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Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T17:02:13Z

Acrozatarim: /* The Blossom Society Pack */

=Werewolf: the Forsaken - The Eater of Names=
A Werewolf: the Forsaken game set in Hong Kong.

==Hong Kong==

===Werewolf Oddities of Hong Kong===
*Something steals the First Change of the majority of nusuzul. At the moment of the Change, they have their newfound nature torn out of them by an unknown force, leaving them as normal humans suffering a psychotic break – even former Wolf-Blooded have their inheritance stripped from them at this moment.
*The territories of Hong Kong are a complete patchwork between the different factions. There are no solid battle lines between Pure and Forsaken, and the vertical nature of the urban landscape means that even a small scrap of land can be more than enough to patrol for most packs. The Shadow reflection of the city sees a spiritual ecosystem that is just as confused and turbulent.
*Due to the sheer population density and the patchwork nature of the territories, Hong Kong packs have strong traditions about hospitality and allowances for crossing another pack's turf – even between Pure and Forsaken.
*There are no Protectorates in Hong Kong. The closest to any sort of formal structure are the Five Great Packs – the Wen, Hou, Peng, Tang and Liao, formed from amongst the Uratha of the mortal clans of the area in 1899. The Great Packs are probably the largest and most influential of the city, but with respect comes responsibility, and they are expected to provide aid and guidance to other werewolves. These expectations, again, cross factional lines.
*Tribes and allegiances to Pure and Forsaken are important, but Hong Kong also plays host to a number of strange packs allied to neither faction, packs amongst foreign immigrant populations with odd practices and traditions, and a focus on Lodges. The sheer density of the city can make the patchwork of territories confusing and Tribes rarely organise on a wide scale, but Lodge connections matter and underpin much of the social fabric of Hong Kong.
*With so much movement in and out of Hong Kong, its transitional position in the world (geographically, politically and symbolically) and its possession of so many layers and shadows that even the werewolves cannot plumb them all, the city is a hotbed for weirdness and occult conspiracies. Yao guai and jiang shi slither through the darkness, hungry ghosts and watery shades prowl at the fringes, and now the forces of the dreaded Cull are preparing to assault the borders of the territory – something that has both Pure and Forsaken alike on edge.
*Local Uratha lore has it that, in some past age, Hong Kong was the site of a meeting between the Nine Dragons – held to be the eight Firstborn of the Pure and the Forsaken, and a last figure of disputed nature. Some believe it was one of the first Chinese emperors. It was this gathering of beings of incredible power that, it is claimed, is responsible for the strong currents of Essence that pour through the region's Shadow even today.
*The chenghuanshen, the city-spirit of Hong Kong, definitely exists – but its nature is not entirely clear. It may actually be a consciousness split across a number of powerful urban spirits, and seems quite capable of fighting with itself as much as any other spirit nobles of the region. Furthermore, it has a long-running feud with the spirits of the mountains and the peaks.

==The Blossom Society Pack==
History is important to the packs of Hong Kong, although knowledge of the past of the Forsaken is usually rather patchy:
*Most Kowloon Forsaken hark back to the '''Salt Eaters''', a pack that controlled much of the area in the middle of the second millenium.
*In the late 1800s, the third bubonic plague wracked China; as a result the '''Yellow-Feathered Owls''', a pack of Bone Shadows and Hunters in Darkness, controlled what is now Sham Shui Po.
*In 1899, territorial unrest with the five Chinese clans in the area resulted in the creation of the Five Great Packs; the original Cherry Gardens themselves were held by a daughter pack of the Wen, the '''White Jade''' pack.
*After the Japanese occupation, the predecessors of the Blossom Society took over the area. They were not opposed in doing so; the sheer damage done by the occupation had resulted in the deportation or deaths of most of the White Jade and their extended pack.

Of the pack's previous Uratha, the existing pack members may know of the following:
*''''Red Shroud'''' – Bone Shadow, formed pack in aftermath of Japanese occupation – famous for dealing with a terrifying plague of restless ghosts and widely venerated by Uratha across Hong Kong for her accomplishments.
*'''Wen Liang''' – Iron Master, powerful figure amongst the packs in the 60's and 70's, infamous for his involvement in the 1967 riots and his killing of a number of communist ringleaders. A name both respected and feared.
*'''Melissa Tsang''' – Blood Talon, took control of the Cherry Garden Night Market in the 80s by driving out the '''Sung-Ti''', a vicious yao guai and its Fire-Touched Pure followers.

The recent losses the pack has suffered are:
*'''James 'Steeljaw Trap' Liu''' – Hunter in Darkness Cahalith and member of the Lodge of Seven Venoms. Died five years ago fighting beshilu in the typhoon shelter; he sank a floating crane raft infested with Rat Hosts while he was still onboard.
*'''Gwok Mei''' – Bone Shadow Rahu and member of the Lodge of Death. Left two years ago in response to the Lodge calling a pilgrimage against the Cull in northern China. She has not been heard from since.
*'''Mark Callahan-Cheung''' – Iron Master shaman, local landlord and member of the Yau Tsim Mong district council. Died under strange circumstances one month before the game's beginning, which the pack had difficulties investigating due to Mark's public position as a councilman and the police and press interest in the case.

The totem of the pack is the '''Eight Lanterns Minister''', spirit of the Cherry Gardens Night Market. The minister appears in the form of a set of grandiose mandarin ministerial garb, threaded with lines of neon and jangling talismans of commerce, wrapped around a withered but strong frame. Its face is concealed behind a veil, but seems to emanate a gentle glow. Lanterns hang from a frame of lacquered wood that floats behind its shoulders; the colours of the lanterns often indicate the spirit's mood.

The Eight Lanterns Minister has served the pack as totem since the 1980s, its fortunes waxing and waning over that time. It is devious, smart and opportunistic. The Minister is a very lowly spirit noble, with a paltry court of lesser spirits of the market at its beck and call; it in turn is the vassal of the spirit noble of Temple Street Night Market, which has caused some friction with the Wen over the years.

===Werewolves===
*'''Red Lantern Widow, Bone Shadow Elodoth''', formerly wife of an up and coming politician until she killed him during her First Change. She uses his skull as a focus in her rites.
*'''Lucky Rat, Hunter in Darkness Rahu''', whose pest control company gives him an overwatch on Beshilu activity in the area. Possesses some anger issues.
*'''Wang Lee, Bone Shadow Irraka''', the youngest of the pack members and something of a street rat. Son of Wang Jing.
*'''Lao Min, newly-Changed Ithaeur''', straight-A's university student whose First Change was triggered by a manifestation of Death Wolf. Despite appearing as an embodiment of that Firstborn, she's leaning towards Red Wolf's Tribe.

===Wolf-Blooded===
*'''Zhongli Hu''' – 'Auntie' Hu is an elderly fortune-teller and seller of offerings and incense in the night market. She is also a Wolf-Blooded with the Piercing Eyes Tell. Hu was a little girl when Red Shroud ran these streets, claims to have been Wen Liang's mistress, and has certainly lived a storied life.
*'''Ko Lei''' runs the market's security, a sturdy man with a pock-marked face and a quick temper. Lei is a Wolf-Blooded with the Wolf's Meat Tell. He used to be a member of the 14K triad.
*'''Wang Jing''' – She owns and runs the Hive Bar, just outside the night market. She has the Skinner Tell, and has obviously been mentally scarred by some of what she has seen and done. The older pack members would only reference her past activities obliquely and refuse to give details. Some tension between her and her son.
*'''Zhao Bo''' – Widow's sister, who took a very different career path; she is a low-ranking financial auditor in Hong Kong's financial investigative body. Plagued by what she thought were psychiatric problems through her life, it was only since her sister Changed that she discovered the truth – the voices in her head were spirits. She is a Wolf-Blooded with the Waystone Tell.

===Humans===
*The exterminators of '''Yellow Kowloon Pest Control''' are the employees and associates of Arran's character. Working out of an office and storehouse in the territory, they're perhaps the most 'in the know' of all the humans about the supernatural, and they'd probably be hunters if they hadn't been brought under the wing of the pack. The company was briefly used as a front by a Rat Host, which is what drew the pack's attention.
*Several of the market's '''security guards''', Ko Lei's colleagues, are pack members. They know enough to understand that the pack have their back in keeping control of the Night Market, and they like to hang out with pack members to absorb some of the respect and fear that the werewolves are accorded.
*A half-dozen of the stall vendors are, like the security guards, pack members; they form the '''Mutual Activity Committee''' of the market, and the other shopkeepers know they're an 'inner circle' separate from the actual management (who are not pack members).
*'''Zhongli Zhuang''', or 'Uncle' Zhuang, is an old former Sun Yee On triad member and the husband of Auntie Hu. Despite his age, he still possesses a heavy frame; these days he sells occult tat and the like alongside his wife, but he also keeps an eye on the black market dealers in the area for the pack.
*'''Yi Kun''', owner of the Yi Healthy Wu Kwan (martial club), is a martial artist trainer who knows enough about the Uratha to understand their role as guardians of the area; he's had a few unpleasant run-ins over the years.

===Others===
*Michael Jin – a former manager of the Night Market, Michael died in the early 2000s in a horrific murder; a business rival with schemes on the property's future arranged for a construction 'accident' when a large block of concrete fell from scaffolding onto the man. Mister Jin was a client of the pack at the time, who were surprised by the lucidity his ghost retained after death. Michael is odd, fussy and obsessive, the broken remains of a personality clinging on to existence through his ties to the Night Market.
*Lao Min's mother - possesses the ability to understand and communicate with rats, apparently due to being a descendant of Mister Shu, the Lao family patron and possible rat-god. The pack remain uncertain as to what she actually is as a result of her dubious heritage.

===The Totem - Eight Lanterns Minister (''Usufunsugal'' in the First Tongue)===
'''Rank 2 night market spirit''' 
'''Attributes:''' Power 2 Finesse 5 Resistance 2 
'''Willpower:''' 7 
'''Essence:''' 15 
'''Initiative:''' 7 
'''Defence:''' 2 
'''Speed:''' 10 
'''Size:''' 5 
'''Corpus:''' 7 
'''Influences:''' Wealth 1, Light 1 
'''Numina:''' Awe, Coin Curse*, Sign 
''Coin Curse – New Numina:'' The spirit may use this power on anyone it witnesses cheating in a trade, making a false deal or forcing a grievously unfair exchange, as long as money of some sort is involved. Coin Curse costs 1 Essence to use, and affects a coin, bank note, cheque or even money existing only as an electronic transfer. For as long as the character possesses that money in any way, they are affected by an increasingly unpleasant withering disease and the moderate Sick Tilt persistently; even if treated, it will return. Throwing or giving away the money ends the effect. 
'''Manifestations:''' Twilight Form, Gauntlet Breach, Materialise 
'''Ban:''' While the Cherry Gardens shrine of prosperity is damaged or desecrated, the Eight Lanterns Minister cannot leave the night market; if outside the market when the shrine is damaged, it is immediately called back. 
'''Bane:''' Glass from broken lights. 

==Cherry Gardens Market==
The pack's territory is centred around '''Cherry Gardens Night Market''', a night market that lies on the border between '''Sham Shui Po''' district (poor, working-class, lots of public housing) and '''Yau Tsim Mong''' district (core urban area, very high population density, lots of commercial). Cherry Gardens isn't as large or well-known as Temple Street, but it is still a bustling, busy market through the night hours.

The '''night market''' is the beating heart of the territory, catering to the workers of the two districts – cheap tat, mobile phones, clothes, cooked food, incense and paper offerings, and plenty more besides. The pack also holds:
- The surrounding '''residential blocks''' (shops on ground floors, cramped flats above, several with rooftop slums) up to two streets in each direction. These are mostly known by their block number - Lao Min's family lives in Tower 2, for example.
- To the west, the ground under the '''motorway fly-overs''' and then the '''waterfront'''. As well as some storehouses and parks, there are black market dealers and fortune-tellers in the shadow of the motorway.
- The waterfront is a '''typhoon shelter''', protected by a sea wall and a mixture of industrial and private – floating crane platforms, piles of shipping containers and junk-yards.

Crime in Cherry Gardens Night Market is low – petty theft, shoplifting and pickpocketing are common, but the market security guards have been aligned with the pack for years and have a reputation for brutality when dealing with real threats. The local triad gang, led by a Red Pole of the 14K Triad called 'Emperor' Koi, wants control of the night market but has never been able to extend his influence over it.

===Cherry Gardens characters===
*'''Chen Jin''', Spirit-Urged arsonist. Worker who lived in Tower 2 and was assembling some sort of occult explosive device that would use a summoned fire spirit to create an inferno. Appears to have been influenced by particular Wolf-Blooded, possibly tied to the Sung-Ti. Killed by Lao Min during her First Change.
*'''She Wanli''', manager of Tower 7 and shop owner. Affable, overweight local man who had his guts ripped out by the rampaging Taotie.
*'''Kwo Tien''', young tough. Lives in Cherry Gardens, claims to be part of the 14k Triad. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Taesuk Weyen''', patriarch of the Taesuk family. Lives in Cherry Gardens. Holds grudge against the Kwo family. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Hua''', minor tech criminal. Tattooed and hyperactive, Hua purveys petty illegalities - wiping stolen phones and computers, dealing in stolen data and the like.

===Cherry Gardens locations===
* The '''Blossom Society hall''' is a spacious basement subdivided into several smaller rooms, situated under a small laundry and bath-house on the night market shop-front. Once a triad gambling den, the basement includes a strong locus of prosperity and wealth (and, perhaps, greed) in the form of a shrine; the locus leads directly into the silken court of lanterns in the Shadow from which the Eight Lanterns Minister rules.
* One of the '''rooftop slums''' hangs precariously between towers 2 and 3, where the salvaged metal and wood bridge-way plays host to a minor locus of despair. The previous ithaeur, Mark, kept the insidious energies of the locus in check.

==Spirits and their Ilk==

===Lesser Spirits & Independents===
*The '''Crowdling''', a spirit of crowds that lairs around the Old Olympic MTR station. Carved the City Gift into Lucky Rat after being hunted in a chase that it greatly enjoyed.

===Nobles===
*'''Rotting Heart of Decay''', a lesser Ensih of urban decay and rot that held power over the run-down district of Bedford Rise. Granted boons by its liege, Crimson and White Agony, to let it better control the fief. Destroyed by the Blossom Society in a challenge for power and territory.
*'''Eight Lanterns Minister''', ruler of the Cherry Gardens Night Market.

===Servitors===
*'''Elders of Naga''', strange serpentine spirits of rock and bone. Follow in the wake of Death Wolf.

==The Five Great Packs==
The five pillars of Hong Kong Uratha society, born from agreements forged in 1899 alongside those made between the British colony and the local Chinese Punti clans, are called the Great Packs. Originally, each pack corresponded to the same mortal clan that it took the name of, but in the modern day there is no major link between the Punti clan families and the make-up of the pack in question. Most of the Great Packs are large, powerful and have two tiers amongst their Uratha members. The lower tier of 'nieces' and 'nephews' operate somewhat more like a conventional pack, but the upper tier of 'aunts' and 'uncles' are, oddly, less tightly bound together. The aunts and uncles are mentors, experts, revered elders and the like who focus more on their own matters, loosely connected to the other aunts and uncles but not necessarily very involved in the day-to-day running of the pack's assets. When an aunt or uncle asks for a service, the nephews and nieces are expected to snap to attention, but they are in turn expected not to abuse this authority to any great extent. Each Great Pack has a different system for providing more concrete leadership; the Hou select a single overall leader so that the other upper tier Uratha don't need to be bothered by petty concerns, while the Tang demand regular meetings of their aunts and uncles to ensure co-ordination.

The Great Packs are heavily tied into the occult fabric of Hong Kong, and possess considerable knowledge, influence and stockpiles of materials. A Lodge's leadership usually comes from Great Pack members. Each possesses an incredibly powerful totem spirit, but the nature of that relationship between pack and totem is closely guarded and outsiders suspect whatever agreement was signed in 1899 plays a heavy part.

===The Wen – Yau Tsim Mong===
Forsaken, mostly Hunters in Darkness and Iron Masters; their totem is the Serpent of Dreams and Bile, a spirit of incense, drugs and pollution. Known for their influence in shipping, narcotics, and their deep occult knowledge. The Wen have long been obsessed with hunting down the source of the Scourge, as they call the phenomenon that blights First Changes, and are known to truck with jiang shi, yao guai and other, stranger entities in their search for the truth.

Wen '''Aunts/Uncles''':
* '''Yeung He, 'Lightning Paper Fan'''' - Iron Master Ithaeur. Yeung He is one of the principle uncles of the Wen, a wealthy Hong Kong businessman who serves as the Great Pack's principle face of its occult side.
* '''Ten-Eyes Tsang''' - Storm Lord Ithaeur. Ten-Eyes is a drugs chemist and the principle responsible for the Wen drugs operation. Tsang is said to be a ''samzukwu'' or Three-Legged Crow, a member of the Lodge of Crows.

Wen '''Nieces/Nephews''':
* '''Dantea Wen''' - Hunter in Darkness Elodoth. Dantea is one of the most trusted lower-rankers in the Wen, slated for promotion and thus access to the pack's extensive resources. She is the local representative of the Lodge of the Seven Venoms, and a trained doctor.
* '''"Tightrope" Lei''' - Iron Master Irraka. Named for her habit of garroting prey, not for acrobatics.
*'''"Hapless" Fung''' - Storm Lord Rahu. Possesses incredible luck and is said to be cursed.
*'''"Pup" Sau''' - Iron Master Cahalith. Optimistic and hyperactive.

Wen '''Wolf-Blooded''':
*Inspector Hau Chen - HKPF Inspector and general police-force informant and contact for the Wen and affiliated packs. Tell is unknown.
*Zheng Fang - Full-time trusted gofer for the Wen. Immaculately dressed and presented but rumoured to be a very capable leg-breaker despite her appearance. Tell is rumoured to be very powerful for a Wolf-Blooded, possibly that she can summon spirit-wolves or turn into a spirit herself.

===The Hou – Kwun Tong===
Pure, Ivory Claws; their totem is Crimson and White Agony, a spirit of salt and pain. Known for their incredible ancestral and bloodline records, as well as their heavy involvement in Hong Kong politics and medical services. The Hou are seen as cruel, cold and clinical; few fates are worse than falling into the hands of a Hou torturer. The Hou claim to be the oldest and most legitimate of all the Five Great Packs, as unlike the other four the Hou already existed prior to 1899; Hou stories have it that they formed when the Punti migrated to Hong Kong in the 1200s, taking over the sacred mantle of an even older pack who were appointed by the Nine Dragons.

===The Peng – Hongkong Island===
Pure, mostly Ivory Claws; their totem is the Thousand Roaring Eyes and Mouths, a spirit of water and destruction. Known for their wealth and the role they play as financial agents for Pure across the world, their foreign contacts and also their martial traditions. The Peng claim that Hong Kong is actually the site on which Wolf was slain by its treacherous children. They are known for undertaking lavish, extravagant rituals offering sacrifices to the spirits and the waters in penance, to which werewolves of all stripes are invited. Despite their outwards expressions of wealth and openness, they're also said to be a hotbed of internal scheming due to the influence of rival spirit lords.

===The Tang – Hongkong Island===
Forsaken, mostly Bone Shadows and Storm Lords; their totem is the Pale Mandarin, a spirit of secrets, knowledge and fear. They are known for their information network and the dirt they're said to hold on every figure of note in Hong Kong, their knowledge of death and the Underworld, and their involvement in urban planning and development. Rumour has it that the Tang have successfully used occult geometries to create paths into the Deep Shadow. A few pieces of particularly bitter hearsay that refuse to die have it that the Tang take their marching orders from packs in Beijing.

Tang '''nieces/nephews''':
*'''Makisig''', Storm Lord Elodoth. A young Filipino from a relatively wealthy background, Makisig is tasked with keeping an eye on the younger parts of the population in Central & Western and Wan Chai. He's said to be involved in the city's music scene.

===The Liao – New Territories===
Forsaken, mostly Blood Talons; their totem is the Torn Banner, a spirit of change and violence. They are known for their fighting prowess, their trade and manufacture of spiritual goods (including fetishes and talens) and their connections to mainland China. The Liao are generally seen as the most traditionalist and conservative of the Five Great Packs, ironic given the nature of their totem and their own history; they were originally mostly Predator Kings, changing allegiance to the Forsaken via bloody infighting shortly after the Japanese occupation.

==Other Packs==

===The Sung-Ti – Mong Kok===
The Sung-Ti are a largely Fire-Touched pack of Pure holding territory to the north-east of the pack – and they still nurse a grudge over the loss of Cherry Gardens to Melissa Tsang in the 80s. Pitching themselves as judges of certain sins, the Sung-Ti reputedly have significant involvement in both the criminal side of Kowloon and its charities.

* ? Ash Talon ? - Fire-Touched crafter, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.
* ? Kanomi ? - Wolf-Blooded capable of overwhelming those who see her into believing she possesses incredible beauty, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.

===The Stone Lions – Various===
The Stone Lions are mostly Hunters in Darkness who oversee the occult maintenance of Boundary Street, once the limit of Hong Kong. The Lions are a 'daughter pack' of the Liao; they are also rumoured to participate in various sinister rituals to maintain their power.

===The Eyeless – Sham Shui Po===
The Eyeless are a strange and esoteric pack, believed to be a reclusive and likely heretical group of Forsaken. They generally avoid outside contact, but it is known that they pluck their own eyes out for some cultic purpose. Rumour links the Eyeless to the Japanese occupation, and those who would mock them call them the 'Nopera-Bo'.

===The Two Claw Society – Sham Shui Po===
The Two Claw Society are a pack of Bone Shadows and Blood Talons known to be particularly vicious in defending their territory, but also respected as being highly honourable. The Two Claws was created to deal with a horrific Wound resulting from a Japanese concentration camp on their territory – a Wound that still exists despite the pack's best efforts.

* Fan Chau, 'Crimson Autumn' - Bone Shadow Rahu. Belligerent member of the Lodge of Voices. Appears to have one of her hands replaced with someone else's through unknown means.

===The Tsen-Kuang – Tsim Sha Tsui===
A Pure pack on the south of the peninsula, known to be largely made up of Fire-Touched. The Tsen-Kuang have their claws firmly dug into the flow of migrants moving through Hong Kong, and are rumoured to cavort with Beshilu and other, even fouler denizens of the waterfronts. They are reputed to venerate an entity that they believe is responsible for stealing the Changes of nusuzul in Hong Kong; the Tsen-Kuang believe it to be a judge that weeds out those who are not worthy.

===Silver Horizon Futures - Various===
SH Futures appears to be a strange fusion of pack and corporation operating in Hong Kong. A subsidiary of the globe-spanning Cheiron, SHF is best known for its work in the bio-sciences and innovative energy generation solutions. The pack certainly includes both werewolves and Wolf-Blooded; the latter appear to hold the administrative and executive positions within the arrangement.

===The Old Dog-Walker's Club - Unknown===
The 'old dog-walkers club' is more of a rumour than a pack - a tale told amongst the Uratha of Hong Kong. The 'dog-walkers' are said to be the human and Wolf-Blooded members of old lesser packs that have since been destroyed or fallen apart, left to their own devices without Uratha leadership. The stories have it that sometimes a werewolf finds herself stalked and watched by a group of these humans as they gather information about her every move. Often, the dog-walkers then vanish once more, and the Uratha doesn't seem them again. Sometimes, though, the werewolf vanishes too.

==Other Groups and Entities==

===Civilians===
*'''Dachan Cuifen''', curator of the Taotie exhibit at the museum and university archaeology lecturer.
*'''Alec & Rong''', friends of Lao Min and fellow students at the university.

===14K Triad===

*'''Hom Wie, Hive-Claimed'''. Rumoured to be a Taoist sorcerer and feared by the lower ranks of the Triad for his brutality and twisted appearance. Hom Wie has some sort of link or connection to Wang Jing from the past, sufficiently strong to warn her of a forthcoming Triad war.
*''''Emperor' Koi''', 14K Red Pole. An influential Red Pole in the Sham Shui Po and Yau Tsim Mong districts, with designs on drugs and prostitution rackets throughout the area. Has long attempted to extend his influence over Cherry Gardens but has been held back to the influence of the Blossom Society.
*'''Man Sie''', 14K fence. Deals in technical and technological goods primarily, operating out of the Lamp House.

===Wo Shing Wo Triad===

===Beshilu===

*'''Mister Shu'''. Ancestor of Lao Min, but apparently still alive and well in San Hui in the New Territories. Some sort of spirit or petty divinity associated with rats that romanced a Lao woman in the early 1900s. Has Rat Hosts under his control. May actually be some sort of Rat Host of a previously unknown kind.

===Jiang Shi/Goeng Si===
The catch-all term for reanimated corpses; jiang shi are mostly thought to be unquiet dead who steal life force through drinking a victim's breath, but most other corporeal undead are referred to under the same label by the Uratha.

===Taotie===
Also known as the 'gluttonous ogres', taotie are very powerful entities of hunger that have been bound into ceramic masks and pottery. The mortal wielder of a taotie gains monstrous physical strength, the ability to cross the Gauntlet, and the ability to take the internal organs of a victim and place them within his or her own body. In return for this power, the taotie demands the sacrifice of the mortal wielder's own internal organs to feed its hunger. Manifesting its powers causes the taotie to drain a vast amount of Essence from the nearby ''Hisil'', often catastrophically for weaker spirits in the vicinity.
*'''Chua Chuo''', Sham Shui Po businessman and Taotie wielder - murdered Mark Callaghan-Cheung and She Wanli over property scheme using the power of the taotie. Killed by the Blossom Society. Apparently found the mask amongst some family belongings passed down to him.

