the other hand, a character with unusually low Sept Standing for his Rank might be a newcomer, or grappling with a bad reputation, deserved or not. A character’s Sept Standing has two facets. The first is the degree to which his sept respects him and the second is a character’s position within the sept — his job in Garou society. Each position in a sept has a Sept Standing requirement (see below). A character must possess many dots in Sept Standing to reap the rewards of the position. Any additional dots of Sept Standing grant one extra die per dot to social rolls when dealing with septmates, including Kinfolk. Garou crave hierarchy, but they are also creatures of action. There’s a limit to how far you can get by relying on how much people like you. The total bonus from social Backgrounds and Merits cannot exceed five dice; any additional dice can only cancel out penalties.

•Known: You have established yourself as capable of pulling your own weight.

••Respected: You are viewed as more than competent. Your septmates ask for your advice and the elders invite you to take on responsibilities.

•••Valued: You are a resource to your sept. The sept does its best to make sure you are comfortable and appreciated so you don’t seek a place elsewhere.

••••Honored: Formally or informally, you are one of the sept’s leaders, with much of the sept’s resources at your disposal.

•••••Lauded: You are one of your sept’s greatest heroes.

Pack Tactics

Werewolves, like true wolves, are more efficient in packs. Beyond the obvious devastation wrought by a bunch of shape changing monstrosities, certain combat maneuvers make full use of the bond between packmates. The following tactics require a certain familiarity — typically the spiritual bond provided by a common totem spirit — before they can be performed by the werewolves in question. At the Storyteller’s option, a pack of Garou who’ve trained together might use some of these maneuvers as well, though at an additional +1 difficulty. This preternatural awareness allows them to share an uncanny level of coordination. The following entries merely scratch the surface of what an imaginative pack can do, and each entry features a minimum number of packmates necessary to perform the feat. To make pack tactics more balanced and encouraging, the system will be like a background system.

A pack can have a number of tactics equal to the person with the lowest amount in it. This is reflective of time, training and coordination needed to use pack tactics. If a new person joins the pack, but doesn’t have the necessary dots, they can only use a number equal to what he has but regain full access once they reach or exceeds the thresh hold.

W20 core book page has general pack tactics.

To make your own, your pack must have 5 pack tactics, then using w20 changing way page 126 can create new pack tactics that suit the packs style uniquely. It’ll take time and dedication and scenes to do it, but you will gain renown if you manage to make them.

Spirit Network

This Background is the spiritual equivalent of Contacts. You maintain good relationships with small spirits in the region, who gladly feed you information about goings-on in the local Penumbra. Sometimes they notice things that physical observers on Earth just wouldn't catch. This Background contributes to the generally creepy reputation of the Theurge Auspice, giving them access to information they would have no real way of knowing.

You must specify the kind of spirit your spirit network is, as different spirits can know different things. Setting up one will take trust and deals, likely in the form of spirits bans. Failure to do the deal or breaking the ban will have consequences.

To see if a theurge can turn up information about a specific event from spirits, she must first spend several hours in the umbral talking with different spirits. Then roll your Spirit Network rating against the dc of the gauntlet where the event occurred. One success gives a vague description, while more success will get more information. Regardless of the success, the information will still be given from the perspective of contacts, which may miss out on important details that have no strong spiritual resonance or if the area is protected from spirits.

1. You have a spirit or two

2. You have a few spirits on the lookout on the lookout for interesting information.

3. Several spirits that are willing to share what they have seen with you

4. You have unseen eyes in countless different locations at a time

5. Spirits far and wide seek out info and report strange happenings to you