===Yaksha===
The ''yaksha'' are werewolves Changed amongst the Thai immigrant population. Although very similar to Chinese werewolves in many ways, the Hong Kong Uratha see the yaksha as more like close cousins than brothers and sisters - yaksha are attributed with being much closer to the Shadow than the Flesh, born from mortal shamanism and spirit-magic rather than from the blood of the Wolf.

===Yao Guai===
The catch-all term for shapeshifting creatures, but yao guai are particularly associated with a few traits. Yao Guai are often thought to be following Taoist sorcerous practices and to be seeking immortality. Some yao guai are fusions of spirit and flesh like the Uratha, but others are outright demonic and hellish in their nature. Yao guai are commonly cannibalistic, eating humans of particularly great virtue or spiritual excellence as part of their search for eternal life.

==Other Locations==

===Sham Shui Po===
*The '''Lamp House''', a 14K-patronised club and meeting space for transactions of stolen goods and the like.
*'''Bedford Rise''', a run-down neighbourhood influenced by the Rotting Heart of Decay. Bedford Rise centres around a pedestrianised central street, crammed full of cheap stores, dive clubs and massage parlours. The 14K operate in the area under the auspices of the Red Pole Koi.
*'''Tung Chau Battery''' is an old historical military building in Bedford Rise, now dilapidated and crumbling. Inhabited by the homeless and drug users in the Flesh, it served the Rotting Heart of Decay as a lair in the Shadow.

===Kowloon City District===
*'''Sung Wong Toi''', a significant landmark marking the end of the Southern Song Dynasty. Control over Sung Wong Toi is a matter of significant dispute between the Wen and the Hou.
*'''Little Thailand''', an area of Kowloon City District that has a large ethnically Thai population. A pack of mostly Thai werewolves called ''yaksha'' holds the area as their territory.

==Beyond Hong Kong==

===Macau – The Zealous Warlord's Domain===
Often referred to as the 'darker sibling' by Hong Kong Uratha, Macau has a sinister reputation amongst werewolves – even despite it being a Forsaken stronghold. Beneath its seemingly placid surface, Macau is a place of nightmares. From 1966 onwards, the notorious Blood Talon warlord 'Silver Claw' Yin fought a sustained and bloody campaign against the Pure, claiming to have been given divine visions by the Moon and instructions from the Lunes. After just ten years, the last Pure were annihilated or driven out of the city. In 1987, however, the Pure attempted to return. In the three decades since, Macau has seen repeated attacks by the Pure, particularly under the leadership of the Fire-Touched sibling Elders Sheu-Fuh and Shunyan, although they have not yet regained a foothold for more than a few months at a time. Its occult landscape is a mess, scarred by brutality, madness and the mostly-unchecked spiritual off-flow of the mass of humanity crammed into the region. Other things have also been drawn in or caught up by the violence; it is said there is an alchemist amongst the Iron Masters of Macau who knows how to render sorcerers down for their power, while both Bone Shadows and Ivory Claws are said to have some means of producing vampires which they use as disposable agents and killers in their shadow war. Both Destroyer Wolf and Red Wolf are said to have taken an active interest in events in Macau since the 60s, but there is a much, much older shrine to Red Wolf in the city that the Forsaken defend fanatically – some rumours allege it is Pangaean in origin. For now, Yin continues to rule her Protectorate with an iron fist.

Characters of Macau:
*'''Adao''' - Iron Master Elodoth. Portuguese smuggler.
*'''Red Mask''' - Iron Master ?. Revered as the high priest of Red Wolf's shrine in Macau.

===Shenzen – The City Without History===
Shenzen is a mirror of Hong Kong's success story – a busy port, major financial centre and huge city butting against its northern border. Shenzen exploded from a small town in the 80s to the urban behemoth of today, and the the Uratha of the province know full well its growth was down to more than just the PRC labelling it a Special Economic Zone. Something has long been awry with the very fabric of reality in Shenzen and someone, or something, caused the expansion of the city by stealing it from a history that never happened, a Shenzen that never was, and overlaying it into this world. The layout of the city possesses innumerable minor pieces of occult geometry, coming together into some sort of vast chronal siphon that forces this reality to match the Other Shenzen. For years, the 'city without history' and the time spirits that flock there served as a major attraction for Uratha seers and secret-seekers of both Pure and Forsaken, with bitter fighting breaking out across its prime territories, but the Cull have moved in in recent years – and established a major Deep Shadow monastery as a bastion. Now this major land route into Hong Kong is threatened, the Cull bringing in more adherents as the months progress and the Uratha of the City of Nine Dragons watching uneasily from over the border. Word has it that the Thousand Steel Teeth are gathering their own war parties, determined to defend their supply lines that run through Hong Kong and Shenzen out into the wider world. The new city of Shenzen may be about to become a battleground for a particularly vicious phase of the war with the Cull.

===Guangdong – Riches Worth Fighting For===
The province of Guangdong may be a large and prosperous region, but for the Forsaken of the area it is perhaps most characterised by its river spirits. Threading down to the Pearl River Delta, these spirits are probably the most organised, widespread and outright hostile court of Guangdong; the feud dates back to the battle of Yamen in 1279. Defeating and subjugating the local river spirits is an ongoing struggle, not at all helped by the Pure's own alliance with the River King. Despite this hostility, there is much for the Forsaken to covet here – the wealth of the human population and the uncommonly high number of wellsprings of Essence. Guangdong has a great abundance of sites that naturally form talens, rich loci of rare Resonances, and unusual qualities to the Shadow that make certain rites – such as those that craft fetishes – easier to work than elsewhere. The Claimed are a particular threat across the province, and the Storm Lords have traditionally been very powerful here; there are several Tribal bastions where the Iminir protect ancient artefacts and relics that are the destination of pilgrims from across the globe. The Storm Lords of Guangdong have a highly organised Tribal structure that crosses throughout the packs and Protectorates of the province, leading up to an elected gong whose task is to tend to the ancient, revered Tribal elder known as the Zongshi – a near-mythical figure amongst the Forsaken, said to alternate between sleeping in a Storm Lord fastness and prowling the Deep Shadow for the most terrifying of prey. Guangdong regularly sees the conflict between Forsaken and Pure flare into open and brutal warfare, but these periods are almost always short – usually a year or two at most before things lapse once again, agreements are made and lines redrawn. The recent arrival of sects of the Cull from the west and north, however, threatens to upset that balance.

===Taiwan – Tyrants of the Earth===
Taiwan's Shadow was once ruled by the spirits of the mountains and the grumbling, shifting earth – but around two centuries ago, the Forsaken of the island undertook a great and mighty binding on the lords of rock and stone to chain them with fetters of symbolism. This caused a great rift amongst the Taiwanese Tribes, with the Bone Shadows breaking off to form their own separate faction, condemning the act as one of hubris that would only serve to harm Shadow and Flesh alike. For two centuries now, the bindings have mostly held – but when they weaken or shift, the furious spirits of the earth vent their rage on the world. Even today, the Bone Shadows remain separate to the other Forsaken and have, as the years turn, formed a distinct identity from Hirfathra Hissu elsewhere as well. The Predator Kings have long sought to unmake the chains that bind the mountain spirits and once formed the bulk of the Pure numbers in Taiwan, but since the Chinese Civil War the other two Pure Tribes have made significant inroads into what was once almost entirely under Forsaken control. Today, Taiwanese Uratha are renowned for their mastery of rites and the binding of spirits, but often considered prideful and arrogant in their disdain for other werewolves who do not have the strength to chain the Shadow to their will. Taiwanese packs commonly include spirits enslaved to the pack's will, and even totems are treated less as respected equals and more as vassals or servants. The Bone Shadows continue to warn that a reckoning will yet come; but as each decade passes without sign of their forecast apocalypse, so does the scorn for the fifth Tribe rise amongst the Taiwanese.

===Philippines – The Spinner Hag's Bastion===
In many ways, Uratha in the Philippines have lives similar to werewolves elsewhere – though the boundaries of territories in the archipelago are often delineated by coastline and travel between islands can be tricky. The rising prosperity and development of the country has left Uratha with many of the same challenges and opportunities as in other nations. The Shadow across the Philippines, however, is in a ruinous state – and has been for millennia. By local lore, the Great Predator fought much of its battle with the Spinner Hag over what became these islands, and in many places the Gauntlet is still torn asunder by the mere echo of Wolf's claws and teeth. Worse, other patches of Gauntlet are thick and distended, shrouded in Azlo webs and said to contain oozing gobbets of the Hag's carcass. The Azlu are numerous and powerful here, and are no mere monstrous beasts – the Host spider-witches of the Philippines think and plan with an alien but clinically precise approach, their schemes spanning centuries. The poor state of the Gauntlet has also resulted in a much higher number of spirits crossing over into the Flesh, bizarre and unique forms of Claimed, and other entities born by the fusion of the two worlds. Repeated rumours bubble up that there are actually still areas of Pangaea itself hidden away, somehow saved from the Great Predator's death-howl. Unsurprisingly, the Hunters in Darkness lead the Forsaken here, and Filipino werewolves are said to be both particularly vigilant – or paranoid, by the less charitable – and particularly talented in the matter of wards and occult protections. The Philippines have long served as a destination for Hunter in Darkness pilgrimages – old and veteran Meninna from other countries, even far-off continents, have been known to 'retire' to this heart of Azlu power, and werewolves seeking lore and insights into the spider Hosts often seek out Filipino brethren for aid.

===Vietnam – The Harmonious Kings===
Early in the 20th Century, the Pure of Vietnam began to tip the scales against their Forsaken counterparts; they took advantage of the disruption and conflict that plagued the country until, after the US-Vietnam war and the fall of the South, the Fire-Touched and Predator Kings had near total domination of the unified country. The Forsaken of today, though, are having a comparatively easy time of it; the Pure are far more focused on warring with each other, and there are a number of powerful spirit nobles that have sided with the Forsaken in the wake of the Pure calling down horrific spirit-horrors from beyond Luna's orbit. The Predator Kings have split into two factions that battle one another with brutal ferocity, mainly due to the emergence of a radical, heretical Ninna Farakh Lodge called the Lan that has rapidly surged in converts. The Lan adhere to portions of Dire Wolf's philosophy, but are far more connected to humanity than their erstwhile comrades; the totem's ban makes it difficult for the Lan to work within society so they instead use a large cult of human and Wolf-Blooded go-betweens to sink their claws into Vietnam. Espousing a creed that the Predator Kings should adapt to the changing world and shepherd humanity to a harmonious union with the wild and the hunt, the Lan are largely uninterested in pursuing the Forsaken compared to destroying the Fire-Touched and converting or killing the rest of their Tribe. To the Forsaken, it all looks very much like the Predator Kings' penchant for savagery has finally turned inwards while the real Vietnam moves beyond their outmoded ways – but there are those who worry that the Harmonious Kings of the Lan are winning, and fear what may happen once they have done so. Some wonder if the Lan might be converted in turn to the Forsaken, but the Lodge has shown little interest in any Urdaga Creeds.

==New Material==

===New Rites===

'''Vex (Wolf Rite ●)''' 
This petty curse calls upon spirits of misfortune and malevolence to plague whoever has drawn the werewolf's ire. 
'''Symbols:''' Fire, venom, violence, the skill that is to be targeted. 
'''Cost:''' 1 Essence 
'''Action:''' Extended (5 successes; each roll represents 1 minute); resisted by the target's Composure. 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The Essence used to fuel this rite must come from a locus of hatred, pain, despair or decay. Additionally, the ritemaster must have a possession of the target, a nail clipping, a lock of hair or some other bodily substance from the intended victim. The ritemaster selects a single skill that will be cursed; thereafter, the first time the victim uses that skill in the following month, her result becomes a dramatic failure regardless of what she rolls. The ritemaster immediately knows when this happens. A character may only be the subject of a single vex at a time, and cannot be subjected again until the rite's month of duration has passed. 

'''Drain the Well (Pack Rite ●●●)''' 
This rite uses a locus to draw in its Resonance from the surrounding ar ea, draining the Shadow of Essence attuned to its nature. Paradoxically, this ensures the locus surges deep with Essence of that kind; if left untended, it will wash back out again stronger than before.
'''Symbols:''' Water, pain, piercing or draining, the Resonance type. 
'''Action:''' Extended (20 successes; each roll represents 10 minutes) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed at the site of a locus, draining Resonance into it. This has several effects: spirits and Uratha within 100 yards per dot of the rating of the Locus, or within the entire territory (whichever is larger), take the locus's rating as a penalty to all rolls for Influences that match its Resonance when outside its direct area. The Resonance is reduced in general, removing many incidents of the Resonant Condition across the affected region; draining a locus of pain would cause injuries and aches to inflict less pain, humans and animals will recover faster from harm and may simply not notice minor damage. This will have long-term effects on the Shadow and the material world. 
The ritemaster gains a persistent Ban Condition for the duration of the rite's effect, reflecting the Resonance of the locus; this Condition lifts when the rite ends. If the ritemaster ever violates the ban, the effects of the rite immediately end. If ended via ban violation, or if this rite is not performed on the locus again within a week of its duration ending, the locus becomes empowered for one month as if it were the subject of the Wellspring rite.

'''Shadow Signs (Pack Rite ●●●●)''' 
This rite may only be invoked on a territory that the ritemaster's pack has already sanctified with the Hunting Ground rite. It draws upon the secrets, the names and the flows of Essence that thread between the spirits of the territory's Shadow, revealing truths to the Uratha. 
'''Symbols:''' Writing or tattooing, wounds, whispers, the wind. 
'''Action:''' Extended (10 successes; each roll represents 1 minute) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month. 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed in the Shadow, within territory that the ritemaster's pack has placed the Hunting Ground rite upon. This causes that spot to become a nexus of information about the territory's Shadow. Over roughly a day, words and glyphs will carve themselves into the Shadow-stuff of an area roughly ten feet in radius, often oozing blood or ichor; these words spell out the names of powerful spirits in the area (Rank 3 and higher, as well as spirit nobles), indicate significant Shadow phenomena (like barrens, shoals, or an impending emotion-storm), and may also indicate other threats in the Shadow (such as warning of the warping spells that a Mage is using on the Hisil, or of a non-native monstrosity that has somehow breached the Gauntlet and is now marauding the spirits). The words update roughly every day, with old, bleeding warnings squirming aside for eruptions of fresh and oozing names as new, powerful spirits move in or a threat manifests itself. Any Uratha who reads the shadow signs gains a +3 bonus to locate or perceive spirits, entities or phenomena that they have seen the warnings or names of, while the rite lasts. However, picking key information out of the mass of glyphs and sigils is not necessarily straightforward.

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T17:00:15Z

Acrozatarim: /* Other Groups and Entities */

=Werewolf: the Forsaken - The Eater of Names=
A Werewolf: the Forsaken game set in Hong Kong.

==Hong Kong==

===Werewolf Oddities of Hong Kong===
*Something steals the First Change of the majority of nusuzul. At the moment of the Change, they have their newfound nature torn out of them by an unknown force, leaving them as normal humans suffering a psychotic break – even former Wolf-Blooded have their inheritance stripped from them at this moment.
*The territories of Hong Kong are a complete patchwork between the different factions. There are no solid battle lines between Pure and Forsaken, and the vertical nature of the urban landscape means that even a small scrap of land can be more than enough to patrol for most packs. The Shadow reflection of the city sees a spiritual ecosystem that is just as confused and turbulent.
*Due to the sheer population density and the patchwork nature of the territories, Hong Kong packs have strong traditions about hospitality and allowances for crossing another pack's turf – even between Pure and Forsaken.
*There are no Protectorates in Hong Kong. The closest to any sort of formal structure are the Five Great Packs – the Wen, Hou, Peng, Tang and Liao, formed from amongst the Uratha of the mortal clans of the area in 1899. The Great Packs are probably the largest and most influential of the city, but with respect comes responsibility, and they are expected to provide aid and guidance to other werewolves. These expectations, again, cross factional lines.
*Tribes and allegiances to Pure and Forsaken are important, but Hong Kong also plays host to a number of strange packs allied to neither faction, packs amongst foreign immigrant populations with odd practices and traditions, and a focus on Lodges. The sheer density of the city can make the patchwork of territories confusing and Tribes rarely organise on a wide scale, but Lodge connections matter and underpin much of the social fabric of Hong Kong.
*With so much movement in and out of Hong Kong, its transitional position in the world (geographically, politically and symbolically) and its possession of so many layers and shadows that even the werewolves cannot plumb them all, the city is a hotbed for weirdness and occult conspiracies. Yao guai and jiang shi slither through the darkness, hungry ghosts and watery shades prowl at the fringes, and now the forces of the dreaded Cull are preparing to assault the borders of the territory – something that has both Pure and Forsaken alike on edge.
*Local Uratha lore has it that, in some past age, Hong Kong was the site of a meeting between the Nine Dragons – held to be the eight Firstborn of the Pure and the Forsaken, and a last figure of disputed nature. Some believe it was one of the first Chinese emperors. It was this gathering of beings of incredible power that, it is claimed, is responsible for the strong currents of Essence that pour through the region's Shadow even today.
*The chenghuanshen, the city-spirit of Hong Kong, definitely exists – but its nature is not entirely clear. It may actually be a consciousness split across a number of powerful urban spirits, and seems quite capable of fighting with itself as much as any other spirit nobles of the region. Furthermore, it has a long-running feud with the spirits of the mountains and the peaks.

==The Blossom Society Pack==
History is important to the packs of Hong Kong, although knowledge of the past of the Forsaken is usually rather patchy:
*Most Kowloon Forsaken hark back to the '''Salt Eaters''', a pack that controlled much of the area in the middle of the second millenium.
*In the late 1800s, the third bubonic plague wracked China; as a result the '''Yellow-Feathered Owls''', a pack of Bone Shadows and Hunters in Darkness, controlled what is now Sham Shui Po.
*In 1899, territorial unrest with the five Chinese clans in the area resulted in the creation of the Five Great Packs; the original Cherry Gardens themselves were held by a daughter pack of the Wen, the '''White Jade''' pack.
*After the Japanese occupation, the predecessors of the Blossom Society took over the area. They were not opposed in doing so; the sheer damage done by the occupation had resulted in the deportation or deaths of most of the White Jade and their extended pack.

Of the pack's previous Uratha, the existing pack members may know of the following:
*''''Red Shroud'''' – Bone Shadow, formed pack in aftermath of Japanese occupation – famous for dealing with a terrifying plague of restless ghosts and widely venerated by Uratha across Hong Kong for her accomplishments.
*'''Wen Liang''' – Iron Master, powerful figure amongst the packs in the 60's and 70's, infamous for his involvement in the 1967 riots and his killing of a number of communist ringleaders. A name both respected and feared.
*'''Melissa Tsang''' – Blood Talon, took control of the Cherry Garden Night Market in the 80s by driving out the '''Sung-Ti''', a vicious yao guai and its Fire-Touched Pure followers.

The recent losses the pack has suffered are:
*'''James 'Steeljaw Trap' Liu''' – Hunter in Darkness Cahalith and member of the Lodge of Seven Venoms. Died five years ago fighting beshilu in the typhoon shelter; he sank a floating crane raft infested with Rat Hosts while he was still onboard.
*'''Gwok Mei''' – Bone Shadow Rahu and member of the Lodge of Death. Left two years ago in response to the Lodge calling a pilgrimage against the Cull in northern China. She has not been heard from since.
*'''Mark Callahan-Cheung''' – Iron Master shaman, local landlord and member of the Yau Tsim Mong district council. Died under strange circumstances one month before the game's beginning, which the pack had difficulties investigating due to Mark's public position as a councilman and the police and press interest in the case.

The totem of the pack is the '''Eight Lanterns Minister''', spirit of the Cherry Gardens Night Market. The minister appears in the form of a set of grandiose mandarin ministerial garb, threaded with lines of neon and jangling talismans of commerce, wrapped around a withered but strong frame. Its face is concealed behind a veil, but seems to emanate a gentle glow. Lanterns hang from a frame of lacquered wood that floats behind its shoulders; the colours of the lanterns often indicate the spirit's mood.

The Eight Lanterns Minister has served the pack as totem since the 1980s, its fortunes waxing and waning over that time. It is devious, smart and opportunistic. The Minister is a very lowly spirit noble, with a paltry court of lesser spirits of the market at its beck and call; it in turn is the vassal of the spirit noble of Temple Street Night Market, which has caused some friction with the Wen over the years.

===Werewolves===
*'''Red Lantern Widow, Bone Shadow Elodoth''', formerly wife of an up and coming politician until she killed him during her First Change. She uses his skull as a focus in her rites.
*'''Lucky Rat, Hunter in Darkness Rahu''', whose pest control company gives him an overwatch on Beshilu activity in the area. Possesses some anger issues.
*'''Wang Lee, Bone Shadow Irraka''', the youngest of the pack members and something of a street rat. Son of Wang Jing.
*'''Lao Min, newly-Changed Ithaeur''', straight-A's university student whose First Change was triggered by a manifestation of Death Wolf. Despite appearing as an embodiment of that Firstborn, she's leaning towards Red Wolf's Tribe.

===Wolf-Blooded===
*'''Zhongli Hu''' – 'Auntie' Hu is an elderly fortune-teller and seller of offerings and incense in the night market. She is also a Wolf-Blooded with the Piercing Eyes Tell. Hu was a little girl when Red Shroud ran these streets, claims to have been Wen Liang's mistress, and has certainly lived a storied life.
*'''Ko Lei''' runs the market's security, a sturdy man with a pock-marked face and a quick temper. Lei is a Wolf-Blooded with the Wolf's Meat Tell. He used to be a member of the 14K triad.
*'''Wang Jing''' – She owns and runs the Hive Bar, just outside the night market. She has the Skinner Tell, and has obviously been mentally scarred by some of what she has seen and done. The older pack members would only reference her past activities obliquely and refuse to give details. Some tension between her and her son.
*'''Zhao Bo''' – Widow's sister, who took a very different career path; she is a low-ranking financial auditor in Hong Kong's financial investigative body. Plagued by what she thought were psychiatric problems through her life, it was only since her sister Changed that she discovered the truth – the voices in her head were spirits. She is a Wolf-Blooded with the Waystone Tell.

===Humans===
*The exterminators of '''Yellow Kowloon Pest Control''' are the employees and associates of Arran's character. Working out of an office and storehouse in the territory, they're perhaps the most 'in the know' of all the humans about the supernatural, and they'd probably be hunters if they hadn't been brought under the wing of the pack. The company was briefly used as a front by a Rat Host, which is what drew the pack's attention.
*Several of the market's '''security guards''', Ko Lei's colleagues, are pack members. They know enough to understand that the pack have their back in keeping control of the Night Market, and they like to hang out with pack members to absorb some of the respect and fear that the werewolves are accorded.
*A half-dozen of the stall vendors are, like the security guards, pack members; they form the '''Mutual Activity Committee''' of the market, and the other shopkeepers know they're an 'inner circle' separate from the actual management (who are not pack members).
*'''Zhongli Zhuang''', or 'Uncle' Zhuang, is an old former Sun Yee On triad member and the husband of Auntie Hu. Despite his age, he still possesses a heavy frame; these days he sells occult tat and the like alongside his wife, but he also keeps an eye on the black market dealers in the area for the pack.
*'''Yi Kun''', owner of the Yi Healthy Wu Kwan (martial club), is a martial artist trainer who knows enough about the Uratha to understand their role as guardians of the area; he's had a few unpleasant run-ins over the years.

===Others===
*Michael Jin – a former manager of the Night Market, Michael died in the early 2000s in a horrific murder; a business rival with schemes on the property's future arranged for a construction 'accident' when a large block of concrete fell from scaffolding onto the man. Mister Jin was a client of the pack at the time, who were surprised by the lucidity his ghost retained after death. Michael is odd, fussy and obsessive, the broken remains of a personality clinging on to existence through his ties to the Night Market.

===The Totem - Eight Lanterns Minister (''Usufunsugal'' in the First Tongue)===
'''Rank 2 night market spirit''' 
'''Attributes:''' Power 2 Finesse 5 Resistance 2 
'''Willpower:''' 7 
'''Essence:''' 15 
'''Initiative:''' 7 
'''Defence:''' 2 
'''Speed:''' 10 
'''Size:''' 5 
'''Corpus:''' 7 
'''Influences:''' Wealth 1, Light 1 
'''Numina:''' Awe, Coin Curse*, Sign 
''Coin Curse – New Numina:'' The spirit may use this power on anyone it witnesses cheating in a trade, making a false deal or forcing a grievously unfair exchange, as long as money of some sort is involved. Coin Curse costs 1 Essence to use, and affects a coin, bank note, cheque or even money existing only as an electronic transfer. For as long as the character possesses that money in any way, they are affected by an increasingly unpleasant withering disease and the moderate Sick Tilt persistently; even if treated, it will return. Throwing or giving away the money ends the effect. 
'''Manifestations:''' Twilight Form, Gauntlet Breach, Materialise 
'''Ban:''' While the Cherry Gardens shrine of prosperity is damaged or desecrated, the Eight Lanterns Minister cannot leave the night market; if outside the market when the shrine is damaged, it is immediately called back. 
'''Bane:''' Glass from broken lights. 

==Cherry Gardens Market==
The pack's territory is centred around '''Cherry Gardens Night Market''', a night market that lies on the border between '''Sham Shui Po''' district (poor, working-class, lots of public housing) and '''Yau Tsim Mong''' district (core urban area, very high population density, lots of commercial). Cherry Gardens isn't as large or well-known as Temple Street, but it is still a bustling, busy market through the night hours.

The '''night market''' is the beating heart of the territory, catering to the workers of the two districts – cheap tat, mobile phones, clothes, cooked food, incense and paper offerings, and plenty more besides. The pack also holds:
- The surrounding '''residential blocks''' (shops on ground floors, cramped flats above, several with rooftop slums) up to two streets in each direction. These are mostly known by their block number - Lao Min's family lives in Tower 2, for example.
- To the west, the ground under the '''motorway fly-overs''' and then the '''waterfront'''. As well as some storehouses and parks, there are black market dealers and fortune-tellers in the shadow of the motorway.
- The waterfront is a '''typhoon shelter''', protected by a sea wall and a mixture of industrial and private – floating crane platforms, piles of shipping containers and junk-yards.

Crime in Cherry Gardens Night Market is low – petty theft, shoplifting and pickpocketing are common, but the market security guards have been aligned with the pack for years and have a reputation for brutality when dealing with real threats. The local triad gang, led by a Red Pole of the 14K Triad called 'Emperor' Koi, wants control of the night market but has never been able to extend his influence over it.

===Cherry Gardens characters===
*'''Chen Jin''', Spirit-Urged arsonist. Worker who lived in Tower 2 and was assembling some sort of occult explosive device that would use a summoned fire spirit to create an inferno. Appears to have been influenced by particular Wolf-Blooded, possibly tied to the Sung-Ti. Killed by Lao Min during her First Change.
*'''She Wanli''', manager of Tower 7 and shop owner. Affable, overweight local man who had his guts ripped out by the rampaging Taotie.
*'''Kwo Tien''', young tough. Lives in Cherry Gardens, claims to be part of the 14k Triad. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Taesuk Weyen''', patriarch of the Taesuk family. Lives in Cherry Gardens. Holds grudge against the Kwo family. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Hua''', minor tech criminal. Tattooed and hyperactive, Hua purveys petty illegalities - wiping stolen phones and computers, dealing in stolen data and the like.

===Cherry Gardens locations===
* The '''Blossom Society hall''' is a spacious basement subdivided into several smaller rooms, situated under a small laundry and bath-house on the night market shop-front. Once a triad gambling den, the basement includes a strong locus of prosperity and wealth (and, perhaps, greed) in the form of a shrine; the locus leads directly into the silken court of lanterns in the Shadow from which the Eight Lanterns Minister rules.
* One of the '''rooftop slums''' hangs precariously between towers 2 and 3, where the salvaged metal and wood bridge-way plays host to a minor locus of despair. The previous ithaeur, Mark, kept the insidious energies of the locus in check.

==Spirits and their Ilk==

===Lesser Spirits & Independents===
*The '''Crowdling''', a spirit of crowds that lairs around the Old Olympic MTR station. Carved the City Gift into Lucky Rat after being hunted in a chase that it greatly enjoyed.

===Nobles===
*'''Rotting Heart of Decay''', a lesser Ensih of urban decay and rot that held power over the run-down district of Bedford Rise. Granted boons by its liege, Crimson and White Agony, to let it better control the fief. Destroyed by the Blossom Society in a challenge for power and territory.
*'''Eight Lanterns Minister''', ruler of the Cherry Gardens Night Market.

===Servitors===
*'''Elders of Naga''', strange serpentine spirits of rock and bone. Follow in the wake of Death Wolf.

==The Five Great Packs==
The five pillars of Hong Kong Uratha society, born from agreements forged in 1899 alongside those made between the British colony and the local Chinese Punti clans, are called the Great Packs. Originally, each pack corresponded to the same mortal clan that it took the name of, but in the modern day there is no major link between the Punti clan families and the make-up of the pack in question. Most of the Great Packs are large, powerful and have two tiers amongst their Uratha members. The lower tier of 'nieces' and 'nephews' operate somewhat more like a conventional pack, but the upper tier of 'aunts' and 'uncles' are, oddly, less tightly bound together. The aunts and uncles are mentors, experts, revered elders and the like who focus more on their own matters, loosely connected to the other aunts and uncles but not necessarily very involved in the day-to-day running of the pack's assets. When an aunt or uncle asks for a service, the nephews and nieces are expected to snap to attention, but they are in turn expected not to abuse this authority to any great extent. Each Great Pack has a different system for providing more concrete leadership; the Hou select a single overall leader so that the other upper tier Uratha don't need to be bothered by petty concerns, while the Tang demand regular meetings of their aunts and uncles to ensure co-ordination.

The Great Packs are heavily tied into the occult fabric of Hong Kong, and possess considerable knowledge, influence and stockpiles of materials. A Lodge's leadership usually comes from Great Pack members. Each possesses an incredibly powerful totem spirit, but the nature of that relationship between pack and totem is closely guarded and outsiders suspect whatever agreement was signed in 1899 plays a heavy part.

===The Wen – Yau Tsim Mong===
Forsaken, mostly Hunters in Darkness and Iron Masters; their totem is the Serpent of Dreams and Bile, a spirit of incense, drugs and pollution. Known for their influence in shipping, narcotics, and their deep occult knowledge. The Wen have long been obsessed with hunting down the source of the Scourge, as they call the phenomenon that blights First Changes, and are known to truck with jiang shi, yao guai and other, stranger entities in their search for the truth.

Wen '''Aunts/Uncles''':
* '''Yeung He, 'Lightning Paper Fan'''' - Iron Master Ithaeur. Yeung He is one of the principle uncles of the Wen, a wealthy Hong Kong businessman who serves as the Great Pack's principle face of its occult side.
* '''Ten-Eyes Tsang''' - Storm Lord Ithaeur. Ten-Eyes is a drugs chemist and the principle responsible for the Wen drugs operation. Tsang is said to be a ''samzukwu'' or Three-Legged Crow, a member of the Lodge of Crows.

Wen '''Nieces/Nephews''':
* '''Dantea Wen''' - Hunter in Darkness Elodoth. Dantea is one of the most trusted lower-rankers in the Wen, slated for promotion and thus access to the pack's extensive resources. She is the local representative of the Lodge of the Seven Venoms, and a trained doctor.
* '''"Tightrope" Lei''' - Iron Master Irraka. Named for her habit of garroting prey, not for acrobatics.
*'''"Hapless" Fung''' - Storm Lord Rahu. Possesses incredible luck and is said to be cursed.
*'''"Pup" Sau''' - Iron Master Cahalith. Optimistic and hyperactive.

Wen '''Wolf-Blooded''':
*Inspector Hau Chen - HKPF Inspector and general police-force informant and contact for the Wen and affiliated packs. Tell is unknown.
*Zheng Fang - Full-time trusted gofer for the Wen. Immaculately dressed and presented but rumoured to be a very capable leg-breaker despite her appearance. Tell is rumoured to be very powerful for a Wolf-Blooded, possibly that she can summon spirit-wolves or turn into a spirit herself.

===The Hou – Kwun Tong===
Pure, Ivory Claws; their totem is Crimson and White Agony, a spirit of salt and pain. Known for their incredible ancestral and bloodline records, as well as their heavy involvement in Hong Kong politics and medical services. The Hou are seen as cruel, cold and clinical; few fates are worse than falling into the hands of a Hou torturer. The Hou claim to be the oldest and most legitimate of all the Five Great Packs, as unlike the other four the Hou already existed prior to 1899; Hou stories have it that they formed when the Punti migrated to Hong Kong in the 1200s, taking over the sacred mantle of an even older pack who were appointed by the Nine Dragons.

===The Peng – Hongkong Island===
Pure, mostly Ivory Claws; their totem is the Thousand Roaring Eyes and Mouths, a spirit of water and destruction. Known for their wealth and the role they play as financial agents for Pure across the world, their foreign contacts and also their martial traditions. The Peng claim that Hong Kong is actually the site on which Wolf was slain by its treacherous children. They are known for undertaking lavish, extravagant rituals offering sacrifices to the spirits and the waters in penance, to which werewolves of all stripes are invited. Despite their outwards expressions of wealth and openness, they're also said to be a hotbed of internal scheming due to the influence of rival spirit lords.

===The Tang – Hongkong Island===
Forsaken, mostly Bone Shadows and Storm Lords; their totem is the Pale Mandarin, a spirit of secrets, knowledge and fear. They are known for their information network and the dirt they're said to hold on every figure of note in Hong Kong, their knowledge of death and the Underworld, and their involvement in urban planning and development. Rumour has it that the Tang have successfully used occult geometries to create paths into the Deep Shadow. A few pieces of particularly bitter hearsay that refuse to die have it that the Tang take their marching orders from packs in Beijing.

Tang '''nieces/nephews''':
*'''Makisig''', Storm Lord Elodoth. A young Filipino from a relatively wealthy background, Makisig is tasked with keeping an eye on the younger parts of the population in Central & Western and Wan Chai. He's said to be involved in the city's music scene.

===The Liao – New Territories===
Forsaken, mostly Blood Talons; their totem is the Torn Banner, a spirit of change and violence. They are known for their fighting prowess, their trade and manufacture of spiritual goods (including fetishes and talens) and their connections to mainland China. The Liao are generally seen as the most traditionalist and conservative of the Five Great Packs, ironic given the nature of their totem and their own history; they were originally mostly Predator Kings, changing allegiance to the Forsaken via bloody infighting shortly after the Japanese occupation.

==Other Packs==

===The Sung-Ti – Mong Kok===
The Sung-Ti are a largely Fire-Touched pack of Pure holding territory to the north-east of the pack – and they still nurse a grudge over the loss of Cherry Gardens to Melissa Tsang in the 80s. Pitching themselves as judges of certain sins, the Sung-Ti reputedly have significant involvement in both the criminal side of Kowloon and its charities.

* ? Ash Talon ? - Fire-Touched crafter, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.
* ? Kanomi ? - Wolf-Blooded capable of overwhelming those who see her into believing she possesses incredible beauty, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.

===The Stone Lions – Various===
The Stone Lions are mostly Hunters in Darkness who oversee the occult maintenance of Boundary Street, once the limit of Hong Kong. The Lions are a 'daughter pack' of the Liao; they are also rumoured to participate in various sinister rituals to maintain their power.

===The Eyeless – Sham Shui Po===
The Eyeless are a strange and esoteric pack, believed to be a reclusive and likely heretical group of Forsaken. They generally avoid outside contact, but it is known that they pluck their own eyes out for some cultic purpose. Rumour links the Eyeless to the Japanese occupation, and those who would mock them call them the 'Nopera-Bo'.

===The Two Claw Society – Sham Shui Po===
The Two Claw Society are a pack of Bone Shadows and Blood Talons known to be particularly vicious in defending their territory, but also respected as being highly honourable. The Two Claws was created to deal with a horrific Wound resulting from a Japanese concentration camp on their territory – a Wound that still exists despite the pack's best efforts.

* Fan Chau, 'Crimson Autumn' - Bone Shadow Rahu. Belligerent member of the Lodge of Voices. Appears to have one of her hands replaced with someone else's through unknown means.

===The Tsen-Kuang – Tsim Sha Tsui===
A Pure pack on the south of the peninsula, known to be largely made up of Fire-Touched. The Tsen-Kuang have their claws firmly dug into the flow of migrants moving through Hong Kong, and are rumoured to cavort with Beshilu and other, even fouler denizens of the waterfronts. They are reputed to venerate an entity that they believe is responsible for stealing the Changes of nusuzul in Hong Kong; the Tsen-Kuang believe it to be a judge that weeds out those who are not worthy.

===Silver Horizon Futures - Various===
SH Futures appears to be a strange fusion of pack and corporation operating in Hong Kong. A subsidiary of the globe-spanning Cheiron, SHF is best known for its work in the bio-sciences and innovative energy generation solutions. The pack certainly includes both werewolves and Wolf-Blooded; the latter appear to hold the administrative and executive positions within the arrangement.

===The Old Dog-Walker's Club - Unknown===
The 'old dog-walkers club' is more of a rumour than a pack - a tale told amongst the Uratha of Hong Kong. The 'dog-walkers' are said to be the human and Wolf-Blooded members of old lesser packs that have since been destroyed or fallen apart, left to their own devices without Uratha leadership. The stories have it that sometimes a werewolf finds herself stalked and watched by a group of these humans as they gather information about her every move. Often, the dog-walkers then vanish once more, and the Uratha doesn't seem them again. Sometimes, though, the werewolf vanishes too.

==Other Groups and Entities==

===Civilians===
*'''Dachan Cuifen''', curator of the Taotie exhibit at the museum and university archaeology lecturer.
*'''Alec & Rong''', friends of Lao Min and fellow students at the university.

===14K Triad===

*'''Hom Wie, Hive-Claimed'''. Rumoured to be a Taoist sorcerer and feared by the lower ranks of the Triad for his brutality and twisted appearance. Hom Wie has some sort of link or connection to Wang Jing from the past, sufficiently strong to warn her of a forthcoming Triad war.
*''''Emperor' Koi''', 14K Red Pole. An influential Red Pole in the Sham Shui Po and Yau Tsim Mong districts, with designs on drugs and prostitution rackets throughout the area. Has long attempted to extend his influence over Cherry Gardens but has been held back to the influence of the Blossom Society.
*'''Man Sie''', 14K fence. Deals in technical and technological goods primarily, operating out of the Lamp House.

===Wo Shing Wo Triad===

===Beshilu===

*'''Mister Shu'''. Ancestor of Lao Min, but apparently still alive and well in San Hui in the New Territories. Some sort of spirit or petty divinity associated with rats that romanced a Lao woman in the early 1900s. Has Rat Hosts under his control. May actually be some sort of Rat Host of a previously unknown kind.

===Jiang Shi/Goeng Si===
The catch-all term for reanimated corpses; jiang shi are mostly thought to be unquiet dead who steal life force through drinking a victim's breath, but most other corporeal undead are referred to under the same label by the Uratha.

===Taotie===
Also known as the 'gluttonous ogres', taotie are very powerful entities of hunger that have been bound into ceramic masks and pottery. The mortal wielder of a taotie gains monstrous physical strength, the ability to cross the Gauntlet, and the ability to take the internal organs of a victim and place them within his or her own body. In return for this power, the taotie demands the sacrifice of the mortal wielder's own internal organs to feed its hunger. Manifesting its powers causes the taotie to drain a vast amount of Essence from the nearby ''Hisil'', often catastrophically for weaker spirits in the vicinity.
*'''Chua Chuo''', Sham Shui Po businessman and Taotie wielder - murdered Mark Callaghan-Cheung and She Wanli over property scheme using the power of the taotie. Killed by the Blossom Society. Apparently found the mask amongst some family belongings passed down to him.

===Yaksha===
The ''yaksha'' are werewolves Changed amongst the Thai immigrant population. Although very similar to Chinese werewolves in many ways, the Hong Kong Uratha see the yaksha as more like close cousins than brothers and sisters - yaksha are attributed with being much closer to the Shadow than the Flesh, born from mortal shamanism and spirit-magic rather than from the blood of the Wolf.

===Yao Guai===
The catch-all term for shapeshifting creatures, but yao guai are particularly associated with a few traits. Yao Guai are often thought to be following Taoist sorcerous practices and to be seeking immortality. Some yao guai are fusions of spirit and flesh like the Uratha, but others are outright demonic and hellish in their nature. Yao guai are commonly cannibalistic, eating humans of particularly great virtue or spiritual excellence as part of their search for eternal life.

==Other Locations==

===Sham Shui Po===
*The '''Lamp House''', a 14K-patronised club and meeting space for transactions of stolen goods and the like.
*'''Bedford Rise''', a run-down neighbourhood influenced by the Rotting Heart of Decay. Bedford Rise centres around a pedestrianised central street, crammed full of cheap stores, dive clubs and massage parlours. The 14K operate in the area under the auspices of the Red Pole Koi.
*'''Tung Chau Battery''' is an old historical military building in Bedford Rise, now dilapidated and crumbling. Inhabited by the homeless and drug users in the Flesh, it served the Rotting Heart of Decay as a lair in the Shadow.

===Kowloon City District===
*'''Sung Wong Toi''', a significant landmark marking the end of the Southern Song Dynasty. Control over Sung Wong Toi is a matter of significant dispute between the Wen and the Hou.
*'''Little Thailand''', an area of Kowloon City District that has a large ethnically Thai population. A pack of mostly Thai werewolves called ''yaksha'' holds the area as their territory.

==Beyond Hong Kong==

===Macau – The Zealous Warlord's Domain===
Often referred to as the 'darker sibling' by Hong Kong Uratha, Macau has a sinister reputation amongst werewolves – even despite it being a Forsaken stronghold. Beneath its seemingly placid surface, Macau is a place of nightmares. From 1966 onwards, the notorious Blood Talon warlord 'Silver Claw' Yin fought a sustained and bloody campaign against the Pure, claiming to have been given divine visions by the Moon and instructions from the Lunes. After just ten years, the last Pure were annihilated or driven out of the city. In 1987, however, the Pure attempted to return. In the three decades since, Macau has seen repeated attacks by the Pure, particularly under the leadership of the Fire-Touched sibling Elders Sheu-Fuh and Shunyan, although they have not yet regained a foothold for more than a few months at a time. Its occult landscape is a mess, scarred by brutality, madness and the mostly-unchecked spiritual off-flow of the mass of humanity crammed into the region. Other things have also been drawn in or caught up by the violence; it is said there is an alchemist amongst the Iron Masters of Macau who knows how to render sorcerers down for their power, while both Bone Shadows and Ivory Claws are said to have some means of producing vampires which they use as disposable agents and killers in their shadow war. Both Destroyer Wolf and Red Wolf are said to have taken an active interest in events in Macau since the 60s, but there is a much, much older shrine to Red Wolf in the city that the Forsaken defend fanatically – some rumours allege it is Pangaean in origin. For now, Yin continues to rule her Protectorate with an iron fist.

Characters of Macau:
*'''Adao''' - Iron Master Elodoth. Portuguese smuggler.
*'''Red Mask''' - Iron Master ?. Revered as the high priest of Red Wolf's shrine in Macau.

===Shenzen – The City Without History===
Shenzen is a mirror of Hong Kong's success story – a busy port, major financial centre and huge city butting against its northern border. Shenzen exploded from a small town in the 80s to the urban behemoth of today, and the the Uratha of the province know full well its growth was down to more than just the PRC labelling it a Special Economic Zone. Something has long been awry with the very fabric of reality in Shenzen and someone, or something, caused the expansion of the city by stealing it from a history that never happened, a Shenzen that never was, and overlaying it into this world. The layout of the city possesses innumerable minor pieces of occult geometry, coming together into some sort of vast chronal siphon that forces this reality to match the Other Shenzen. For years, the 'city without history' and the time spirits that flock there served as a major attraction for Uratha seers and secret-seekers of both Pure and Forsaken, with bitter fighting breaking out across its prime territories, but the Cull have moved in in recent years – and established a major Deep Shadow monastery as a bastion. Now this major land route into Hong Kong is threatened, the Cull bringing in more adherents as the months progress and the Uratha of the City of Nine Dragons watching uneasily from over the border. Word has it that the Thousand Steel Teeth are gathering their own war parties, determined to defend their supply lines that run through Hong Kong and Shenzen out into the wider world. The new city of Shenzen may be about to become a battleground for a particularly vicious phase of the war with the Cull.

===Guangdong – Riches Worth Fighting For===
The province of Guangdong may be a large and prosperous region, but for the Forsaken of the area it is perhaps most characterised by its river spirits. Threading down to the Pearl River Delta, these spirits are probably the most organised, widespread and outright hostile court of Guangdong; the feud dates back to the battle of Yamen in 1279. Defeating and subjugating the local river spirits is an ongoing struggle, not at all helped by the Pure's own alliance with the River King. Despite this hostility, there is much for the Forsaken to covet here – the wealth of the human population and the uncommonly high number of wellsprings of Essence. Guangdong has a great abundance of sites that naturally form talens, rich loci of rare Resonances, and unusual qualities to the Shadow that make certain rites – such as those that craft fetishes – easier to work than elsewhere. The Claimed are a particular threat across the province, and the Storm Lords have traditionally been very powerful here; there are several Tribal bastions where the Iminir protect ancient artefacts and relics that are the destination of pilgrims from across the globe. The Storm Lords of Guangdong have a highly organised Tribal structure that crosses throughout the packs and Protectorates of the province, leading up to an elected gong whose task is to tend to the ancient, revered Tribal elder known as the Zongshi – a near-mythical figure amongst the Forsaken, said to alternate between sleeping in a Storm Lord fastness and prowling the Deep Shadow for the most terrifying of prey. Guangdong regularly sees the conflict between Forsaken and Pure flare into open and brutal warfare, but these periods are almost always short – usually a year or two at most before things lapse once again, agreements are made and lines redrawn. The recent arrival of sects of the Cull from the west and north, however, threatens to upset that balance.

===Taiwan – Tyrants of the Earth===
Taiwan's Shadow was once ruled by the spirits of the mountains and the grumbling, shifting earth – but around two centuries ago, the Forsaken of the island undertook a great and mighty binding on the lords of rock and stone to chain them with fetters of symbolism. This caused a great rift amongst the Taiwanese Tribes, with the Bone Shadows breaking off to form their own separate faction, condemning the act as one of hubris that would only serve to harm Shadow and Flesh alike. For two centuries now, the bindings have mostly held – but when they weaken or shift, the furious spirits of the earth vent their rage on the world. Even today, the Bone Shadows remain separate to the other Forsaken and have, as the years turn, formed a distinct identity from Hirfathra Hissu elsewhere as well. The Predator Kings have long sought to unmake the chains that bind the mountain spirits and once formed the bulk of the Pure numbers in Taiwan, but since the Chinese Civil War the other two Pure Tribes have made significant inroads into what was once almost entirely under Forsaken control. Today, Taiwanese Uratha are renowned for their mastery of rites and the binding of spirits, but often considered prideful and arrogant in their disdain for other werewolves who do not have the strength to chain the Shadow to their will. Taiwanese packs commonly include spirits enslaved to the pack's will, and even totems are treated less as respected equals and more as vassals or servants. The Bone Shadows continue to warn that a reckoning will yet come; but as each decade passes without sign of their forecast apocalypse, so does the scorn for the fifth Tribe rise amongst the Taiwanese.

===Philippines – The Spinner Hag's Bastion===
In many ways, Uratha in the Philippines have lives similar to werewolves elsewhere – though the boundaries of territories in the archipelago are often delineated by coastline and travel between islands can be tricky. The rising prosperity and development of the country has left Uratha with many of the same challenges and opportunities as in other nations. The Shadow across the Philippines, however, is in a ruinous state – and has been for millennia. By local lore, the Great Predator fought much of its battle with the Spinner Hag over what became these islands, and in many places the Gauntlet is still torn asunder by the mere echo of Wolf's claws and teeth. Worse, other patches of Gauntlet are thick and distended, shrouded in Azlo webs and said to contain oozing gobbets of the Hag's carcass. The Azlu are numerous and powerful here, and are no mere monstrous beasts – the Host spider-witches of the Philippines think and plan with an alien but clinically precise approach, their schemes spanning centuries. The poor state of the Gauntlet has also resulted in a much higher number of spirits crossing over into the Flesh, bizarre and unique forms of Claimed, and other entities born by the fusion of the two worlds. Repeated rumours bubble up that there are actually still areas of Pangaea itself hidden away, somehow saved from the Great Predator's death-howl. Unsurprisingly, the Hunters in Darkness lead the Forsaken here, and Filipino werewolves are said to be both particularly vigilant – or paranoid, by the less charitable – and particularly talented in the matter of wards and occult protections. The Philippines have long served as a destination for Hunter in Darkness pilgrimages – old and veteran Meninna from other countries, even far-off continents, have been known to 'retire' to this heart of Azlu power, and werewolves seeking lore and insights into the spider Hosts often seek out Filipino brethren for aid.

===Vietnam – The Harmonious Kings===
Early in the 20th Century, the Pure of Vietnam began to tip the scales against their Forsaken counterparts; they took advantage of the disruption and conflict that plagued the country until, after the US-Vietnam war and the fall of the South, the Fire-Touched and Predator Kings had near total domination of the unified country. The Forsaken of today, though, are having a comparatively easy time of it; the Pure are far more focused on warring with each other, and there are a number of powerful spirit nobles that have sided with the Forsaken in the wake of the Pure calling down horrific spirit-horrors from beyond Luna's orbit. The Predator Kings have split into two factions that battle one another with brutal ferocity, mainly due to the emergence of a radical, heretical Ninna Farakh Lodge called the Lan that has rapidly surged in converts. The Lan adhere to portions of Dire Wolf's philosophy, but are far more connected to humanity than their erstwhile comrades; the totem's ban makes it difficult for the Lan to work within society so they instead use a large cult of human and Wolf-Blooded go-betweens to sink their claws into Vietnam. Espousing a creed that the Predator Kings should adapt to the changing world and shepherd humanity to a harmonious union with the wild and the hunt, the Lan are largely uninterested in pursuing the Forsaken compared to destroying the Fire-Touched and converting or killing the rest of their Tribe. To the Forsaken, it all looks very much like the Predator Kings' penchant for savagery has finally turned inwards while the real Vietnam moves beyond their outmoded ways – but there are those who worry that the Harmonious Kings of the Lan are winning, and fear what may happen once they have done so. Some wonder if the Lan might be converted in turn to the Forsaken, but the Lodge has shown little interest in any Urdaga Creeds.

==New Material==

===New Rites===

'''Vex (Wolf Rite ●)''' 
This petty curse calls upon spirits of misfortune and malevolence to plague whoever has drawn the werewolf's ire. 
'''Symbols:''' Fire, venom, violence, the skill that is to be targeted. 
'''Cost:''' 1 Essence 
'''Action:''' Extended (5 successes; each roll represents 1 minute); resisted by the target's Composure. 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The Essence used to fuel this rite must come from a locus of hatred, pain, despair or decay. Additionally, the ritemaster must have a possession of the target, a nail clipping, a lock of hair or some other bodily substance from the intended victim. The ritemaster selects a single skill that will be cursed; thereafter, the first time the victim uses that skill in the following month, her result becomes a dramatic failure regardless of what she rolls. The ritemaster immediately knows when this happens. A character may only be the subject of a single vex at a time, and cannot be subjected again until the rite's month of duration has passed. 

'''Drain the Well (Pack Rite ●●●)''' 
This rite uses a locus to draw in its Resonance from the surrounding ar ea, draining the Shadow of Essence attuned to its nature. Paradoxically, this ensures the locus surges deep with Essence of that kind; if left untended, it will wash back out again stronger than before.
'''Symbols:''' Water, pain, piercing or draining, the Resonance type. 
'''Action:''' Extended (20 successes; each roll represents 10 minutes) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed at the site of a locus, draining Resonance into it. This has several effects: spirits and Uratha within 100 yards per dot of the rating of the Locus, or within the entire territory (whichever is larger), take the locus's rating as a penalty to all rolls for Influences that match its Resonance when outside its direct area. The Resonance is reduced in general, removing many incidents of the Resonant Condition across the affected region; draining a locus of pain would cause injuries and aches to inflict less pain, humans and animals will recover faster from harm and may simply not notice minor damage. This will have long-term effects on the Shadow and the material world. 
The ritemaster gains a persistent Ban Condition for the duration of the rite's effect, reflecting the Resonance of the locus; this Condition lifts when the rite ends. If the ritemaster ever violates the ban, the effects of the rite immediately end. If ended via ban violation, or if this rite is not performed on the locus again within a week of its duration ending, the locus becomes empowered for one month as if it were the subject of the Wellspring rite.

'''Shadow Signs (Pack Rite ●●●●)''' 
This rite may only be invoked on a territory that the ritemaster's pack has already sanctified with the Hunting Ground rite. It draws upon the secrets, the names and the flows of Essence that thread between the spirits of the territory's Shadow, revealing truths to the Uratha. 
'''Symbols:''' Writing or tattooing, wounds, whispers, the wind. 
'''Action:''' Extended (10 successes; each roll represents 1 minute) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month. 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed in the Shadow, within territory that the ritemaster's pack has placed the Hunting Ground rite upon. This causes that spot to become a nexus of information about the territory's Shadow. Over roughly a day, words and glyphs will carve themselves into the Shadow-stuff of an area roughly ten feet in radius, often oozing blood or ichor; these words spell out the names of powerful spirits in the area (Rank 3 and higher, as well as spirit nobles), indicate significant Shadow phenomena (like barrens, shoals, or an impending emotion-storm), and may also indicate other threats in the Shadow (such as warning of the warping spells that a Mage is using on the Hisil, or of a non-native monstrosity that has somehow breached the Gauntlet and is now marauding the spirits). The words update roughly every day, with old, bleeding warnings squirming aside for eruptions of fresh and oozing names as new, powerful spirits move in or a threat manifests itself. Any Uratha who reads the shadow signs gains a +3 bonus to locate or perceive spirits, entities or phenomena that they have seen the warnings or names of, while the rite lasts. However, picking key information out of the mass of glyphs and sigils is not necessarily straightforward.

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T16:55:50Z

Acrozatarim: /* Other Locations */

=Werewolf: the Forsaken - The Eater of Names=
A Werewolf: the Forsaken game set in Hong Kong.

==Hong Kong==

===Werewolf Oddities of Hong Kong===
*Something steals the First Change of the majority of nusuzul. At the moment of the Change, they have their newfound nature torn out of them by an unknown force, leaving them as normal humans suffering a psychotic break – even former Wolf-Blooded have their inheritance stripped from them at this moment.
*The territories of Hong Kong are a complete patchwork between the different factions. There are no solid battle lines between Pure and Forsaken, and the vertical nature of the urban landscape means that even a small scrap of land can be more than enough to patrol for most packs. The Shadow reflection of the city sees a spiritual ecosystem that is just as confused and turbulent.
*Due to the sheer population density and the patchwork nature of the territories, Hong Kong packs have strong traditions about hospitality and allowances for crossing another pack's turf – even between Pure and Forsaken.
*There are no Protectorates in Hong Kong. The closest to any sort of formal structure are the Five Great Packs – the Wen, Hou, Peng, Tang and Liao, formed from amongst the Uratha of the mortal clans of the area in 1899. The Great Packs are probably the largest and most influential of the city, but with respect comes responsibility, and they are expected to provide aid and guidance to other werewolves. These expectations, again, cross factional lines.
*Tribes and allegiances to Pure and Forsaken are important, but Hong Kong also plays host to a number of strange packs allied to neither faction, packs amongst foreign immigrant populations with odd practices and traditions, and a focus on Lodges. The sheer density of the city can make the patchwork of territories confusing and Tribes rarely organise on a wide scale, but Lodge connections matter and underpin much of the social fabric of Hong Kong.
*With so much movement in and out of Hong Kong, its transitional position in the world (geographically, politically and symbolically) and its possession of so many layers and shadows that even the werewolves cannot plumb them all, the city is a hotbed for weirdness and occult conspiracies. Yao guai and jiang shi slither through the darkness, hungry ghosts and watery shades prowl at the fringes, and now the forces of the dreaded Cull are preparing to assault the borders of the territory – something that has both Pure and Forsaken alike on edge.
*Local Uratha lore has it that, in some past age, Hong Kong was the site of a meeting between the Nine Dragons – held to be the eight Firstborn of the Pure and the Forsaken, and a last figure of disputed nature. Some believe it was one of the first Chinese emperors. It was this gathering of beings of incredible power that, it is claimed, is responsible for the strong currents of Essence that pour through the region's Shadow even today.
*The chenghuanshen, the city-spirit of Hong Kong, definitely exists – but its nature is not entirely clear. It may actually be a consciousness split across a number of powerful urban spirits, and seems quite capable of fighting with itself as much as any other spirit nobles of the region. Furthermore, it has a long-running feud with the spirits of the mountains and the peaks.

==The Blossom Society Pack==
History is important to the packs of Hong Kong, although knowledge of the past of the Forsaken is usually rather patchy:
*Most Kowloon Forsaken hark back to the '''Salt Eaters''', a pack that controlled much of the area in the middle of the second millenium.
*In the late 1800s, the third bubonic plague wracked China; as a result the '''Yellow-Feathered Owls''', a pack of Bone Shadows and Hunters in Darkness, controlled what is now Sham Shui Po.
*In 1899, territorial unrest with the five Chinese clans in the area resulted in the creation of the Five Great Packs; the original Cherry Gardens themselves were held by a daughter pack of the Wen, the '''White Jade''' pack.
*After the Japanese occupation, the predecessors of the Blossom Society took over the area. They were not opposed in doing so; the sheer damage done by the occupation had resulted in the deportation or deaths of most of the White Jade and their extended pack.

Of the pack's previous Uratha, the existing pack members may know of the following:
*''''Red Shroud'''' – Bone Shadow, formed pack in aftermath of Japanese occupation – famous for dealing with a terrifying plague of restless ghosts and widely venerated by Uratha across Hong Kong for her accomplishments.
*'''Wen Liang''' – Iron Master, powerful figure amongst the packs in the 60's and 70's, infamous for his involvement in the 1967 riots and his killing of a number of communist ringleaders. A name both respected and feared.
*'''Melissa Tsang''' – Blood Talon, took control of the Cherry Garden Night Market in the 80s by driving out the '''Sung-Ti''', a vicious yao guai and its Fire-Touched Pure followers.

The recent losses the pack has suffered are:
*'''James 'Steeljaw Trap' Liu''' – Hunter in Darkness Cahalith and member of the Lodge of Seven Venoms. Died five years ago fighting beshilu in the typhoon shelter; he sank a floating crane raft infested with Rat Hosts while he was still onboard.
*'''Gwok Mei''' – Bone Shadow Rahu and member of the Lodge of Death. Left two years ago in response to the Lodge calling a pilgrimage against the Cull in northern China. She has not been heard from since.
*'''Mark Callahan-Cheung''' – Iron Master shaman, local landlord and member of the Yau Tsim Mong district council. Died under strange circumstances one month before the game's beginning, which the pack had difficulties investigating due to Mark's public position as a councilman and the police and press interest in the case.

The totem of the pack is the '''Eight Lanterns Minister''', spirit of the Cherry Gardens Night Market. The minister appears in the form of a set of grandiose mandarin ministerial garb, threaded with lines of neon and jangling talismans of commerce, wrapped around a withered but strong frame. Its face is concealed behind a veil, but seems to emanate a gentle glow. Lanterns hang from a frame of lacquered wood that floats behind its shoulders; the colours of the lanterns often indicate the spirit's mood.

The Eight Lanterns Minister has served the pack as totem since the 1980s, its fortunes waxing and waning over that time. It is devious, smart and opportunistic. The Minister is a very lowly spirit noble, with a paltry court of lesser spirits of the market at its beck and call; it in turn is the vassal of the spirit noble of Temple Street Night Market, which has caused some friction with the Wen over the years.

===Werewolves===
*'''Red Lantern Widow, Bone Shadow Elodoth''', formerly wife of an up and coming politician until she killed him during her First Change. She uses his skull as a focus in her rites.
*'''Lucky Rat, Hunter in Darkness Rahu''', whose pest control company gives him an overwatch on Beshilu activity in the area. Possesses some anger issues.
*'''Wang Lee, Bone Shadow Irraka''', the youngest of the pack members and something of a street rat. Son of Wang Jing.
*'''Lao Min, newly-Changed Ithaeur''', straight-A's university student whose First Change was triggered by a manifestation of Death Wolf. Despite appearing as an embodiment of that Firstborn, she's leaning towards Red Wolf's Tribe.

===Wolf-Blooded===
*'''Zhongli Hu''' – 'Auntie' Hu is an elderly fortune-teller and seller of offerings and incense in the night market. She is also a Wolf-Blooded with the Piercing Eyes Tell. Hu was a little girl when Red Shroud ran these streets, claims to have been Wen Liang's mistress, and has certainly lived a storied life.
*'''Ko Lei''' runs the market's security, a sturdy man with a pock-marked face and a quick temper. Lei is a Wolf-Blooded with the Wolf's Meat Tell. He used to be a member of the 14K triad.
*'''Wang Jing''' – She owns and runs the Hive Bar, just outside the night market. She has the Skinner Tell, and has obviously been mentally scarred by some of what she has seen and done. The older pack members would only reference her past activities obliquely and refuse to give details. Some tension between her and her son.
*'''Zhao Bo''' – Widow's sister, who took a very different career path; she is a low-ranking financial auditor in Hong Kong's financial investigative body. Plagued by what she thought were psychiatric problems through her life, it was only since her sister Changed that she discovered the truth – the voices in her head were spirits. She is a Wolf-Blooded with the Waystone Tell.

===Humans===
*The exterminators of '''Yellow Kowloon Pest Control''' are the employees and associates of Arran's character. Working out of an office and storehouse in the territory, they're perhaps the most 'in the know' of all the humans about the supernatural, and they'd probably be hunters if they hadn't been brought under the wing of the pack. The company was briefly used as a front by a Rat Host, which is what drew the pack's attention.
*Several of the market's '''security guards''', Ko Lei's colleagues, are pack members. They know enough to understand that the pack have their back in keeping control of the Night Market, and they like to hang out with pack members to absorb some of the respect and fear that the werewolves are accorded.
*A half-dozen of the stall vendors are, like the security guards, pack members; they form the '''Mutual Activity Committee''' of the market, and the other shopkeepers know they're an 'inner circle' separate from the actual management (who are not pack members).
*'''Zhongli Zhuang''', or 'Uncle' Zhuang, is an old former Sun Yee On triad member and the husband of Auntie Hu. Despite his age, he still possesses a heavy frame; these days he sells occult tat and the like alongside his wife, but he also keeps an eye on the black market dealers in the area for the pack.
*'''Yi Kun''', owner of the Yi Healthy Wu Kwan (martial club), is a martial artist trainer who knows enough about the Uratha to understand their role as guardians of the area; he's had a few unpleasant run-ins over the years.

===Others===
*Michael Jin – a former manager of the Night Market, Michael died in the early 2000s in a horrific murder; a business rival with schemes on the property's future arranged for a construction 'accident' when a large block of concrete fell from scaffolding onto the man. Mister Jin was a client of the pack at the time, who were surprised by the lucidity his ghost retained after death. Michael is odd, fussy and obsessive, the broken remains of a personality clinging on to existence through his ties to the Night Market.

===The Totem - Eight Lanterns Minister (''Usufunsugal'' in the First Tongue)===
'''Rank 2 night market spirit''' 
'''Attributes:''' Power 2 Finesse 5 Resistance 2 
'''Willpower:''' 7 
'''Essence:''' 15 
'''Initiative:''' 7 
'''Defence:''' 2 
'''Speed:''' 10 
'''Size:''' 5 
'''Corpus:''' 7 
'''Influences:''' Wealth 1, Light 1 
'''Numina:''' Awe, Coin Curse*, Sign 
''Coin Curse – New Numina:'' The spirit may use this power on anyone it witnesses cheating in a trade, making a false deal or forcing a grievously unfair exchange, as long as money of some sort is involved. Coin Curse costs 1 Essence to use, and affects a coin, bank note, cheque or even money existing only as an electronic transfer. For as long as the character possesses that money in any way, they are affected by an increasingly unpleasant withering disease and the moderate Sick Tilt persistently; even if treated, it will return. Throwing or giving away the money ends the effect. 
'''Manifestations:''' Twilight Form, Gauntlet Breach, Materialise 
'''Ban:''' While the Cherry Gardens shrine of prosperity is damaged or desecrated, the Eight Lanterns Minister cannot leave the night market; if outside the market when the shrine is damaged, it is immediately called back. 
'''Bane:''' Glass from broken lights. 

==Cherry Gardens Market==
The pack's territory is centred around '''Cherry Gardens Night Market''', a night market that lies on the border between '''Sham Shui Po''' district (poor, working-class, lots of public housing) and '''Yau Tsim Mong''' district (core urban area, very high population density, lots of commercial). Cherry Gardens isn't as large or well-known as Temple Street, but it is still a bustling, busy market through the night hours.

The '''night market''' is the beating heart of the territory, catering to the workers of the two districts – cheap tat, mobile phones, clothes, cooked food, incense and paper offerings, and plenty more besides. The pack also holds:
- The surrounding '''residential blocks''' (shops on ground floors, cramped flats above, several with rooftop slums) up to two streets in each direction. These are mostly known by their block number - Lao Min's family lives in Tower 2, for example.
- To the west, the ground under the '''motorway fly-overs''' and then the '''waterfront'''. As well as some storehouses and parks, there are black market dealers and fortune-tellers in the shadow of the motorway.
- The waterfront is a '''typhoon shelter''', protected by a sea wall and a mixture of industrial and private – floating crane platforms, piles of shipping containers and junk-yards.

Crime in Cherry Gardens Night Market is low – petty theft, shoplifting and pickpocketing are common, but the market security guards have been aligned with the pack for years and have a reputation for brutality when dealing with real threats. The local triad gang, led by a Red Pole of the 14K Triad called 'Emperor' Koi, wants control of the night market but has never been able to extend his influence over it.

===Cherry Gardens characters===
*'''Chen Jin''', Spirit-Urged arsonist. Worker who lived in Tower 2 and was assembling some sort of occult explosive device that would use a summoned fire spirit to create an inferno. Appears to have been influenced by particular Wolf-Blooded, possibly tied to the Sung-Ti. Killed by Lao Min during her First Change.
*'''She Wanli''', manager of Tower 7 and shop owner. Affable, overweight local man who had his guts ripped out by the rampaging Taotie.
*'''Kwo Tien''', young tough. Lives in Cherry Gardens, claims to be part of the 14k Triad. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Taesuk Weyen''', patriarch of the Taesuk family. Lives in Cherry Gardens. Holds grudge against the Kwo family. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Hua''', minor tech criminal. Tattooed and hyperactive, Hua purveys petty illegalities - wiping stolen phones and computers, dealing in stolen data and the like.

===Cherry Gardens locations===
* The '''Blossom Society hall''' is a spacious basement subdivided into several smaller rooms, situated under a small laundry and bath-house on the night market shop-front. Once a triad gambling den, the basement includes a strong locus of prosperity and wealth (and, perhaps, greed) in the form of a shrine; the locus leads directly into the silken court of lanterns in the Shadow from which the Eight Lanterns Minister rules.
* One of the '''rooftop slums''' hangs precariously between towers 2 and 3, where the salvaged metal and wood bridge-way plays host to a minor locus of despair. The previous ithaeur, Mark, kept the insidious energies of the locus in check.

==Spirits and their Ilk==

===Lesser Spirits & Independents===
*The '''Crowdling''', a spirit of crowds that lairs around the Old Olympic MTR station. Carved the City Gift into Lucky Rat after being hunted in a chase that it greatly enjoyed.

===Nobles===
*'''Rotting Heart of Decay''', a lesser Ensih of urban decay and rot that held power over the run-down district of Bedford Rise. Granted boons by its liege, Crimson and White Agony, to let it better control the fief. Destroyed by the Blossom Society in a challenge for power and territory.
*'''Eight Lanterns Minister''', ruler of the Cherry Gardens Night Market.

===Servitors===
*'''Elders of Naga''', strange serpentine spirits of rock and bone. Follow in the wake of Death Wolf.

==The Five Great Packs==
The five pillars of Hong Kong Uratha society, born from agreements forged in 1899 alongside those made between the British colony and the local Chinese Punti clans, are called the Great Packs. Originally, each pack corresponded to the same mortal clan that it took the name of, but in the modern day there is no major link between the Punti clan families and the make-up of the pack in question. Most of the Great Packs are large, powerful and have two tiers amongst their Uratha members. The lower tier of 'nieces' and 'nephews' operate somewhat more like a conventional pack, but the upper tier of 'aunts' and 'uncles' are, oddly, less tightly bound together. The aunts and uncles are mentors, experts, revered elders and the like who focus more on their own matters, loosely connected to the other aunts and uncles but not necessarily very involved in the day-to-day running of the pack's assets. When an aunt or uncle asks for a service, the nephews and nieces are expected to snap to attention, but they are in turn expected not to abuse this authority to any great extent. Each Great Pack has a different system for providing more concrete leadership; the Hou select a single overall leader so that the other upper tier Uratha don't need to be bothered by petty concerns, while the Tang demand regular meetings of their aunts and uncles to ensure co-ordination.

The Great Packs are heavily tied into the occult fabric of Hong Kong, and possess considerable knowledge, influence and stockpiles of materials. A Lodge's leadership usually comes from Great Pack members. Each possesses an incredibly powerful totem spirit, but the nature of that relationship between pack and totem is closely guarded and outsiders suspect whatever agreement was signed in 1899 plays a heavy part.

===The Wen – Yau Tsim Mong===
Forsaken, mostly Hunters in Darkness and Iron Masters; their totem is the Serpent of Dreams and Bile, a spirit of incense, drugs and pollution. Known for their influence in shipping, narcotics, and their deep occult knowledge. The Wen have long been obsessed with hunting down the source of the Scourge, as they call the phenomenon that blights First Changes, and are known to truck with jiang shi, yao guai and other, stranger entities in their search for the truth.

Wen '''Aunts/Uncles''':
* '''Yeung He, 'Lightning Paper Fan'''' - Iron Master Ithaeur. Yeung He is one of the principle uncles of the Wen, a wealthy Hong Kong businessman who serves as the Great Pack's principle face of its occult side.
* '''Ten-Eyes Tsang''' - Storm Lord Ithaeur. Ten-Eyes is a drugs chemist and the principle responsible for the Wen drugs operation. Tsang is said to be a ''samzukwu'' or Three-Legged Crow, a member of the Lodge of Crows.

Wen '''Nieces/Nephews''':
* '''Dantea Wen''' - Hunter in Darkness Elodoth. Dantea is one of the most trusted lower-rankers in the Wen, slated for promotion and thus access to the pack's extensive resources. She is the local representative of the Lodge of the Seven Venoms, and a trained doctor.
* '''"Tightrope" Lei''' - Iron Master Irraka. Named for her habit of garroting prey, not for acrobatics.
*'''"Hapless" Fung''' - Storm Lord Rahu. Possesses incredible luck and is said to be cursed.
*'''"Pup" Sau''' - Iron Master Cahalith. Optimistic and hyperactive.

Wen '''Wolf-Blooded''':
*Inspector Hau Chen - HKPF Inspector and general police-force informant and contact for the Wen and affiliated packs. Tell is unknown.
*Zheng Fang - Full-time trusted gofer for the Wen. Immaculately dressed and presented but rumoured to be a very capable leg-breaker despite her appearance. Tell is rumoured to be very powerful for a Wolf-Blooded, possibly that she can summon spirit-wolves or turn into a spirit herself.

===The Hou – Kwun Tong===
Pure, Ivory Claws; their totem is Crimson and White Agony, a spirit of salt and pain. Known for their incredible ancestral and bloodline records, as well as their heavy involvement in Hong Kong politics and medical services. The Hou are seen as cruel, cold and clinical; few fates are worse than falling into the hands of a Hou torturer. The Hou claim to be the oldest and most legitimate of all the Five Great Packs, as unlike the other four the Hou already existed prior to 1899; Hou stories have it that they formed when the Punti migrated to Hong Kong in the 1200s, taking over the sacred mantle of an even older pack who were appointed by the Nine Dragons.

===The Peng – Hongkong Island===
Pure, mostly Ivory Claws; their totem is the Thousand Roaring Eyes and Mouths, a spirit of water and destruction. Known for their wealth and the role they play as financial agents for Pure across the world, their foreign contacts and also their martial traditions. The Peng claim that Hong Kong is actually the site on which Wolf was slain by its treacherous children. They are known for undertaking lavish, extravagant rituals offering sacrifices to the spirits and the waters in penance, to which werewolves of all stripes are invited. Despite their outwards expressions of wealth and openness, they're also said to be a hotbed of internal scheming due to the influence of rival spirit lords.

===The Tang – Hongkong Island===
Forsaken, mostly Bone Shadows and Storm Lords; their totem is the Pale Mandarin, a spirit of secrets, knowledge and fear. They are known for their information network and the dirt they're said to hold on every figure of note in Hong Kong, their knowledge of death and the Underworld, and their involvement in urban planning and development. Rumour has it that the Tang have successfully used occult geometries to create paths into the Deep Shadow. A few pieces of particularly bitter hearsay that refuse to die have it that the Tang take their marching orders from packs in Beijing.

Tang '''nieces/nephews''':
*'''Makisig''', Storm Lord Elodoth. A young Filipino from a relatively wealthy background, Makisig is tasked with keeping an eye on the younger parts of the population in Central & Western and Wan Chai. He's said to be involved in the city's music scene.

===The Liao – New Territories===
Forsaken, mostly Blood Talons; their totem is the Torn Banner, a spirit of change and violence. They are known for their fighting prowess, their trade and manufacture of spiritual goods (including fetishes and talens) and their connections to mainland China. The Liao are generally seen as the most traditionalist and conservative of the Five Great Packs, ironic given the nature of their totem and their own history; they were originally mostly Predator Kings, changing allegiance to the Forsaken via bloody infighting shortly after the Japanese occupation.

==Other Packs==

===The Sung-Ti – Mong Kok===
The Sung-Ti are a largely Fire-Touched pack of Pure holding territory to the north-east of the pack – and they still nurse a grudge over the loss of Cherry Gardens to Melissa Tsang in the 80s. Pitching themselves as judges of certain sins, the Sung-Ti reputedly have significant involvement in both the criminal side of Kowloon and its charities.

* ? Ash Talon ? - Fire-Touched crafter, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.
* ? Kanomi ? - Wolf-Blooded capable of overwhelming those who see her into believing she possesses incredible beauty, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.

===The Stone Lions – Various===
The Stone Lions are mostly Hunters in Darkness who oversee the occult maintenance of Boundary Street, once the limit of Hong Kong. The Lions are a 'daughter pack' of the Liao; they are also rumoured to participate in various sinister rituals to maintain their power.

===The Eyeless – Sham Shui Po===
The Eyeless are a strange and esoteric pack, believed to be a reclusive and likely heretical group of Forsaken. They generally avoid outside contact, but it is known that they pluck their own eyes out for some cultic purpose. Rumour links the Eyeless to the Japanese occupation, and those who would mock them call them the 'Nopera-Bo'.

===The Two Claw Society – Sham Shui Po===
The Two Claw Society are a pack of Bone Shadows and Blood Talons known to be particularly vicious in defending their territory, but also respected as being highly honourable. The Two Claws was created to deal with a horrific Wound resulting from a Japanese concentration camp on their territory – a Wound that still exists despite the pack's best efforts.

* Fan Chau, 'Crimson Autumn' - Bone Shadow Rahu. Belligerent member of the Lodge of Voices. Appears to have one of her hands replaced with someone else's through unknown means.

===The Tsen-Kuang – Tsim Sha Tsui===
A Pure pack on the south of the peninsula, known to be largely made up of Fire-Touched. The Tsen-Kuang have their claws firmly dug into the flow of migrants moving through Hong Kong, and are rumoured to cavort with Beshilu and other, even fouler denizens of the waterfronts. They are reputed to venerate an entity that they believe is responsible for stealing the Changes of nusuzul in Hong Kong; the Tsen-Kuang believe it to be a judge that weeds out those who are not worthy.

===Silver Horizon Futures - Various===
SH Futures appears to be a strange fusion of pack and corporation operating in Hong Kong. A subsidiary of the globe-spanning Cheiron, SHF is best known for its work in the bio-sciences and innovative energy generation solutions. The pack certainly includes both werewolves and Wolf-Blooded; the latter appear to hold the administrative and executive positions within the arrangement.

===The Old Dog-Walker's Club - Unknown===
The 'old dog-walkers club' is more of a rumour than a pack - a tale told amongst the Uratha of Hong Kong. The 'dog-walkers' are said to be the human and Wolf-Blooded members of old lesser packs that have since been destroyed or fallen apart, left to their own devices without Uratha leadership. The stories have it that sometimes a werewolf finds herself stalked and watched by a group of these humans as they gather information about her every move. Often, the dog-walkers then vanish once more, and the Uratha doesn't seem them again. Sometimes, though, the werewolf vanishes too.

==Other Groups and Entities==

===Civilians===
*'''Dachan Cuifen''', curator of the Taotie exhibit at the museum and university archaeology lecturer.
*'''Alec & Rong''', friends of Lao Min and fellow students at the university.

===14K Triad===

*'''Hom Wie, Hive-Claimed'''. Rumoured to be a Taoist sorcerer and feared by the lower ranks of the Triad for his brutality and twisted appearance. Hom Wie has some sort of link or connection to Wang Jing from the past, sufficiently strong to warn her of a forthcoming Triad war.
*''''Emperor' Koi''', 14K Red Pole. An influential Red Pole in the Sham Shui Po and Yau Tsim Mong districts, with designs on drugs and prostitution rackets throughout the area. Has long attempted to extend his influence over Cherry Gardens but has been held back to the influence of the Blossom Society.
*'''Man Sie''', 14K fence. Deals in technical and technological goods primarily, operating out of the Lamp House.

===Wo Shing Wo Triad===

===Beshilu===

*'''Mister Shu'''. Ancestor of Lao Min, but apparently still alive and well in San Hui in the New Territories. Some sort of spirit or petty divinity associated with rats that romanced a Lao woman in the early 1900s. Has Rat Hosts under his control. May actually be some sort of Rat Host of a previously unknown kind.

===Jiang Shi/Goeng Si===
The catch-all term for reanimated corpses; jiang shi are mostly thought to be unquiet dead who steal life force through drinking a victim's breath, but most other corporeal undead are referred to under the same label by the Uratha.

===Taotie===
Also known as the 'gluttonous ogres', taotie are very powerful entities of hunger that have been bound into ceramic masks and pottery. The mortal wielder of a taotie gains monstrous physical strength, the ability to cross the Gauntlet, and the ability to take the internal organs of a victim and place them within his or her own body. In return for this power, the taotie demands the sacrifice of the mortal wielder's own internal organs to feed its hunger. Manifesting its powers causes the taotie to drain a vast amount of Essence from the nearby ''Hisil'', often catastrophically for weaker spirits in the vicinity.
*'''Chua Chuo''', Sham Shui Po businessman and Taotie wielder - murdered Mark Callaghan-Cheung and She Wanli over property scheme using the power of the taotie. Killed by the Blossom Society. Apparently found the mask amongst some family belongings passed down to him.

===Yao Guai===
The catch-all term for shapeshifting creatures, but yao guai are particularly associated with a few traits. Yao Guai are often thought to be following Taoist sorcerous practices and to be seeking immortality. Some yao guai are fusions of spirit and flesh like the Uratha, but others are outright demonic and hellish in their nature. Yao guai are commonly cannibalistic, eating humans of particularly great virtue or spiritual excellence as part of their search for eternal life.

==Other Locations==

===Sham Shui Po===
*The '''Lamp House''', a 14K-patronised club and meeting space for transactions of stolen goods and the like.
*'''Bedford Rise''', a run-down neighbourhood influenced by the Rotting Heart of Decay. Bedford Rise centres around a pedestrianised central street, crammed full of cheap stores, dive clubs and massage parlours. The 14K operate in the area under the auspices of the Red Pole Koi.
*'''Tung Chau Battery''' is an old historical military building in Bedford Rise, now dilapidated and crumbling. Inhabited by the homeless and drug users in the Flesh, it served the Rotting Heart of Decay as a lair in the Shadow.

===Kowloon City District===
*'''Sung Wong Toi''', a significant landmark marking the end of the Southern Song Dynasty. Control over Sung Wong Toi is a matter of significant dispute between the Wen and the Hou.
*'''Little Thailand''', an area of Kowloon City District that has a large ethnically Thai population. A pack of mostly Thai werewolves called ''yaksha'' holds the area as their territory.

==Beyond Hong Kong==

===Macau – The Zealous Warlord's Domain===
Often referred to as the 'darker sibling' by Hong Kong Uratha, Macau has a sinister reputation amongst werewolves – even despite it being a Forsaken stronghold. Beneath its seemingly placid surface, Macau is a place of nightmares. From 1966 onwards, the notorious Blood Talon warlord 'Silver Claw' Yin fought a sustained and bloody campaign against the Pure, claiming to have been given divine visions by the Moon and instructions from the Lunes. After just ten years, the last Pure were annihilated or driven out of the city. In 1987, however, the Pure attempted to return. In the three decades since, Macau has seen repeated attacks by the Pure, particularly under the leadership of the Fire-Touched sibling Elders Sheu-Fuh and Shunyan, although they have not yet regained a foothold for more than a few months at a time. Its occult landscape is a mess, scarred by brutality, madness and the mostly-unchecked spiritual off-flow of the mass of humanity crammed into the region. Other things have also been drawn in or caught up by the violence; it is said there is an alchemist amongst the Iron Masters of Macau who knows how to render sorcerers down for their power, while both Bone Shadows and Ivory Claws are said to have some means of producing vampires which they use as disposable agents and killers in their shadow war. Both Destroyer Wolf and Red Wolf are said to have taken an active interest in events in Macau since the 60s, but there is a much, much older shrine to Red Wolf in the city that the Forsaken defend fanatically – some rumours allege it is Pangaean in origin. For now, Yin continues to rule her Protectorate with an iron fist.

Characters of Macau:
*'''Adao''' - Iron Master Elodoth. Portuguese smuggler.
*'''Red Mask''' - Iron Master ?. Revered as the high priest of Red Wolf's shrine in Macau.

===Shenzen – The City Without History===
Shenzen is a mirror of Hong Kong's success story – a busy port, major financial centre and huge city butting against its northern border. Shenzen exploded from a small town in the 80s to the urban behemoth of today, and the the Uratha of the province know full well its growth was down to more than just the PRC labelling it a Special Economic Zone. Something has long been awry with the very fabric of reality in Shenzen and someone, or something, caused the expansion of the city by stealing it from a history that never happened, a Shenzen that never was, and overlaying it into this world. The layout of the city possesses innumerable minor pieces of occult geometry, coming together into some sort of vast chronal siphon that forces this reality to match the Other Shenzen. For years, the 'city without history' and the time spirits that flock there served as a major attraction for Uratha seers and secret-seekers of both Pure and Forsaken, with bitter fighting breaking out across its prime territories, but the Cull have moved in in recent years – and established a major Deep Shadow monastery as a bastion. Now this major land route into Hong Kong is threatened, the Cull bringing in more adherents as the months progress and the Uratha of the City of Nine Dragons watching uneasily from over the border. Word has it that the Thousand Steel Teeth are gathering their own war parties, determined to defend their supply lines that run through Hong Kong and Shenzen out into the wider world. The new city of Shenzen may be about to become a battleground for a particularly vicious phase of the war with the Cull.

===Guangdong – Riches Worth Fighting For===
The province of Guangdong may be a large and prosperous region, but for the Forsaken of the area it is perhaps most characterised by its river spirits. Threading down to the Pearl River Delta, these spirits are probably the most organised, widespread and outright hostile court of Guangdong; the feud dates back to the battle of Yamen in 1279. Defeating and subjugating the local river spirits is an ongoing struggle, not at all helped by the Pure's own alliance with the River King. Despite this hostility, there is much for the Forsaken to covet here – the wealth of the human population and the uncommonly high number of wellsprings of Essence. Guangdong has a great abundance of sites that naturally form talens, rich loci of rare Resonances, and unusual qualities to the Shadow that make certain rites – such as those that craft fetishes – easier to work than elsewhere. The Claimed are a particular threat across the province, and the Storm Lords have traditionally been very powerful here; there are several Tribal bastions where the Iminir protect ancient artefacts and relics that are the destination of pilgrims from across the globe. The Storm Lords of Guangdong have a highly organised Tribal structure that crosses throughout the packs and Protectorates of the province, leading up to an elected gong whose task is to tend to the ancient, revered Tribal elder known as the Zongshi – a near-mythical figure amongst the Forsaken, said to alternate between sleeping in a Storm Lord fastness and prowling the Deep Shadow for the most terrifying of prey. Guangdong regularly sees the conflict between Forsaken and Pure flare into open and brutal warfare, but these periods are almost always short – usually a year or two at most before things lapse once again, agreements are made and lines redrawn. The recent arrival of sects of the Cull from the west and north, however, threatens to upset that balance.

===Taiwan – Tyrants of the Earth===
Taiwan's Shadow was once ruled by the spirits of the mountains and the grumbling, shifting earth – but around two centuries ago, the Forsaken of the island undertook a great and mighty binding on the lords of rock and stone to chain them with fetters of symbolism. This caused a great rift amongst the Taiwanese Tribes, with the Bone Shadows breaking off to form their own separate faction, condemning the act as one of hubris that would only serve to harm Shadow and Flesh alike. For two centuries now, the bindings have mostly held – but when they weaken or shift, the furious spirits of the earth vent their rage on the world. Even today, the Bone Shadows remain separate to the other Forsaken and have, as the years turn, formed a distinct identity from Hirfathra Hissu elsewhere as well. The Predator Kings have long sought to unmake the chains that bind the mountain spirits and once formed the bulk of the Pure numbers in Taiwan, but since the Chinese Civil War the other two Pure Tribes have made significant inroads into what was once almost entirely under Forsaken control. Today, Taiwanese Uratha are renowned for their mastery of rites and the binding of spirits, but often considered prideful and arrogant in their disdain for other werewolves who do not have the strength to chain the Shadow to their will. Taiwanese packs commonly include spirits enslaved to the pack's will, and even totems are treated less as respected equals and more as vassals or servants. The Bone Shadows continue to warn that a reckoning will yet come; but as each decade passes without sign of their forecast apocalypse, so does the scorn for the fifth Tribe rise amongst the Taiwanese.

===Philippines – The Spinner Hag's Bastion===
In many ways, Uratha in the Philippines have lives similar to werewolves elsewhere – though the boundaries of territories in the archipelago are often delineated by coastline and travel between islands can be tricky. The rising prosperity and development of the country has left Uratha with many of the same challenges and opportunities as in other nations. The Shadow across the Philippines, however, is in a ruinous state – and has been for millennia. By local lore, the Great Predator fought much of its battle with the Spinner Hag over what became these islands, and in many places the Gauntlet is still torn asunder by the mere echo of Wolf's claws and teeth. Worse, other patches of Gauntlet are thick and distended, shrouded in Azlo webs and said to contain oozing gobbets of the Hag's carcass. The Azlu are numerous and powerful here, and are no mere monstrous beasts – the Host spider-witches of the Philippines think and plan with an alien but clinically precise approach, their schemes spanning centuries. The poor state of the Gauntlet has also resulted in a much higher number of spirits crossing over into the Flesh, bizarre and unique forms of Claimed, and other entities born by the fusion of the two worlds. Repeated rumours bubble up that there are actually still areas of Pangaea itself hidden away, somehow saved from the Great Predator's death-howl. Unsurprisingly, the Hunters in Darkness lead the Forsaken here, and Filipino werewolves are said to be both particularly vigilant – or paranoid, by the less charitable – and particularly talented in the matter of wards and occult protections. The Philippines have long served as a destination for Hunter in Darkness pilgrimages – old and veteran Meninna from other countries, even far-off continents, have been known to 'retire' to this heart of Azlu power, and werewolves seeking lore and insights into the spider Hosts often seek out Filipino brethren for aid.

===Vietnam – The Harmonious Kings===
Early in the 20th Century, the Pure of Vietnam began to tip the scales against their Forsaken counterparts; they took advantage of the disruption and conflict that plagued the country until, after the US-Vietnam war and the fall of the South, the Fire-Touched and Predator Kings had near total domination of the unified country. The Forsaken of today, though, are having a comparatively easy time of it; the Pure are far more focused on warring with each other, and there are a number of powerful spirit nobles that have sided with the Forsaken in the wake of the Pure calling down horrific spirit-horrors from beyond Luna's orbit. The Predator Kings have split into two factions that battle one another with brutal ferocity, mainly due to the emergence of a radical, heretical Ninna Farakh Lodge called the Lan that has rapidly surged in converts. The Lan adhere to portions of Dire Wolf's philosophy, but are far more connected to humanity than their erstwhile comrades; the totem's ban makes it difficult for the Lan to work within society so they instead use a large cult of human and Wolf-Blooded go-betweens to sink their claws into Vietnam. Espousing a creed that the Predator Kings should adapt to the changing world and shepherd humanity to a harmonious union with the wild and the hunt, the Lan are largely uninterested in pursuing the Forsaken compared to destroying the Fire-Touched and converting or killing the rest of their Tribe. To the Forsaken, it all looks very much like the Predator Kings' penchant for savagery has finally turned inwards while the real Vietnam moves beyond their outmoded ways – but there are those who worry that the Harmonious Kings of the Lan are winning, and fear what may happen once they have done so. Some wonder if the Lan might be converted in turn to the Forsaken, but the Lodge has shown little interest in any Urdaga Creeds.

==New Material==

===New Rites===

'''Vex (Wolf Rite ●)''' 
This petty curse calls upon spirits of misfortune and malevolence to plague whoever has drawn the werewolf's ire. 
'''Symbols:''' Fire, venom, violence, the skill that is to be targeted. 
'''Cost:''' 1 Essence 
'''Action:''' Extended (5 successes; each roll represents 1 minute); resisted by the target's Composure. 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The Essence used to fuel this rite must come from a locus of hatred, pain, despair or decay. Additionally, the ritemaster must have a possession of the target, a nail clipping, a lock of hair or some other bodily substance from the intended victim. The ritemaster selects a single skill that will be cursed; thereafter, the first time the victim uses that skill in the following month, her result becomes a dramatic failure regardless of what she rolls. The ritemaster immediately knows when this happens. A character may only be the subject of a single vex at a time, and cannot be subjected again until the rite's month of duration has passed. 

'''Drain the Well (Pack Rite ●●●)''' 
This rite uses a locus to draw in its Resonance from the surrounding ar ea, draining the Shadow of Essence attuned to its nature. Paradoxically, this ensures the locus surges deep with Essence of that kind; if left untended, it will wash back out again stronger than before.
'''Symbols:''' Water, pain, piercing or draining, the Resonance type. 
'''Action:''' Extended (20 successes; each roll represents 10 minutes) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed at the site of a locus, draining Resonance into it. This has several effects: spirits and Uratha within 100 yards per dot of the rating of the Locus, or within the entire territory (whichever is larger), take the locus's rating as a penalty to all rolls for Influences that match its Resonance when outside its direct area. The Resonance is reduced in general, removing many incidents of the Resonant Condition across the affected region; draining a locus of pain would cause injuries and aches to inflict less pain, humans and animals will recover faster from harm and may simply not notice minor damage. This will have long-term effects on the Shadow and the material world. 
The ritemaster gains a persistent Ban Condition for the duration of the rite's effect, reflecting the Resonance of the locus; this Condition lifts when the rite ends. If the ritemaster ever violates the ban, the effects of the rite immediately end. If ended via ban violation, or if this rite is not performed on the locus again within a week of its duration ending, the locus becomes empowered for one month as if it were the subject of the Wellspring rite.

'''Shadow Signs (Pack Rite ●●●●)''' 
This rite may only be invoked on a territory that the ritemaster's pack has already sanctified with the Hunting Ground rite. It draws upon the secrets, the names and the flows of Essence that thread between the spirits of the territory's Shadow, revealing truths to the Uratha. 
'''Symbols:''' Writing or tattooing, wounds, whispers, the wind. 
'''Action:''' Extended (10 successes; each roll represents 1 minute) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month. 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed in the Shadow, within territory that the ritemaster's pack has placed the Hunting Ground rite upon. This causes that spot to become a nexus of information about the territory's Shadow. Over roughly a day, words and glyphs will carve themselves into the Shadow-stuff of an area roughly ten feet in radius, often oozing blood or ichor; these words spell out the names of powerful spirits in the area (Rank 3 and higher, as well as spirit nobles), indicate significant Shadow phenomena (like barrens, shoals, or an impending emotion-storm), and may also indicate other threats in the Shadow (such as warning of the warping spells that a Mage is using on the Hisil, or of a non-native monstrosity that has somehow breached the Gauntlet and is now marauding the spirits). The words update roughly every day, with old, bleeding warnings squirming aside for eruptions of fresh and oozing names as new, powerful spirits move in or a threat manifests itself. Any Uratha who reads the shadow signs gains a +3 bonus to locate or perceive spirits, entities or phenomena that they have seen the warnings or names of, while the rite lasts. However, picking key information out of the mass of glyphs and sigils is not necessarily straightforward.

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T16:50:29Z

Acrozatarim: /* Other Groups and Entities */

=Werewolf: the Forsaken - The Eater of Names=
A Werewolf: the Forsaken game set in Hong Kong.

==Hong Kong==

===Werewolf Oddities of Hong Kong===
*Something steals the First Change of the majority of nusuzul. At the moment of the Change, they have their newfound nature torn out of them by an unknown force, leaving them as normal humans suffering a psychotic break – even former Wolf-Blooded have their inheritance stripped from them at this moment.
*The territories of Hong Kong are a complete patchwork between the different factions. There are no solid battle lines between Pure and Forsaken, and the vertical nature of the urban landscape means that even a small scrap of land can be more than enough to patrol for most packs. The Shadow reflection of the city sees a spiritual ecosystem that is just as confused and turbulent.
*Due to the sheer population density and the patchwork nature of the territories, Hong Kong packs have strong traditions about hospitality and allowances for crossing another pack's turf – even between Pure and Forsaken.
*There are no Protectorates in Hong Kong. The closest to any sort of formal structure are the Five Great Packs – the Wen, Hou, Peng, Tang and Liao, formed from amongst the Uratha of the mortal clans of the area in 1899. The Great Packs are probably the largest and most influential of the city, but with respect comes responsibility, and they are expected to provide aid and guidance to other werewolves. These expectations, again, cross factional lines.
*Tribes and allegiances to Pure and Forsaken are important, but Hong Kong also plays host to a number of strange packs allied to neither faction, packs amongst foreign immigrant populations with odd practices and traditions, and a focus on Lodges. The sheer density of the city can make the patchwork of territories confusing and Tribes rarely organise on a wide scale, but Lodge connections matter and underpin much of the social fabric of Hong Kong.
*With so much movement in and out of Hong Kong, its transitional position in the world (geographically, politically and symbolically) and its possession of so many layers and shadows that even the werewolves cannot plumb them all, the city is a hotbed for weirdness and occult conspiracies. Yao guai and jiang shi slither through the darkness, hungry ghosts and watery shades prowl at the fringes, and now the forces of the dreaded Cull are preparing to assault the borders of the territory – something that has both Pure and Forsaken alike on edge.
*Local Uratha lore has it that, in some past age, Hong Kong was the site of a meeting between the Nine Dragons – held to be the eight Firstborn of the Pure and the Forsaken, and a last figure of disputed nature. Some believe it was one of the first Chinese emperors. It was this gathering of beings of incredible power that, it is claimed, is responsible for the strong currents of Essence that pour through the region's Shadow even today.
*The chenghuanshen, the city-spirit of Hong Kong, definitely exists – but its nature is not entirely clear. It may actually be a consciousness split across a number of powerful urban spirits, and seems quite capable of fighting with itself as much as any other spirit nobles of the region. Furthermore, it has a long-running feud with the spirits of the mountains and the peaks.

==The Blossom Society Pack==
History is important to the packs of Hong Kong, although knowledge of the past of the Forsaken is usually rather patchy:
*Most Kowloon Forsaken hark back to the '''Salt Eaters''', a pack that controlled much of the area in the middle of the second millenium.
*In the late 1800s, the third bubonic plague wracked China; as a result the '''Yellow-Feathered Owls''', a pack of Bone Shadows and Hunters in Darkness, controlled what is now Sham Shui Po.
*In 1899, territorial unrest with the five Chinese clans in the area resulted in the creation of the Five Great Packs; the original Cherry Gardens themselves were held by a daughter pack of the Wen, the '''White Jade''' pack.
*After the Japanese occupation, the predecessors of the Blossom Society took over the area. They were not opposed in doing so; the sheer damage done by the occupation had resulted in the deportation or deaths of most of the White Jade and their extended pack.

Of the pack's previous Uratha, the existing pack members may know of the following:
*''''Red Shroud'''' – Bone Shadow, formed pack in aftermath of Japanese occupation – famous for dealing with a terrifying plague of restless ghosts and widely venerated by Uratha across Hong Kong for her accomplishments.
*'''Wen Liang''' – Iron Master, powerful figure amongst the packs in the 60's and 70's, infamous for his involvement in the 1967 riots and his killing of a number of communist ringleaders. A name both respected and feared.
*'''Melissa Tsang''' – Blood Talon, took control of the Cherry Garden Night Market in the 80s by driving out the '''Sung-Ti''', a vicious yao guai and its Fire-Touched Pure followers.

The recent losses the pack has suffered are:
*'''James 'Steeljaw Trap' Liu''' – Hunter in Darkness Cahalith and member of the Lodge of Seven Venoms. Died five years ago fighting beshilu in the typhoon shelter; he sank a floating crane raft infested with Rat Hosts while he was still onboard.
*'''Gwok Mei''' – Bone Shadow Rahu and member of the Lodge of Death. Left two years ago in response to the Lodge calling a pilgrimage against the Cull in northern China. She has not been heard from since.
*'''Mark Callahan-Cheung''' – Iron Master shaman, local landlord and member of the Yau Tsim Mong district council. Died under strange circumstances one month before the game's beginning, which the pack had difficulties investigating due to Mark's public position as a councilman and the police and press interest in the case.

The totem of the pack is the '''Eight Lanterns Minister''', spirit of the Cherry Gardens Night Market. The minister appears in the form of a set of grandiose mandarin ministerial garb, threaded with lines of neon and jangling talismans of commerce, wrapped around a withered but strong frame. Its face is concealed behind a veil, but seems to emanate a gentle glow. Lanterns hang from a frame of lacquered wood that floats behind its shoulders; the colours of the lanterns often indicate the spirit's mood.

The Eight Lanterns Minister has served the pack as totem since the 1980s, its fortunes waxing and waning over that time. It is devious, smart and opportunistic. The Minister is a very lowly spirit noble, with a paltry court of lesser spirits of the market at its beck and call; it in turn is the vassal of the spirit noble of Temple Street Night Market, which has caused some friction with the Wen over the years.

===Werewolves===
*'''Red Lantern Widow, Bone Shadow Elodoth''', formerly wife of an up and coming politician until she killed him during her First Change. She uses his skull as a focus in her rites.
*'''Lucky Rat, Hunter in Darkness Rahu''', whose pest control company gives him an overwatch on Beshilu activity in the area. Possesses some anger issues.
*'''Wang Lee, Bone Shadow Irraka''', the youngest of the pack members and something of a street rat. Son of Wang Jing.
*'''Lao Min, newly-Changed Ithaeur''', straight-A's university student whose First Change was triggered by a manifestation of Death Wolf. Despite appearing as an embodiment of that Firstborn, she's leaning towards Red Wolf's Tribe.

===Wolf-Blooded===
*'''Zhongli Hu''' – 'Auntie' Hu is an elderly fortune-teller and seller of offerings and incense in the night market. She is also a Wolf-Blooded with the Piercing Eyes Tell. Hu was a little girl when Red Shroud ran these streets, claims to have been Wen Liang's mistress, and has certainly lived a storied life.
*'''Ko Lei''' runs the market's security, a sturdy man with a pock-marked face and a quick temper. Lei is a Wolf-Blooded with the Wolf's Meat Tell. He used to be a member of the 14K triad.
*'''Wang Jing''' – She owns and runs the Hive Bar, just outside the night market. She has the Skinner Tell, and has obviously been mentally scarred by some of what she has seen and done. The older pack members would only reference her past activities obliquely and refuse to give details. Some tension between her and her son.
*'''Zhao Bo''' – Widow's sister, who took a very different career path; she is a low-ranking financial auditor in Hong Kong's financial investigative body. Plagued by what she thought were psychiatric problems through her life, it was only since her sister Changed that she discovered the truth – the voices in her head were spirits. She is a Wolf-Blooded with the Waystone Tell.

===Humans===
*The exterminators of '''Yellow Kowloon Pest Control''' are the employees and associates of Arran's character. Working out of an office and storehouse in the territory, they're perhaps the most 'in the know' of all the humans about the supernatural, and they'd probably be hunters if they hadn't been brought under the wing of the pack. The company was briefly used as a front by a Rat Host, which is what drew the pack's attention.
*Several of the market's '''security guards''', Ko Lei's colleagues, are pack members. They know enough to understand that the pack have their back in keeping control of the Night Market, and they like to hang out with pack members to absorb some of the respect and fear that the werewolves are accorded.
*A half-dozen of the stall vendors are, like the security guards, pack members; they form the '''Mutual Activity Committee''' of the market, and the other shopkeepers know they're an 'inner circle' separate from the actual management (who are not pack members).
*'''Zhongli Zhuang''', or 'Uncle' Zhuang, is an old former Sun Yee On triad member and the husband of Auntie Hu. Despite his age, he still possesses a heavy frame; these days he sells occult tat and the like alongside his wife, but he also keeps an eye on the black market dealers in the area for the pack.
*'''Yi Kun''', owner of the Yi Healthy Wu Kwan (martial club), is a martial artist trainer who knows enough about the Uratha to understand their role as guardians of the area; he's had a few unpleasant run-ins over the years.

===Others===
*Michael Jin – a former manager of the Night Market, Michael died in the early 2000s in a horrific murder; a business rival with schemes on the property's future arranged for a construction 'accident' when a large block of concrete fell from scaffolding onto the man. Mister Jin was a client of the pack at the time, who were surprised by the lucidity his ghost retained after death. Michael is odd, fussy and obsessive, the broken remains of a personality clinging on to existence through his ties to the Night Market.

===The Totem - Eight Lanterns Minister (''Usufunsugal'' in the First Tongue)===
'''Rank 2 night market spirit''' 
'''Attributes:''' Power 2 Finesse 5 Resistance 2 
'''Willpower:''' 7 
'''Essence:''' 15 
'''Initiative:''' 7 
'''Defence:''' 2 
'''Speed:''' 10 
'''Size:''' 5 
'''Corpus:''' 7 
'''Influences:''' Wealth 1, Light 1 
'''Numina:''' Awe, Coin Curse*, Sign 
''Coin Curse – New Numina:'' The spirit may use this power on anyone it witnesses cheating in a trade, making a false deal or forcing a grievously unfair exchange, as long as money of some sort is involved. Coin Curse costs 1 Essence to use, and affects a coin, bank note, cheque or even money existing only as an electronic transfer. For as long as the character possesses that money in any way, they are affected by an increasingly unpleasant withering disease and the moderate Sick Tilt persistently; even if treated, it will return. Throwing or giving away the money ends the effect. 
'''Manifestations:''' Twilight Form, Gauntlet Breach, Materialise 
'''Ban:''' While the Cherry Gardens shrine of prosperity is damaged or desecrated, the Eight Lanterns Minister cannot leave the night market; if outside the market when the shrine is damaged, it is immediately called back. 
'''Bane:''' Glass from broken lights. 

==Cherry Gardens Market==
The pack's territory is centred around '''Cherry Gardens Night Market''', a night market that lies on the border between '''Sham Shui Po''' district (poor, working-class, lots of public housing) and '''Yau Tsim Mong''' district (core urban area, very high population density, lots of commercial). Cherry Gardens isn't as large or well-known as Temple Street, but it is still a bustling, busy market through the night hours.

The '''night market''' is the beating heart of the territory, catering to the workers of the two districts – cheap tat, mobile phones, clothes, cooked food, incense and paper offerings, and plenty more besides. The pack also holds:
- The surrounding '''residential blocks''' (shops on ground floors, cramped flats above, several with rooftop slums) up to two streets in each direction. These are mostly known by their block number - Lao Min's family lives in Tower 2, for example.
- To the west, the ground under the '''motorway fly-overs''' and then the '''waterfront'''. As well as some storehouses and parks, there are black market dealers and fortune-tellers in the shadow of the motorway.
- The waterfront is a '''typhoon shelter''', protected by a sea wall and a mixture of industrial and private – floating crane platforms, piles of shipping containers and junk-yards.

Crime in Cherry Gardens Night Market is low – petty theft, shoplifting and pickpocketing are common, but the market security guards have been aligned with the pack for years and have a reputation for brutality when dealing with real threats. The local triad gang, led by a Red Pole of the 14K Triad called 'Emperor' Koi, wants control of the night market but has never been able to extend his influence over it.

===Cherry Gardens characters===
*'''Chen Jin''', Spirit-Urged arsonist. Worker who lived in Tower 2 and was assembling some sort of occult explosive device that would use a summoned fire spirit to create an inferno. Appears to have been influenced by particular Wolf-Blooded, possibly tied to the Sung-Ti. Killed by Lao Min during her First Change.
*'''She Wanli''', manager of Tower 7 and shop owner. Affable, overweight local man who had his guts ripped out by the rampaging Taotie.
*'''Kwo Tien''', young tough. Lives in Cherry Gardens, claims to be part of the 14k Triad. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Taesuk Weyen''', patriarch of the Taesuk family. Lives in Cherry Gardens. Holds grudge against the Kwo family. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Hua''', minor tech criminal. Tattooed and hyperactive, Hua purveys petty illegalities - wiping stolen phones and computers, dealing in stolen data and the like.

===Cherry Gardens locations===
* The '''Blossom Society hall''' is a spacious basement subdivided into several smaller rooms, situated under a small laundry and bath-house on the night market shop-front. Once a triad gambling den, the basement includes a strong locus of prosperity and wealth (and, perhaps, greed) in the form of a shrine; the locus leads directly into the silken court of lanterns in the Shadow from which the Eight Lanterns Minister rules.
* One of the '''rooftop slums''' hangs precariously between towers 2 and 3, where the salvaged metal and wood bridge-way plays host to a minor locus of despair. The previous ithaeur, Mark, kept the insidious energies of the locus in check.

==Spirits and their Ilk==

===Lesser Spirits & Independents===
*The '''Crowdling''', a spirit of crowds that lairs around the Old Olympic MTR station. Carved the City Gift into Lucky Rat after being hunted in a chase that it greatly enjoyed.

===Nobles===
*'''Rotting Heart of Decay''', a lesser Ensih of urban decay and rot that held power over the run-down district of Bedford Rise. Granted boons by its liege, Crimson and White Agony, to let it better control the fief. Destroyed by the Blossom Society in a challenge for power and territory.
*'''Eight Lanterns Minister''', ruler of the Cherry Gardens Night Market.

===Servitors===
*'''Elders of Naga''', strange serpentine spirits of rock and bone. Follow in the wake of Death Wolf.

==The Five Great Packs==
The five pillars of Hong Kong Uratha society, born from agreements forged in 1899 alongside those made between the British colony and the local Chinese Punti clans, are called the Great Packs. Originally, each pack corresponded to the same mortal clan that it took the name of, but in the modern day there is no major link between the Punti clan families and the make-up of the pack in question. Most of the Great Packs are large, powerful and have two tiers amongst their Uratha members. The lower tier of 'nieces' and 'nephews' operate somewhat more like a conventional pack, but the upper tier of 'aunts' and 'uncles' are, oddly, less tightly bound together. The aunts and uncles are mentors, experts, revered elders and the like who focus more on their own matters, loosely connected to the other aunts and uncles but not necessarily very involved in the day-to-day running of the pack's assets. When an aunt or uncle asks for a service, the nephews and nieces are expected to snap to attention, but they are in turn expected not to abuse this authority to any great extent. Each Great Pack has a different system for providing more concrete leadership; the Hou select a single overall leader so that the other upper tier Uratha don't need to be bothered by petty concerns, while the Tang demand regular meetings of their aunts and uncles to ensure co-ordination.

The Great Packs are heavily tied into the occult fabric of Hong Kong, and possess considerable knowledge, influence and stockpiles of materials. A Lodge's leadership usually comes from Great Pack members. Each possesses an incredibly powerful totem spirit, but the nature of that relationship between pack and totem is closely guarded and outsiders suspect whatever agreement was signed in 1899 plays a heavy part.

===The Wen – Yau Tsim Mong===
Forsaken, mostly Hunters in Darkness and Iron Masters; their totem is the Serpent of Dreams and Bile, a spirit of incense, drugs and pollution. Known for their influence in shipping, narcotics, and their deep occult knowledge. The Wen have long been obsessed with hunting down the source of the Scourge, as they call the phenomenon that blights First Changes, and are known to truck with jiang shi, yao guai and other, stranger entities in their search for the truth.

Wen '''Aunts/Uncles''':
* '''Yeung He, 'Lightning Paper Fan'''' - Iron Master Ithaeur. Yeung He is one of the principle uncles of the Wen, a wealthy Hong Kong businessman who serves as the Great Pack's principle face of its occult side.
* '''Ten-Eyes Tsang''' - Storm Lord Ithaeur. Ten-Eyes is a drugs chemist and the principle responsible for the Wen drugs operation. Tsang is said to be a ''samzukwu'' or Three-Legged Crow, a member of the Lodge of Crows.

Wen '''Nieces/Nephews''':
* '''Dantea Wen''' - Hunter in Darkness Elodoth. Dantea is one of the most trusted lower-rankers in the Wen, slated for promotion and thus access to the pack's extensive resources. She is the local representative of the Lodge of the Seven Venoms, and a trained doctor.
* '''"Tightrope" Lei''' - Iron Master Irraka. Named for her habit of garroting prey, not for acrobatics.
*'''"Hapless" Fung''' - Storm Lord Rahu. Possesses incredible luck and is said to be cursed.
*'''"Pup" Sau''' - Iron Master Cahalith. Optimistic and hyperactive.

Wen '''Wolf-Blooded''':
*Inspector Hau Chen - HKPF Inspector and general police-force informant and contact for the Wen and affiliated packs. Tell is unknown.
*Zheng Fang - Full-time trusted gofer for the Wen. Immaculately dressed and presented but rumoured to be a very capable leg-breaker despite her appearance. Tell is rumoured to be very powerful for a Wolf-Blooded, possibly that she can summon spirit-wolves or turn into a spirit herself.

===The Hou – Kwun Tong===
Pure, Ivory Claws; their totem is Crimson and White Agony, a spirit of salt and pain. Known for their incredible ancestral and bloodline records, as well as their heavy involvement in Hong Kong politics and medical services. The Hou are seen as cruel, cold and clinical; few fates are worse than falling into the hands of a Hou torturer. The Hou claim to be the oldest and most legitimate of all the Five Great Packs, as unlike the other four the Hou already existed prior to 1899; Hou stories have it that they formed when the Punti migrated to Hong Kong in the 1200s, taking over the sacred mantle of an even older pack who were appointed by the Nine Dragons.

===The Peng – Hongkong Island===
Pure, mostly Ivory Claws; their totem is the Thousand Roaring Eyes and Mouths, a spirit of water and destruction. Known for their wealth and the role they play as financial agents for Pure across the world, their foreign contacts and also their martial traditions. The Peng claim that Hong Kong is actually the site on which Wolf was slain by its treacherous children. They are known for undertaking lavish, extravagant rituals offering sacrifices to the spirits and the waters in penance, to which werewolves of all stripes are invited. Despite their outwards expressions of wealth and openness, they're also said to be a hotbed of internal scheming due to the influence of rival spirit lords.

===The Tang – Hongkong Island===
Forsaken, mostly Bone Shadows and Storm Lords; their totem is the Pale Mandarin, a spirit of secrets, knowledge and fear. They are known for their information network and the dirt they're said to hold on every figure of note in Hong Kong, their knowledge of death and the Underworld, and their involvement in urban planning and development. Rumour has it that the Tang have successfully used occult geometries to create paths into the Deep Shadow. A few pieces of particularly bitter hearsay that refuse to die have it that the Tang take their marching orders from packs in Beijing.

Tang '''nieces/nephews''':
*'''Makisig''', Storm Lord Elodoth. A young Filipino from a relatively wealthy background, Makisig is tasked with keeping an eye on the younger parts of the population in Central & Western and Wan Chai. He's said to be involved in the city's music scene.

===The Liao – New Territories===
Forsaken, mostly Blood Talons; their totem is the Torn Banner, a spirit of change and violence. They are known for their fighting prowess, their trade and manufacture of spiritual goods (including fetishes and talens) and their connections to mainland China. The Liao are generally seen as the most traditionalist and conservative of the Five Great Packs, ironic given the nature of their totem and their own history; they were originally mostly Predator Kings, changing allegiance to the Forsaken via bloody infighting shortly after the Japanese occupation.

==Other Packs==

===The Sung-Ti – Mong Kok===
The Sung-Ti are a largely Fire-Touched pack of Pure holding territory to the north-east of the pack – and they still nurse a grudge over the loss of Cherry Gardens to Melissa Tsang in the 80s. Pitching themselves as judges of certain sins, the Sung-Ti reputedly have significant involvement in both the criminal side of Kowloon and its charities.

* ? Ash Talon ? - Fire-Touched crafter, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.
* ? Kanomi ? - Wolf-Blooded capable of overwhelming those who see her into believing she possesses incredible beauty, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.

===The Stone Lions – Various===
The Stone Lions are mostly Hunters in Darkness who oversee the occult maintenance of Boundary Street, once the limit of Hong Kong. The Lions are a 'daughter pack' of the Liao; they are also rumoured to participate in various sinister rituals to maintain their power.

===The Eyeless – Sham Shui Po===
The Eyeless are a strange and esoteric pack, believed to be a reclusive and likely heretical group of Forsaken. They generally avoid outside contact, but it is known that they pluck their own eyes out for some cultic purpose. Rumour links the Eyeless to the Japanese occupation, and those who would mock them call them the 'Nopera-Bo'.

===The Two Claw Society – Sham Shui Po===
The Two Claw Society are a pack of Bone Shadows and Blood Talons known to be particularly vicious in defending their territory, but also respected as being highly honourable. The Two Claws was created to deal with a horrific Wound resulting from a Japanese concentration camp on their territory – a Wound that still exists despite the pack's best efforts.

* Fan Chau, 'Crimson Autumn' - Bone Shadow Rahu. Belligerent member of the Lodge of Voices. Appears to have one of her hands replaced with someone else's through unknown means.

===The Tsen-Kuang – Tsim Sha Tsui===
A Pure pack on the south of the peninsula, known to be largely made up of Fire-Touched. The Tsen-Kuang have their claws firmly dug into the flow of migrants moving through Hong Kong, and are rumoured to cavort with Beshilu and other, even fouler denizens of the waterfronts. They are reputed to venerate an entity that they believe is responsible for stealing the Changes of nusuzul in Hong Kong; the Tsen-Kuang believe it to be a judge that weeds out those who are not worthy.

===Silver Horizon Futures - Various===
SH Futures appears to be a strange fusion of pack and corporation operating in Hong Kong. A subsidiary of the globe-spanning Cheiron, SHF is best known for its work in the bio-sciences and innovative energy generation solutions. The pack certainly includes both werewolves and Wolf-Blooded; the latter appear to hold the administrative and executive positions within the arrangement.

===The Old Dog-Walker's Club - Unknown===
The 'old dog-walkers club' is more of a rumour than a pack - a tale told amongst the Uratha of Hong Kong. The 'dog-walkers' are said to be the human and Wolf-Blooded members of old lesser packs that have since been destroyed or fallen apart, left to their own devices without Uratha leadership. The stories have it that sometimes a werewolf finds herself stalked and watched by a group of these humans as they gather information about her every move. Often, the dog-walkers then vanish once more, and the Uratha doesn't seem them again. Sometimes, though, the werewolf vanishes too.

==Other Groups and Entities==

===Civilians===
*'''Dachan Cuifen''', curator of the Taotie exhibit at the museum and university archaeology lecturer.
*'''Alec & Rong''', friends of Lao Min and fellow students at the university.

===14K Triad===

*'''Hom Wie, Hive-Claimed'''. Rumoured to be a Taoist sorcerer and feared by the lower ranks of the Triad for his brutality and twisted appearance. Hom Wie has some sort of link or connection to Wang Jing from the past, sufficiently strong to warn her of a forthcoming Triad war.
*''''Emperor' Koi''', 14K Red Pole. An influential Red Pole in the Sham Shui Po and Yau Tsim Mong districts, with designs on drugs and prostitution rackets throughout the area. Has long attempted to extend his influence over Cherry Gardens but has been held back to the influence of the Blossom Society.
*'''Man Sie''', 14K fence. Deals in technical and technological goods primarily, operating out of the Lamp House.

===Wo Shing Wo Triad===

===Beshilu===

*'''Mister Shu'''. Ancestor of Lao Min, but apparently still alive and well in San Hui in the New Territories. Some sort of spirit or petty divinity associated with rats that romanced a Lao woman in the early 1900s. Has Rat Hosts under his control. May actually be some sort of Rat Host of a previously unknown kind.

===Jiang Shi/Goeng Si===
The catch-all term for reanimated corpses; jiang shi are mostly thought to be unquiet dead who steal life force through drinking a victim's breath, but most other corporeal undead are referred to under the same label by the Uratha.

===Taotie===
Also known as the 'gluttonous ogres', taotie are very powerful entities of hunger that have been bound into ceramic masks and pottery. The mortal wielder of a taotie gains monstrous physical strength, the ability to cross the Gauntlet, and the ability to take the internal organs of a victim and place them within his or her own body. In return for this power, the taotie demands the sacrifice of the mortal wielder's own internal organs to feed its hunger. Manifesting its powers causes the taotie to drain a vast amount of Essence from the nearby ''Hisil'', often catastrophically for weaker spirits in the vicinity.
*'''Chua Chuo''', Sham Shui Po businessman and Taotie wielder - murdered Mark Callaghan-Cheung and She Wanli over property scheme using the power of the taotie. Killed by the Blossom Society. Apparently found the mask amongst some family belongings passed down to him.

===Yao Guai===
The catch-all term for shapeshifting creatures, but yao guai are particularly associated with a few traits. Yao Guai are often thought to be following Taoist sorcerous practices and to be seeking immortality. Some yao guai are fusions of spirit and flesh like the Uratha, but others are outright demonic and hellish in their nature. Yao guai are commonly cannibalistic, eating humans of particularly great virtue or spiritual excellence as part of their search for eternal life.

==Other Locations==

===Sham Shui Po===
*The '''Lamp House''', a 14K-patronised club and meeting space for transactions of stolen goods and the like.
*'''Bedford Rise''', a run-down neighbourhood influenced by the Rotting Heart of Decay. Bedford Rise centres around a pedestrianised central street, crammed full of cheap stores, dive clubs and massage parlours. The 14K operate in the area under the auspices of the Red Pole Koi.
*'''Tung Chau Battery''' is an old historical military building in Bedford Rise, now dilapidated and crumbling. Inhabited by the homeless and drug users in the Flesh, it served the Rotting Heart of Decay as a lair in the Shadow.

==Beyond Hong Kong==

===Macau – The Zealous Warlord's Domain===
Often referred to as the 'darker sibling' by Hong Kong Uratha, Macau has a sinister reputation amongst werewolves – even despite it being a Forsaken stronghold. Beneath its seemingly placid surface, Macau is a place of nightmares. From 1966 onwards, the notorious Blood Talon warlord 'Silver Claw' Yin fought a sustained and bloody campaign against the Pure, claiming to have been given divine visions by the Moon and instructions from the Lunes. After just ten years, the last Pure were annihilated or driven out of the city. In 1987, however, the Pure attempted to return. In the three decades since, Macau has seen repeated attacks by the Pure, particularly under the leadership of the Fire-Touched sibling Elders Sheu-Fuh and Shunyan, although they have not yet regained a foothold for more than a few months at a time. Its occult landscape is a mess, scarred by brutality, madness and the mostly-unchecked spiritual off-flow of the mass of humanity crammed into the region. Other things have also been drawn in or caught up by the violence; it is said there is an alchemist amongst the Iron Masters of Macau who knows how to render sorcerers down for their power, while both Bone Shadows and Ivory Claws are said to have some means of producing vampires which they use as disposable agents and killers in their shadow war. Both Destroyer Wolf and Red Wolf are said to have taken an active interest in events in Macau since the 60s, but there is a much, much older shrine to Red Wolf in the city that the Forsaken defend fanatically – some rumours allege it is Pangaean in origin. For now, Yin continues to rule her Protectorate with an iron fist.

Characters of Macau:
*'''Adao''' - Iron Master Elodoth. Portuguese smuggler.
*'''Red Mask''' - Iron Master ?. Revered as the high priest of Red Wolf's shrine in Macau.

===Shenzen – The City Without History===
Shenzen is a mirror of Hong Kong's success story – a busy port, major financial centre and huge city butting against its northern border. Shenzen exploded from a small town in the 80s to the urban behemoth of today, and the the Uratha of the province know full well its growth was down to more than just the PRC labelling it a Special Economic Zone. Something has long been awry with the very fabric of reality in Shenzen and someone, or something, caused the expansion of the city by stealing it from a history that never happened, a Shenzen that never was, and overlaying it into this world. The layout of the city possesses innumerable minor pieces of occult geometry, coming together into some sort of vast chronal siphon that forces this reality to match the Other Shenzen. For years, the 'city without history' and the time spirits that flock there served as a major attraction for Uratha seers and secret-seekers of both Pure and Forsaken, with bitter fighting breaking out across its prime territories, but the Cull have moved in in recent years – and established a major Deep Shadow monastery as a bastion. Now this major land route into Hong Kong is threatened, the Cull bringing in more adherents as the months progress and the Uratha of the City of Nine Dragons watching uneasily from over the border. Word has it that the Thousand Steel Teeth are gathering their own war parties, determined to defend their supply lines that run through Hong Kong and Shenzen out into the wider world. The new city of Shenzen may be about to become a battleground for a particularly vicious phase of the war with the Cull.

===Guangdong – Riches Worth Fighting For===
The province of Guangdong may be a large and prosperous region, but for the Forsaken of the area it is perhaps most characterised by its river spirits. Threading down to the Pearl River Delta, these spirits are probably the most organised, widespread and outright hostile court of Guangdong; the feud dates back to the battle of Yamen in 1279. Defeating and subjugating the local river spirits is an ongoing struggle, not at all helped by the Pure's own alliance with the River King. Despite this hostility, there is much for the Forsaken to covet here – the wealth of the human population and the uncommonly high number of wellsprings of Essence. Guangdong has a great abundance of sites that naturally form talens, rich loci of rare Resonances, and unusual qualities to the Shadow that make certain rites – such as those that craft fetishes – easier to work than elsewhere. The Claimed are a particular threat across the province, and the Storm Lords have traditionally been very powerful here; there are several Tribal bastions where the Iminir protect ancient artefacts and relics that are the destination of pilgrims from across the globe. The Storm Lords of Guangdong have a highly organised Tribal structure that crosses throughout the packs and Protectorates of the province, leading up to an elected gong whose task is to tend to the ancient, revered Tribal elder known as the Zongshi – a near-mythical figure amongst the Forsaken, said to alternate between sleeping in a Storm Lord fastness and prowling the Deep Shadow for the most terrifying of prey. Guangdong regularly sees the conflict between Forsaken and Pure flare into open and brutal warfare, but these periods are almost always short – usually a year or two at most before things lapse once again, agreements are made and lines redrawn. The recent arrival of sects of the Cull from the west and north, however, threatens to upset that balance.

===Taiwan – Tyrants of the Earth===
Taiwan's Shadow was once ruled by the spirits of the mountains and the grumbling, shifting earth – but around two centuries ago, the Forsaken of the island undertook a great and mighty binding on the lords of rock and stone to chain them with fetters of symbolism. This caused a great rift amongst the Taiwanese Tribes, with the Bone Shadows breaking off to form their own separate faction, condemning the act as one of hubris that would only serve to harm Shadow and Flesh alike. For two centuries now, the bindings have mostly held – but when they weaken or shift, the furious spirits of the earth vent their rage on the world. Even today, the Bone Shadows remain separate to the other Forsaken and have, as the years turn, formed a distinct identity from Hirfathra Hissu elsewhere as well. The Predator Kings have long sought to unmake the chains that bind the mountain spirits and once formed the bulk of the Pure numbers in Taiwan, but since the Chinese Civil War the other two Pure Tribes have made significant inroads into what was once almost entirely under Forsaken control. Today, Taiwanese Uratha are renowned for their mastery of rites and the binding of spirits, but often considered prideful and arrogant in their disdain for other werewolves who do not have the strength to chain the Shadow to their will. Taiwanese packs commonly include spirits enslaved to the pack's will, and even totems are treated less as respected equals and more as vassals or servants. The Bone Shadows continue to warn that a reckoning will yet come; but as each decade passes without sign of their forecast apocalypse, so does the scorn for the fifth Tribe rise amongst the Taiwanese.

===Philippines – The Spinner Hag's Bastion===
In many ways, Uratha in the Philippines have lives similar to werewolves elsewhere – though the boundaries of territories in the archipelago are often delineated by coastline and travel between islands can be tricky. The rising prosperity and development of the country has left Uratha with many of the same challenges and opportunities as in other nations. The Shadow across the Philippines, however, is in a ruinous state – and has been for millennia. By local lore, the Great Predator fought much of its battle with the Spinner Hag over what became these islands, and in many places the Gauntlet is still torn asunder by the mere echo of Wolf's claws and teeth. Worse, other patches of Gauntlet are thick and distended, shrouded in Azlo webs and said to contain oozing gobbets of the Hag's carcass. The Azlu are numerous and powerful here, and are no mere monstrous beasts – the Host spider-witches of the Philippines think and plan with an alien but clinically precise approach, their schemes spanning centuries. The poor state of the Gauntlet has also resulted in a much higher number of spirits crossing over into the Flesh, bizarre and unique forms of Claimed, and other entities born by the fusion of the two worlds. Repeated rumours bubble up that there are actually still areas of Pangaea itself hidden away, somehow saved from the Great Predator's death-howl. Unsurprisingly, the Hunters in Darkness lead the Forsaken here, and Filipino werewolves are said to be both particularly vigilant – or paranoid, by the less charitable – and particularly talented in the matter of wards and occult protections. The Philippines have long served as a destination for Hunter in Darkness pilgrimages – old and veteran Meninna from other countries, even far-off continents, have been known to 'retire' to this heart of Azlu power, and werewolves seeking lore and insights into the spider Hosts often seek out Filipino brethren for aid.

===Vietnam – The Harmonious Kings===
Early in the 20th Century, the Pure of Vietnam began to tip the scales against their Forsaken counterparts; they took advantage of the disruption and conflict that plagued the country until, after the US-Vietnam war and the fall of the South, the Fire-Touched and Predator Kings had near total domination of the unified country. The Forsaken of today, though, are having a comparatively easy time of it; the Pure are far more focused on warring with each other, and there are a number of powerful spirit nobles that have sided with the Forsaken in the wake of the Pure calling down horrific spirit-horrors from beyond Luna's orbit. The Predator Kings have split into two factions that battle one another with brutal ferocity, mainly due to the emergence of a radical, heretical Ninna Farakh Lodge called the Lan that has rapidly surged in converts. The Lan adhere to portions of Dire Wolf's philosophy, but are far more connected to humanity than their erstwhile comrades; the totem's ban makes it difficult for the Lan to work within society so they instead use a large cult of human and Wolf-Blooded go-betweens to sink their claws into Vietnam. Espousing a creed that the Predator Kings should adapt to the changing world and shepherd humanity to a harmonious union with the wild and the hunt, the Lan are largely uninterested in pursuing the Forsaken compared to destroying the Fire-Touched and converting or killing the rest of their Tribe. To the Forsaken, it all looks very much like the Predator Kings' penchant for savagery has finally turned inwards while the real Vietnam moves beyond their outmoded ways – but there are those who worry that the Harmonious Kings of the Lan are winning, and fear what may happen once they have done so. Some wonder if the Lan might be converted in turn to the Forsaken, but the Lodge has shown little interest in any Urdaga Creeds.

==New Material==

===New Rites===

'''Vex (Wolf Rite ●)''' 
This petty curse calls upon spirits of misfortune and malevolence to plague whoever has drawn the werewolf's ire. 
'''Symbols:''' Fire, venom, violence, the skill that is to be targeted. 
'''Cost:''' 1 Essence 
'''Action:''' Extended (5 successes; each roll represents 1 minute); resisted by the target's Composure. 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The Essence used to fuel this rite must come from a locus of hatred, pain, despair or decay. Additionally, the ritemaster must have a possession of the target, a nail clipping, a lock of hair or some other bodily substance from the intended victim. The ritemaster selects a single skill that will be cursed; thereafter, the first time the victim uses that skill in the following month, her result becomes a dramatic failure regardless of what she rolls. The ritemaster immediately knows when this happens. A character may only be the subject of a single vex at a time, and cannot be subjected again until the rite's month of duration has passed. 

'''Drain the Well (Pack Rite ●●●)''' 
This rite uses a locus to draw in its Resonance from the surrounding ar ea, draining the Shadow of Essence attuned to its nature. Paradoxically, this ensures the locus surges deep with Essence of that kind; if left untended, it will wash back out again stronger than before.
'''Symbols:''' Water, pain, piercing or draining, the Resonance type. 
'''Action:''' Extended (20 successes; each roll represents 10 minutes) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed at the site of a locus, draining Resonance into it. This has several effects: spirits and Uratha within 100 yards per dot of the rating of the Locus, or within the entire territory (whichever is larger), take the locus's rating as a penalty to all rolls for Influences that match its Resonance when outside its direct area. The Resonance is reduced in general, removing many incidents of the Resonant Condition across the affected region; draining a locus of pain would cause injuries and aches to inflict less pain, humans and animals will recover faster from harm and may simply not notice minor damage. This will have long-term effects on the Shadow and the material world. 
The ritemaster gains a persistent Ban Condition for the duration of the rite's effect, reflecting the Resonance of the locus; this Condition lifts when the rite ends. If the ritemaster ever violates the ban, the effects of the rite immediately end. If ended via ban violation, or if this rite is not performed on the locus again within a week of its duration ending, the locus becomes empowered for one month as if it were the subject of the Wellspring rite.

'''Shadow Signs (Pack Rite ●●●●)''' 
This rite may only be invoked on a territory that the ritemaster's pack has already sanctified with the Hunting Ground rite. It draws upon the secrets, the names and the flows of Essence that thread between the spirits of the territory's Shadow, revealing truths to the Uratha. 
'''Symbols:''' Writing or tattooing, wounds, whispers, the wind. 
'''Action:''' Extended (10 successes; each roll represents 1 minute) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month. 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed in the Shadow, within territory that the ritemaster's pack has placed the Hunting Ground rite upon. This causes that spot to become a nexus of information about the territory's Shadow. Over roughly a day, words and glyphs will carve themselves into the Shadow-stuff of an area roughly ten feet in radius, often oozing blood or ichor; these words spell out the names of powerful spirits in the area (Rank 3 and higher, as well as spirit nobles), indicate significant Shadow phenomena (like barrens, shoals, or an impending emotion-storm), and may also indicate other threats in the Shadow (such as warning of the warping spells that a Mage is using on the Hisil, or of a non-native monstrosity that has somehow breached the Gauntlet and is now marauding the spirits). The words update roughly every day, with old, bleeding warnings squirming aside for eruptions of fresh and oozing names as new, powerful spirits move in or a threat manifests itself. Any Uratha who reads the shadow signs gains a +3 bonus to locate or perceive spirits, entities or phenomena that they have seen the warnings or names of, while the rite lasts. However, picking key information out of the mass of glyphs and sigils is not necessarily straightforward.

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T16:44:29Z

Acrozatarim: /* Other Packs */

=Werewolf: the Forsaken - The Eater of Names=
A Werewolf: the Forsaken game set in Hong Kong.

==Hong Kong==

===Werewolf Oddities of Hong Kong===
*Something steals the First Change of the majority of nusuzul. At the moment of the Change, they have their newfound nature torn out of them by an unknown force, leaving them as normal humans suffering a psychotic break – even former Wolf-Blooded have their inheritance stripped from them at this moment.
*The territories of Hong Kong are a complete patchwork between the different factions. There are no solid battle lines between Pure and Forsaken, and the vertical nature of the urban landscape means that even a small scrap of land can be more than enough to patrol for most packs. The Shadow reflection of the city sees a spiritual ecosystem that is just as confused and turbulent.
*Due to the sheer population density and the patchwork nature of the territories, Hong Kong packs have strong traditions about hospitality and allowances for crossing another pack's turf – even between Pure and Forsaken.
*There are no Protectorates in Hong Kong. The closest to any sort of formal structure are the Five Great Packs – the Wen, Hou, Peng, Tang and Liao, formed from amongst the Uratha of the mortal clans of the area in 1899. The Great Packs are probably the largest and most influential of the city, but with respect comes responsibility, and they are expected to provide aid and guidance to other werewolves. These expectations, again, cross factional lines.
*Tribes and allegiances to Pure and Forsaken are important, but Hong Kong also plays host to a number of strange packs allied to neither faction, packs amongst foreign immigrant populations with odd practices and traditions, and a focus on Lodges. The sheer density of the city can make the patchwork of territories confusing and Tribes rarely organise on a wide scale, but Lodge connections matter and underpin much of the social fabric of Hong Kong.
*With so much movement in and out of Hong Kong, its transitional position in the world (geographically, politically and symbolically) and its possession of so many layers and shadows that even the werewolves cannot plumb them all, the city is a hotbed for weirdness and occult conspiracies. Yao guai and jiang shi slither through the darkness, hungry ghosts and watery shades prowl at the fringes, and now the forces of the dreaded Cull are preparing to assault the borders of the territory – something that has both Pure and Forsaken alike on edge.
*Local Uratha lore has it that, in some past age, Hong Kong was the site of a meeting between the Nine Dragons – held to be the eight Firstborn of the Pure and the Forsaken, and a last figure of disputed nature. Some believe it was one of the first Chinese emperors. It was this gathering of beings of incredible power that, it is claimed, is responsible for the strong currents of Essence that pour through the region's Shadow even today.
*The chenghuanshen, the city-spirit of Hong Kong, definitely exists – but its nature is not entirely clear. It may actually be a consciousness split across a number of powerful urban spirits, and seems quite capable of fighting with itself as much as any other spirit nobles of the region. Furthermore, it has a long-running feud with the spirits of the mountains and the peaks.

==The Blossom Society Pack==
History is important to the packs of Hong Kong, although knowledge of the past of the Forsaken is usually rather patchy:
*Most Kowloon Forsaken hark back to the '''Salt Eaters''', a pack that controlled much of the area in the middle of the second millenium.
*In the late 1800s, the third bubonic plague wracked China; as a result the '''Yellow-Feathered Owls''', a pack of Bone Shadows and Hunters in Darkness, controlled what is now Sham Shui Po.
*In 1899, territorial unrest with the five Chinese clans in the area resulted in the creation of the Five Great Packs; the original Cherry Gardens themselves were held by a daughter pack of the Wen, the '''White Jade''' pack.
*After the Japanese occupation, the predecessors of the Blossom Society took over the area. They were not opposed in doing so; the sheer damage done by the occupation had resulted in the deportation or deaths of most of the White Jade and their extended pack.

Of the pack's previous Uratha, the existing pack members may know of the following:
*''''Red Shroud'''' – Bone Shadow, formed pack in aftermath of Japanese occupation – famous for dealing with a terrifying plague of restless ghosts and widely venerated by Uratha across Hong Kong for her accomplishments.
*'''Wen Liang''' – Iron Master, powerful figure amongst the packs in the 60's and 70's, infamous for his involvement in the 1967 riots and his killing of a number of communist ringleaders. A name both respected and feared.
*'''Melissa Tsang''' – Blood Talon, took control of the Cherry Garden Night Market in the 80s by driving out the '''Sung-Ti''', a vicious yao guai and its Fire-Touched Pure followers.

The recent losses the pack has suffered are:
*'''James 'Steeljaw Trap' Liu''' – Hunter in Darkness Cahalith and member of the Lodge of Seven Venoms. Died five years ago fighting beshilu in the typhoon shelter; he sank a floating crane raft infested with Rat Hosts while he was still onboard.
*'''Gwok Mei''' – Bone Shadow Rahu and member of the Lodge of Death. Left two years ago in response to the Lodge calling a pilgrimage against the Cull in northern China. She has not been heard from since.
*'''Mark Callahan-Cheung''' – Iron Master shaman, local landlord and member of the Yau Tsim Mong district council. Died under strange circumstances one month before the game's beginning, which the pack had difficulties investigating due to Mark's public position as a councilman and the police and press interest in the case.

The totem of the pack is the '''Eight Lanterns Minister''', spirit of the Cherry Gardens Night Market. The minister appears in the form of a set of grandiose mandarin ministerial garb, threaded with lines of neon and jangling talismans of commerce, wrapped around a withered but strong frame. Its face is concealed behind a veil, but seems to emanate a gentle glow. Lanterns hang from a frame of lacquered wood that floats behind its shoulders; the colours of the lanterns often indicate the spirit's mood.

The Eight Lanterns Minister has served the pack as totem since the 1980s, its fortunes waxing and waning over that time. It is devious, smart and opportunistic. The Minister is a very lowly spirit noble, with a paltry court of lesser spirits of the market at its beck and call; it in turn is the vassal of the spirit noble of Temple Street Night Market, which has caused some friction with the Wen over the years.

===Werewolves===
*'''Red Lantern Widow, Bone Shadow Elodoth''', formerly wife of an up and coming politician until she killed him during her First Change. She uses his skull as a focus in her rites.
*'''Lucky Rat, Hunter in Darkness Rahu''', whose pest control company gives him an overwatch on Beshilu activity in the area. Possesses some anger issues.
*'''Wang Lee, Bone Shadow Irraka''', the youngest of the pack members and something of a street rat. Son of Wang Jing.
*'''Lao Min, newly-Changed Ithaeur''', straight-A's university student whose First Change was triggered by a manifestation of Death Wolf. Despite appearing as an embodiment of that Firstborn, she's leaning towards Red Wolf's Tribe.

===Wolf-Blooded===
*'''Zhongli Hu''' – 'Auntie' Hu is an elderly fortune-teller and seller of offerings and incense in the night market. She is also a Wolf-Blooded with the Piercing Eyes Tell. Hu was a little girl when Red Shroud ran these streets, claims to have been Wen Liang's mistress, and has certainly lived a storied life.
*'''Ko Lei''' runs the market's security, a sturdy man with a pock-marked face and a quick temper. Lei is a Wolf-Blooded with the Wolf's Meat Tell. He used to be a member of the 14K triad.
*'''Wang Jing''' – She owns and runs the Hive Bar, just outside the night market. She has the Skinner Tell, and has obviously been mentally scarred by some of what she has seen and done. The older pack members would only reference her past activities obliquely and refuse to give details. Some tension between her and her son.
*'''Zhao Bo''' – Widow's sister, who took a very different career path; she is a low-ranking financial auditor in Hong Kong's financial investigative body. Plagued by what she thought were psychiatric problems through her life, it was only since her sister Changed that she discovered the truth – the voices in her head were spirits. She is a Wolf-Blooded with the Waystone Tell.

===Humans===
*The exterminators of '''Yellow Kowloon Pest Control''' are the employees and associates of Arran's character. Working out of an office and storehouse in the territory, they're perhaps the most 'in the know' of all the humans about the supernatural, and they'd probably be hunters if they hadn't been brought under the wing of the pack. The company was briefly used as a front by a Rat Host, which is what drew the pack's attention.
*Several of the market's '''security guards''', Ko Lei's colleagues, are pack members. They know enough to understand that the pack have their back in keeping control of the Night Market, and they like to hang out with pack members to absorb some of the respect and fear that the werewolves are accorded.
*A half-dozen of the stall vendors are, like the security guards, pack members; they form the '''Mutual Activity Committee''' of the market, and the other shopkeepers know they're an 'inner circle' separate from the actual management (who are not pack members).
*'''Zhongli Zhuang''', or 'Uncle' Zhuang, is an old former Sun Yee On triad member and the husband of Auntie Hu. Despite his age, he still possesses a heavy frame; these days he sells occult tat and the like alongside his wife, but he also keeps an eye on the black market dealers in the area for the pack.
*'''Yi Kun''', owner of the Yi Healthy Wu Kwan (martial club), is a martial artist trainer who knows enough about the Uratha to understand their role as guardians of the area; he's had a few unpleasant run-ins over the years.

===Others===
*Michael Jin – a former manager of the Night Market, Michael died in the early 2000s in a horrific murder; a business rival with schemes on the property's future arranged for a construction 'accident' when a large block of concrete fell from scaffolding onto the man. Mister Jin was a client of the pack at the time, who were surprised by the lucidity his ghost retained after death. Michael is odd, fussy and obsessive, the broken remains of a personality clinging on to existence through his ties to the Night Market.

===The Totem - Eight Lanterns Minister (''Usufunsugal'' in the First Tongue)===
'''Rank 2 night market spirit''' 
'''Attributes:''' Power 2 Finesse 5 Resistance 2 
'''Willpower:''' 7 
'''Essence:''' 15 
'''Initiative:''' 7 
'''Defence:''' 2 
'''Speed:''' 10 
'''Size:''' 5 
'''Corpus:''' 7 
'''Influences:''' Wealth 1, Light 1 
'''Numina:''' Awe, Coin Curse*, Sign 
''Coin Curse – New Numina:'' The spirit may use this power on anyone it witnesses cheating in a trade, making a false deal or forcing a grievously unfair exchange, as long as money of some sort is involved. Coin Curse costs 1 Essence to use, and affects a coin, bank note, cheque or even money existing only as an electronic transfer. For as long as the character possesses that money in any way, they are affected by an increasingly unpleasant withering disease and the moderate Sick Tilt persistently; even if treated, it will return. Throwing or giving away the money ends the effect. 
'''Manifestations:''' Twilight Form, Gauntlet Breach, Materialise 
'''Ban:''' While the Cherry Gardens shrine of prosperity is damaged or desecrated, the Eight Lanterns Minister cannot leave the night market; if outside the market when the shrine is damaged, it is immediately called back. 
'''Bane:''' Glass from broken lights. 

==Cherry Gardens Market==
The pack's territory is centred around '''Cherry Gardens Night Market''', a night market that lies on the border between '''Sham Shui Po''' district (poor, working-class, lots of public housing) and '''Yau Tsim Mong''' district (core urban area, very high population density, lots of commercial). Cherry Gardens isn't as large or well-known as Temple Street, but it is still a bustling, busy market through the night hours.

The '''night market''' is the beating heart of the territory, catering to the workers of the two districts – cheap tat, mobile phones, clothes, cooked food, incense and paper offerings, and plenty more besides. The pack also holds:
- The surrounding '''residential blocks''' (shops on ground floors, cramped flats above, several with rooftop slums) up to two streets in each direction. These are mostly known by their block number - Lao Min's family lives in Tower 2, for example.
- To the west, the ground under the '''motorway fly-overs''' and then the '''waterfront'''. As well as some storehouses and parks, there are black market dealers and fortune-tellers in the shadow of the motorway.
- The waterfront is a '''typhoon shelter''', protected by a sea wall and a mixture of industrial and private – floating crane platforms, piles of shipping containers and junk-yards.

Crime in Cherry Gardens Night Market is low – petty theft, shoplifting and pickpocketing are common, but the market security guards have been aligned with the pack for years and have a reputation for brutality when dealing with real threats. The local triad gang, led by a Red Pole of the 14K Triad called 'Emperor' Koi, wants control of the night market but has never been able to extend his influence over it.

===Cherry Gardens characters===
*'''Chen Jin''', Spirit-Urged arsonist. Worker who lived in Tower 2 and was assembling some sort of occult explosive device that would use a summoned fire spirit to create an inferno. Appears to have been influenced by particular Wolf-Blooded, possibly tied to the Sung-Ti. Killed by Lao Min during her First Change.
*'''She Wanli''', manager of Tower 7 and shop owner. Affable, overweight local man who had his guts ripped out by the rampaging Taotie.
*'''Kwo Tien''', young tough. Lives in Cherry Gardens, claims to be part of the 14k Triad. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Taesuk Weyen''', patriarch of the Taesuk family. Lives in Cherry Gardens. Holds grudge against the Kwo family. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Hua''', minor tech criminal. Tattooed and hyperactive, Hua purveys petty illegalities - wiping stolen phones and computers, dealing in stolen data and the like.

===Cherry Gardens locations===
* The '''Blossom Society hall''' is a spacious basement subdivided into several smaller rooms, situated under a small laundry and bath-house on the night market shop-front. Once a triad gambling den, the basement includes a strong locus of prosperity and wealth (and, perhaps, greed) in the form of a shrine; the locus leads directly into the silken court of lanterns in the Shadow from which the Eight Lanterns Minister rules.
* One of the '''rooftop slums''' hangs precariously between towers 2 and 3, where the salvaged metal and wood bridge-way plays host to a minor locus of despair. The previous ithaeur, Mark, kept the insidious energies of the locus in check.

==Spirits and their Ilk==

===Lesser Spirits & Independents===
*The '''Crowdling''', a spirit of crowds that lairs around the Old Olympic MTR station. Carved the City Gift into Lucky Rat after being hunted in a chase that it greatly enjoyed.

===Nobles===
*'''Rotting Heart of Decay''', a lesser Ensih of urban decay and rot that held power over the run-down district of Bedford Rise. Granted boons by its liege, Crimson and White Agony, to let it better control the fief. Destroyed by the Blossom Society in a challenge for power and territory.
*'''Eight Lanterns Minister''', ruler of the Cherry Gardens Night Market.

===Servitors===
*'''Elders of Naga''', strange serpentine spirits of rock and bone. Follow in the wake of Death Wolf.

==The Five Great Packs==
The five pillars of Hong Kong Uratha society, born from agreements forged in 1899 alongside those made between the British colony and the local Chinese Punti clans, are called the Great Packs. Originally, each pack corresponded to the same mortal clan that it took the name of, but in the modern day there is no major link between the Punti clan families and the make-up of the pack in question. Most of the Great Packs are large, powerful and have two tiers amongst their Uratha members. The lower tier of 'nieces' and 'nephews' operate somewhat more like a conventional pack, but the upper tier of 'aunts' and 'uncles' are, oddly, less tightly bound together. The aunts and uncles are mentors, experts, revered elders and the like who focus more on their own matters, loosely connected to the other aunts and uncles but not necessarily very involved in the day-to-day running of the pack's assets. When an aunt or uncle asks for a service, the nephews and nieces are expected to snap to attention, but they are in turn expected not to abuse this authority to any great extent. Each Great Pack has a different system for providing more concrete leadership; the Hou select a single overall leader so that the other upper tier Uratha don't need to be bothered by petty concerns, while the Tang demand regular meetings of their aunts and uncles to ensure co-ordination.

The Great Packs are heavily tied into the occult fabric of Hong Kong, and possess considerable knowledge, influence and stockpiles of materials. A Lodge's leadership usually comes from Great Pack members. Each possesses an incredibly powerful totem spirit, but the nature of that relationship between pack and totem is closely guarded and outsiders suspect whatever agreement was signed in 1899 plays a heavy part.

===The Wen – Yau Tsim Mong===
Forsaken, mostly Hunters in Darkness and Iron Masters; their totem is the Serpent of Dreams and Bile, a spirit of incense, drugs and pollution. Known for their influence in shipping, narcotics, and their deep occult knowledge. The Wen have long been obsessed with hunting down the source of the Scourge, as they call the phenomenon that blights First Changes, and are known to truck with jiang shi, yao guai and other, stranger entities in their search for the truth.

Wen '''Aunts/Uncles''':
* '''Yeung He, 'Lightning Paper Fan'''' - Iron Master Ithaeur. Yeung He is one of the principle uncles of the Wen, a wealthy Hong Kong businessman who serves as the Great Pack's principle face of its occult side.
* '''Ten-Eyes Tsang''' - Storm Lord Ithaeur. Ten-Eyes is a drugs chemist and the principle responsible for the Wen drugs operation. Tsang is said to be a ''samzukwu'' or Three-Legged Crow, a member of the Lodge of Crows.

Wen '''Nieces/Nephews''':
* '''Dantea Wen''' - Hunter in Darkness Elodoth. Dantea is one of the most trusted lower-rankers in the Wen, slated for promotion and thus access to the pack's extensive resources. She is the local representative of the Lodge of the Seven Venoms, and a trained doctor.
* '''"Tightrope" Lei''' - Iron Master Irraka. Named for her habit of garroting prey, not for acrobatics.
*'''"Hapless" Fung''' - Storm Lord Rahu. Possesses incredible luck and is said to be cursed.
*'''"Pup" Sau''' - Iron Master Cahalith. Optimistic and hyperactive.

Wen '''Wolf-Blooded''':
*Inspector Hau Chen - HKPF Inspector and general police-force informant and contact for the Wen and affiliated packs. Tell is unknown.
*Zheng Fang - Full-time trusted gofer for the Wen. Immaculately dressed and presented but rumoured to be a very capable leg-breaker despite her appearance. Tell is rumoured to be very powerful for a Wolf-Blooded, possibly that she can summon spirit-wolves or turn into a spirit herself.

===The Hou – Kwun Tong===
Pure, Ivory Claws; their totem is Crimson and White Agony, a spirit of salt and pain. Known for their incredible ancestral and bloodline records, as well as their heavy involvement in Hong Kong politics and medical services. The Hou are seen as cruel, cold and clinical; few fates are worse than falling into the hands of a Hou torturer. The Hou claim to be the oldest and most legitimate of all the Five Great Packs, as unlike the other four the Hou already existed prior to 1899; Hou stories have it that they formed when the Punti migrated to Hong Kong in the 1200s, taking over the sacred mantle of an even older pack who were appointed by the Nine Dragons.

===The Peng – Hongkong Island===
Pure, mostly Ivory Claws; their totem is the Thousand Roaring Eyes and Mouths, a spirit of water and destruction. Known for their wealth and the role they play as financial agents for Pure across the world, their foreign contacts and also their martial traditions. The Peng claim that Hong Kong is actually the site on which Wolf was slain by its treacherous children. They are known for undertaking lavish, extravagant rituals offering sacrifices to the spirits and the waters in penance, to which werewolves of all stripes are invited. Despite their outwards expressions of wealth and openness, they're also said to be a hotbed of internal scheming due to the influence of rival spirit lords.

===The Tang – Hongkong Island===
Forsaken, mostly Bone Shadows and Storm Lords; their totem is the Pale Mandarin, a spirit of secrets, knowledge and fear. They are known for their information network and the dirt they're said to hold on every figure of note in Hong Kong, their knowledge of death and the Underworld, and their involvement in urban planning and development. Rumour has it that the Tang have successfully used occult geometries to create paths into the Deep Shadow. A few pieces of particularly bitter hearsay that refuse to die have it that the Tang take their marching orders from packs in Beijing.

Tang '''nieces/nephews''':
*'''Makisig''', Storm Lord Elodoth. A young Filipino from a relatively wealthy background, Makisig is tasked with keeping an eye on the younger parts of the population in Central & Western and Wan Chai. He's said to be involved in the city's music scene.

===The Liao – New Territories===
Forsaken, mostly Blood Talons; their totem is the Torn Banner, a spirit of change and violence. They are known for their fighting prowess, their trade and manufacture of spiritual goods (including fetishes and talens) and their connections to mainland China. The Liao are generally seen as the most traditionalist and conservative of the Five Great Packs, ironic given the nature of their totem and their own history; they were originally mostly Predator Kings, changing allegiance to the Forsaken via bloody infighting shortly after the Japanese occupation.

==Other Packs==

===The Sung-Ti – Mong Kok===
The Sung-Ti are a largely Fire-Touched pack of Pure holding territory to the north-east of the pack – and they still nurse a grudge over the loss of Cherry Gardens to Melissa Tsang in the 80s. Pitching themselves as judges of certain sins, the Sung-Ti reputedly have significant involvement in both the criminal side of Kowloon and its charities.

* ? Ash Talon ? - Fire-Touched crafter, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.
* ? Kanomi ? - Wolf-Blooded capable of overwhelming those who see her into believing she possesses incredible beauty, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.

===The Stone Lions – Various===
The Stone Lions are mostly Hunters in Darkness who oversee the occult maintenance of Boundary Street, once the limit of Hong Kong. The Lions are a 'daughter pack' of the Liao; they are also rumoured to participate in various sinister rituals to maintain their power.

===The Eyeless – Sham Shui Po===
The Eyeless are a strange and esoteric pack, believed to be a reclusive and likely heretical group of Forsaken. They generally avoid outside contact, but it is known that they pluck their own eyes out for some cultic purpose. Rumour links the Eyeless to the Japanese occupation, and those who would mock them call them the 'Nopera-Bo'.

===The Two Claw Society – Sham Shui Po===
The Two Claw Society are a pack of Bone Shadows and Blood Talons known to be particularly vicious in defending their territory, but also respected as being highly honourable. The Two Claws was created to deal with a horrific Wound resulting from a Japanese concentration camp on their territory – a Wound that still exists despite the pack's best efforts.

* Fan Chau, 'Crimson Autumn' - Bone Shadow Rahu. Belligerent member of the Lodge of Voices. Appears to have one of her hands replaced with someone else's through unknown means.

===The Tsen-Kuang – Tsim Sha Tsui===
A Pure pack on the south of the peninsula, known to be largely made up of Fire-Touched. The Tsen-Kuang have their claws firmly dug into the flow of migrants moving through Hong Kong, and are rumoured to cavort with Beshilu and other, even fouler denizens of the waterfronts. They are reputed to venerate an entity that they believe is responsible for stealing the Changes of nusuzul in Hong Kong; the Tsen-Kuang believe it to be a judge that weeds out those who are not worthy.

===Silver Horizon Futures - Various===
SH Futures appears to be a strange fusion of pack and corporation operating in Hong Kong. A subsidiary of the globe-spanning Cheiron, SHF is best known for its work in the bio-sciences and innovative energy generation solutions. The pack certainly includes both werewolves and Wolf-Blooded; the latter appear to hold the administrative and executive positions within the arrangement.

===The Old Dog-Walker's Club - Unknown===
The 'old dog-walkers club' is more of a rumour than a pack - a tale told amongst the Uratha of Hong Kong. The 'dog-walkers' are said to be the human and Wolf-Blooded members of old lesser packs that have since been destroyed or fallen apart, left to their own devices without Uratha leadership. The stories have it that sometimes a werewolf finds herself stalked and watched by a group of these humans as they gather information about her every move. Often, the dog-walkers then vanish once more, and the Uratha doesn't seem them again. Sometimes, though, the werewolf vanishes too.

==Other Groups and Entities==

===Civilians===
*'''Dachan Cuifen''', curator of the Taotie exhibit at the museum and university archaeology lecturer.
*'''Alec & Rong''', friends of Lao Min and fellow students at the university.

===14K Triad===

*'''Hom Wie, Hive-Claimed'''. Rumoured to be a Taoist sorcerer and feared by the lower ranks of the Triad for his brutality and twisted appearance. Hom Wie has some sort of link or connection to Wang Jing from the past, sufficiently strong to warn her of a forthcoming Triad war.
*''''Emperor' Koi''', 14K Red Pole. An influential Red Pole in the Sham Shui Po and Yau Tsim Mong districts, with designs on drugs and prostitution rackets throughout the area. Has long attempted to extend his influence over Cherry Gardens but has been held back to the influence of the Blossom Society.
*'''Man Sie''', 14K fence. Deals in technical and technological goods primarily, operating out of the Lamp House.

===Wo Shing Wo Triad===

===Beshilu===

*'''Mister Shu'''. Ancestor of Lao Min, but apparently still alive and well in San Hui in the New Territories. Some sort of spirit or petty divinity associated with rats that romanced a Lao woman in the early 1900s. Has Rat Hosts under his control. May actually be some sort of Rat Host of a previously unknown kind.

===Taotie===
Also known as the 'gluttonous ogres', taotie are very powerful entities of hunger that have been bound into ceramic masks and pottery. The mortal wielder of a taotie gains monstrous physical strength, the ability to cross the Gauntlet, and the ability to take the internal organs of a victim and place them within his or her own body. In return for this power, the taotie demands the sacrifice of the mortal wielder's own internal organs to feed its hunger. Manifesting its powers causes the taotie to drain a vast amount of Essence from the nearby ''Hisil'', often catastrophically for weaker spirits in the vicinity.
*'''Chua Chuo''', Sham Shui Po businessman and Taotie wielder - murdered Mark Callaghan-Cheung and She Wanli over property scheme using the power of the taotie. Killed by the Blossom Society. Apparently found the mask amongst some family belongings passed down to him.

==Other Locations==

===Sham Shui Po===
*The '''Lamp House''', a 14K-patronised club and meeting space for transactions of stolen goods and the like.
*'''Bedford Rise''', a run-down neighbourhood influenced by the Rotting Heart of Decay. Bedford Rise centres around a pedestrianised central street, crammed full of cheap stores, dive clubs and massage parlours. The 14K operate in the area under the auspices of the Red Pole Koi.
*'''Tung Chau Battery''' is an old historical military building in Bedford Rise, now dilapidated and crumbling. Inhabited by the homeless and drug users in the Flesh, it served the Rotting Heart of Decay as a lair in the Shadow.

==Beyond Hong Kong==

===Macau – The Zealous Warlord's Domain===
Often referred to as the 'darker sibling' by Hong Kong Uratha, Macau has a sinister reputation amongst werewolves – even despite it being a Forsaken stronghold. Beneath its seemingly placid surface, Macau is a place of nightmares. From 1966 onwards, the notorious Blood Talon warlord 'Silver Claw' Yin fought a sustained and bloody campaign against the Pure, claiming to have been given divine visions by the Moon and instructions from the Lunes. After just ten years, the last Pure were annihilated or driven out of the city. In 1987, however, the Pure attempted to return. In the three decades since, Macau has seen repeated attacks by the Pure, particularly under the leadership of the Fire-Touched sibling Elders Sheu-Fuh and Shunyan, although they have not yet regained a foothold for more than a few months at a time. Its occult landscape is a mess, scarred by brutality, madness and the mostly-unchecked spiritual off-flow of the mass of humanity crammed into the region. Other things have also been drawn in or caught up by the violence; it is said there is an alchemist amongst the Iron Masters of Macau who knows how to render sorcerers down for their power, while both Bone Shadows and Ivory Claws are said to have some means of producing vampires which they use as disposable agents and killers in their shadow war. Both Destroyer Wolf and Red Wolf are said to have taken an active interest in events in Macau since the 60s, but there is a much, much older shrine to Red Wolf in the city that the Forsaken defend fanatically – some rumours allege it is Pangaean in origin. For now, Yin continues to rule her Protectorate with an iron fist.

Characters of Macau:
*'''Adao''' - Iron Master Elodoth. Portuguese smuggler.
*'''Red Mask''' - Iron Master ?. Revered as the high priest of Red Wolf's shrine in Macau.

===Shenzen – The City Without History===
Shenzen is a mirror of Hong Kong's success story – a busy port, major financial centre and huge city butting against its northern border. Shenzen exploded from a small town in the 80s to the urban behemoth of today, and the the Uratha of the province know full well its growth was down to more than just the PRC labelling it a Special Economic Zone. Something has long been awry with the very fabric of reality in Shenzen and someone, or something, caused the expansion of the city by stealing it from a history that never happened, a Shenzen that never was, and overlaying it into this world. The layout of the city possesses innumerable minor pieces of occult geometry, coming together into some sort of vast chronal siphon that forces this reality to match the Other Shenzen. For years, the 'city without history' and the time spirits that flock there served as a major attraction for Uratha seers and secret-seekers of both Pure and Forsaken, with bitter fighting breaking out across its prime territories, but the Cull have moved in in recent years – and established a major Deep Shadow monastery as a bastion. Now this major land route into Hong Kong is threatened, the Cull bringing in more adherents as the months progress and the Uratha of the City of Nine Dragons watching uneasily from over the border. Word has it that the Thousand Steel Teeth are gathering their own war parties, determined to defend their supply lines that run through Hong Kong and Shenzen out into the wider world. The new city of Shenzen may be about to become a battleground for a particularly vicious phase of the war with the Cull.

===Guangdong – Riches Worth Fighting For===
The province of Guangdong may be a large and prosperous region, but for the Forsaken of the area it is perhaps most characterised by its river spirits. Threading down to the Pearl River Delta, these spirits are probably the most organised, widespread and outright hostile court of Guangdong; the feud dates back to the battle of Yamen in 1279. Defeating and subjugating the local river spirits is an ongoing struggle, not at all helped by the Pure's own alliance with the River King. Despite this hostility, there is much for the Forsaken to covet here – the wealth of the human population and the uncommonly high number of wellsprings of Essence. Guangdong has a great abundance of sites that naturally form talens, rich loci of rare Resonances, and unusual qualities to the Shadow that make certain rites – such as those that craft fetishes – easier to work than elsewhere. The Claimed are a particular threat across the province, and the Storm Lords have traditionally been very powerful here; there are several Tribal bastions where the Iminir protect ancient artefacts and relics that are the destination of pilgrims from across the globe. The Storm Lords of Guangdong have a highly organised Tribal structure that crosses throughout the packs and Protectorates of the province, leading up to an elected gong whose task is to tend to the ancient, revered Tribal elder known as the Zongshi – a near-mythical figure amongst the Forsaken, said to alternate between sleeping in a Storm Lord fastness and prowling the Deep Shadow for the most terrifying of prey. Guangdong regularly sees the conflict between Forsaken and Pure flare into open and brutal warfare, but these periods are almost always short – usually a year or two at most before things lapse once again, agreements are made and lines redrawn. The recent arrival of sects of the Cull from the west and north, however, threatens to upset that balance.

===Taiwan – Tyrants of the Earth===
Taiwan's Shadow was once ruled by the spirits of the mountains and the grumbling, shifting earth – but around two centuries ago, the Forsaken of the island undertook a great and mighty binding on the lords of rock and stone to chain them with fetters of symbolism. This caused a great rift amongst the Taiwanese Tribes, with the Bone Shadows breaking off to form their own separate faction, condemning the act as one of hubris that would only serve to harm Shadow and Flesh alike. For two centuries now, the bindings have mostly held – but when they weaken or shift, the furious spirits of the earth vent their rage on the world. Even today, the Bone Shadows remain separate to the other Forsaken and have, as the years turn, formed a distinct identity from Hirfathra Hissu elsewhere as well. The Predator Kings have long sought to unmake the chains that bind the mountain spirits and once formed the bulk of the Pure numbers in Taiwan, but since the Chinese Civil War the other two Pure Tribes have made significant inroads into what was once almost entirely under Forsaken control. Today, Taiwanese Uratha are renowned for their mastery of rites and the binding of spirits, but often considered prideful and arrogant in their disdain for other werewolves who do not have the strength to chain the Shadow to their will. Taiwanese packs commonly include spirits enslaved to the pack's will, and even totems are treated less as respected equals and more as vassals or servants. The Bone Shadows continue to warn that a reckoning will yet come; but as each decade passes without sign of their forecast apocalypse, so does the scorn for the fifth Tribe rise amongst the Taiwanese.

===Philippines – The Spinner Hag's Bastion===
In many ways, Uratha in the Philippines have lives similar to werewolves elsewhere – though the boundaries of territories in the archipelago are often delineated by coastline and travel between islands can be tricky. The rising prosperity and development of the country has left Uratha with many of the same challenges and opportunities as in other nations. The Shadow across the Philippines, however, is in a ruinous state – and has been for millennia. By local lore, the Great Predator fought much of its battle with the Spinner Hag over what became these islands, and in many places the Gauntlet is still torn asunder by the mere echo of Wolf's claws and teeth. Worse, other patches of Gauntlet are thick and distended, shrouded in Azlo webs and said to contain oozing gobbets of the Hag's carcass. The Azlu are numerous and powerful here, and are no mere monstrous beasts – the Host spider-witches of the Philippines think and plan with an alien but clinically precise approach, their schemes spanning centuries. The poor state of the Gauntlet has also resulted in a much higher number of spirits crossing over into the Flesh, bizarre and unique forms of Claimed, and other entities born by the fusion of the two worlds. Repeated rumours bubble up that there are actually still areas of Pangaea itself hidden away, somehow saved from the Great Predator's death-howl. Unsurprisingly, the Hunters in Darkness lead the Forsaken here, and Filipino werewolves are said to be both particularly vigilant – or paranoid, by the less charitable – and particularly talented in the matter of wards and occult protections. The Philippines have long served as a destination for Hunter in Darkness pilgrimages – old and veteran Meninna from other countries, even far-off continents, have been known to 'retire' to this heart of Azlu power, and werewolves seeking lore and insights into the spider Hosts often seek out Filipino brethren for aid.

===Vietnam – The Harmonious Kings===
Early in the 20th Century, the Pure of Vietnam began to tip the scales against their Forsaken counterparts; they took advantage of the disruption and conflict that plagued the country until, after the US-Vietnam war and the fall of the South, the Fire-Touched and Predator Kings had near total domination of the unified country. The Forsaken of today, though, are having a comparatively easy time of it; the Pure are far more focused on warring with each other, and there are a number of powerful spirit nobles that have sided with the Forsaken in the wake of the Pure calling down horrific spirit-horrors from beyond Luna's orbit. The Predator Kings have split into two factions that battle one another with brutal ferocity, mainly due to the emergence of a radical, heretical Ninna Farakh Lodge called the Lan that has rapidly surged in converts. The Lan adhere to portions of Dire Wolf's philosophy, but are far more connected to humanity than their erstwhile comrades; the totem's ban makes it difficult for the Lan to work within society so they instead use a large cult of human and Wolf-Blooded go-betweens to sink their claws into Vietnam. Espousing a creed that the Predator Kings should adapt to the changing world and shepherd humanity to a harmonious union with the wild and the hunt, the Lan are largely uninterested in pursuing the Forsaken compared to destroying the Fire-Touched and converting or killing the rest of their Tribe. To the Forsaken, it all looks very much like the Predator Kings' penchant for savagery has finally turned inwards while the real Vietnam moves beyond their outmoded ways – but there are those who worry that the Harmonious Kings of the Lan are winning, and fear what may happen once they have done so. Some wonder if the Lan might be converted in turn to the Forsaken, but the Lodge has shown little interest in any Urdaga Creeds.

==New Material==

===New Rites===

'''Vex (Wolf Rite ●)''' 
This petty curse calls upon spirits of misfortune and malevolence to plague whoever has drawn the werewolf's ire. 
'''Symbols:''' Fire, venom, violence, the skill that is to be targeted. 
'''Cost:''' 1 Essence 
'''Action:''' Extended (5 successes; each roll represents 1 minute); resisted by the target's Composure. 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The Essence used to fuel this rite must come from a locus of hatred, pain, despair or decay. Additionally, the ritemaster must have a possession of the target, a nail clipping, a lock of hair or some other bodily substance from the intended victim. The ritemaster selects a single skill that will be cursed; thereafter, the first time the victim uses that skill in the following month, her result becomes a dramatic failure regardless of what she rolls. The ritemaster immediately knows when this happens. A character may only be the subject of a single vex at a time, and cannot be subjected again until the rite's month of duration has passed. 

'''Drain the Well (Pack Rite ●●●)''' 
This rite uses a locus to draw in its Resonance from the surrounding ar ea, draining the Shadow of Essence attuned to its nature. Paradoxically, this ensures the locus surges deep with Essence of that kind; if left untended, it will wash back out again stronger than before.
'''Symbols:''' Water, pain, piercing or draining, the Resonance type. 
'''Action:''' Extended (20 successes; each roll represents 10 minutes) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed at the site of a locus, draining Resonance into it. This has several effects: spirits and Uratha within 100 yards per dot of the rating of the Locus, or within the entire territory (whichever is larger), take the locus's rating as a penalty to all rolls for Influences that match its Resonance when outside its direct area. The Resonance is reduced in general, removing many incidents of the Resonant Condition across the affected region; draining a locus of pain would cause injuries and aches to inflict less pain, humans and animals will recover faster from harm and may simply not notice minor damage. This will have long-term effects on the Shadow and the material world. 
The ritemaster gains a persistent Ban Condition for the duration of the rite's effect, reflecting the Resonance of the locus; this Condition lifts when the rite ends. If the ritemaster ever violates the ban, the effects of the rite immediately end. If ended via ban violation, or if this rite is not performed on the locus again within a week of its duration ending, the locus becomes empowered for one month as if it were the subject of the Wellspring rite.

'''Shadow Signs (Pack Rite ●●●●)''' 
This rite may only be invoked on a territory that the ritemaster's pack has already sanctified with the Hunting Ground rite. It draws upon the secrets, the names and the flows of Essence that thread between the spirits of the territory's Shadow, revealing truths to the Uratha. 
'''Symbols:''' Writing or tattooing, wounds, whispers, the wind. 
'''Action:''' Extended (10 successes; each roll represents 1 minute) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month. 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed in the Shadow, within territory that the ritemaster's pack has placed the Hunting Ground rite upon. This causes that spot to become a nexus of information about the territory's Shadow. Over roughly a day, words and glyphs will carve themselves into the Shadow-stuff of an area roughly ten feet in radius, often oozing blood or ichor; these words spell out the names of powerful spirits in the area (Rank 3 and higher, as well as spirit nobles), indicate significant Shadow phenomena (like barrens, shoals, or an impending emotion-storm), and may also indicate other threats in the Shadow (such as warning of the warping spells that a Mage is using on the Hisil, or of a non-native monstrosity that has somehow breached the Gauntlet and is now marauding the spirits). The words update roughly every day, with old, bleeding warnings squirming aside for eruptions of fresh and oozing names as new, powerful spirits move in or a threat manifests itself. Any Uratha who reads the shadow signs gains a +3 bonus to locate or perceive spirits, entities or phenomena that they have seen the warnings or names of, while the rite lasts. However, picking key information out of the mass of glyphs and sigils is not necessarily straightforward.

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T16:41:18Z

Acrozatarim: /* Other Groups and Entities */

=Werewolf: the Forsaken - The Eater of Names=
A Werewolf: the Forsaken game set in Hong Kong.

==Hong Kong==

===Werewolf Oddities of Hong Kong===
*Something steals the First Change of the majority of nusuzul. At the moment of the Change, they have their newfound nature torn out of them by an unknown force, leaving them as normal humans suffering a psychotic break – even former Wolf-Blooded have their inheritance stripped from them at this moment.
*The territories of Hong Kong are a complete patchwork between the different factions. There are no solid battle lines between Pure and Forsaken, and the vertical nature of the urban landscape means that even a small scrap of land can be more than enough to patrol for most packs. The Shadow reflection of the city sees a spiritual ecosystem that is just as confused and turbulent.
*Due to the sheer population density and the patchwork nature of the territories, Hong Kong packs have strong traditions about hospitality and allowances for crossing another pack's turf – even between Pure and Forsaken.
*There are no Protectorates in Hong Kong. The closest to any sort of formal structure are the Five Great Packs – the Wen, Hou, Peng, Tang and Liao, formed from amongst the Uratha of the mortal clans of the area in 1899. The Great Packs are probably the largest and most influential of the city, but with respect comes responsibility, and they are expected to provide aid and guidance to other werewolves. These expectations, again, cross factional lines.
*Tribes and allegiances to Pure and Forsaken are important, but Hong Kong also plays host to a number of strange packs allied to neither faction, packs amongst foreign immigrant populations with odd practices and traditions, and a focus on Lodges. The sheer density of the city can make the patchwork of territories confusing and Tribes rarely organise on a wide scale, but Lodge connections matter and underpin much of the social fabric of Hong Kong.
*With so much movement in and out of Hong Kong, its transitional position in the world (geographically, politically and symbolically) and its possession of so many layers and shadows that even the werewolves cannot plumb them all, the city is a hotbed for weirdness and occult conspiracies. Yao guai and jiang shi slither through the darkness, hungry ghosts and watery shades prowl at the fringes, and now the forces of the dreaded Cull are preparing to assault the borders of the territory – something that has both Pure and Forsaken alike on edge.
*Local Uratha lore has it that, in some past age, Hong Kong was the site of a meeting between the Nine Dragons – held to be the eight Firstborn of the Pure and the Forsaken, and a last figure of disputed nature. Some believe it was one of the first Chinese emperors. It was this gathering of beings of incredible power that, it is claimed, is responsible for the strong currents of Essence that pour through the region's Shadow even today.
*The chenghuanshen, the city-spirit of Hong Kong, definitely exists – but its nature is not entirely clear. It may actually be a consciousness split across a number of powerful urban spirits, and seems quite capable of fighting with itself as much as any other spirit nobles of the region. Furthermore, it has a long-running feud with the spirits of the mountains and the peaks.

==The Blossom Society Pack==
History is important to the packs of Hong Kong, although knowledge of the past of the Forsaken is usually rather patchy:
*Most Kowloon Forsaken hark back to the '''Salt Eaters''', a pack that controlled much of the area in the middle of the second millenium.
*In the late 1800s, the third bubonic plague wracked China; as a result the '''Yellow-Feathered Owls''', a pack of Bone Shadows and Hunters in Darkness, controlled what is now Sham Shui Po.
*In 1899, territorial unrest with the five Chinese clans in the area resulted in the creation of the Five Great Packs; the original Cherry Gardens themselves were held by a daughter pack of the Wen, the '''White Jade''' pack.
*After the Japanese occupation, the predecessors of the Blossom Society took over the area. They were not opposed in doing so; the sheer damage done by the occupation had resulted in the deportation or deaths of most of the White Jade and their extended pack.

Of the pack's previous Uratha, the existing pack members may know of the following:
*''''Red Shroud'''' – Bone Shadow, formed pack in aftermath of Japanese occupation – famous for dealing with a terrifying plague of restless ghosts and widely venerated by Uratha across Hong Kong for her accomplishments.
*'''Wen Liang''' – Iron Master, powerful figure amongst the packs in the 60's and 70's, infamous for his involvement in the 1967 riots and his killing of a number of communist ringleaders. A name both respected and feared.
*'''Melissa Tsang''' – Blood Talon, took control of the Cherry Garden Night Market in the 80s by driving out the '''Sung-Ti''', a vicious yao guai and its Fire-Touched Pure followers.

The recent losses the pack has suffered are:
*'''James 'Steeljaw Trap' Liu''' – Hunter in Darkness Cahalith and member of the Lodge of Seven Venoms. Died five years ago fighting beshilu in the typhoon shelter; he sank a floating crane raft infested with Rat Hosts while he was still onboard.
*'''Gwok Mei''' – Bone Shadow Rahu and member of the Lodge of Death. Left two years ago in response to the Lodge calling a pilgrimage against the Cull in northern China. She has not been heard from since.
*'''Mark Callahan-Cheung''' – Iron Master shaman, local landlord and member of the Yau Tsim Mong district council. Died under strange circumstances one month before the game's beginning, which the pack had difficulties investigating due to Mark's public position as a councilman and the police and press interest in the case.

The totem of the pack is the '''Eight Lanterns Minister''', spirit of the Cherry Gardens Night Market. The minister appears in the form of a set of grandiose mandarin ministerial garb, threaded with lines of neon and jangling talismans of commerce, wrapped around a withered but strong frame. Its face is concealed behind a veil, but seems to emanate a gentle glow. Lanterns hang from a frame of lacquered wood that floats behind its shoulders; the colours of the lanterns often indicate the spirit's mood.

The Eight Lanterns Minister has served the pack as totem since the 1980s, its fortunes waxing and waning over that time. It is devious, smart and opportunistic. The Minister is a very lowly spirit noble, with a paltry court of lesser spirits of the market at its beck and call; it in turn is the vassal of the spirit noble of Temple Street Night Market, which has caused some friction with the Wen over the years.

===Werewolves===
*'''Red Lantern Widow, Bone Shadow Elodoth''', formerly wife of an up and coming politician until she killed him during her First Change. She uses his skull as a focus in her rites.
*'''Lucky Rat, Hunter in Darkness Rahu''', whose pest control company gives him an overwatch on Beshilu activity in the area. Possesses some anger issues.
*'''Wang Lee, Bone Shadow Irraka''', the youngest of the pack members and something of a street rat. Son of Wang Jing.
*'''Lao Min, newly-Changed Ithaeur''', straight-A's university student whose First Change was triggered by a manifestation of Death Wolf. Despite appearing as an embodiment of that Firstborn, she's leaning towards Red Wolf's Tribe.

===Wolf-Blooded===
*'''Zhongli Hu''' – 'Auntie' Hu is an elderly fortune-teller and seller of offerings and incense in the night market. She is also a Wolf-Blooded with the Piercing Eyes Tell. Hu was a little girl when Red Shroud ran these streets, claims to have been Wen Liang's mistress, and has certainly lived a storied life.
*'''Ko Lei''' runs the market's security, a sturdy man with a pock-marked face and a quick temper. Lei is a Wolf-Blooded with the Wolf's Meat Tell. He used to be a member of the 14K triad.
*'''Wang Jing''' – She owns and runs the Hive Bar, just outside the night market. She has the Skinner Tell, and has obviously been mentally scarred by some of what she has seen and done. The older pack members would only reference her past activities obliquely and refuse to give details. Some tension between her and her son.
*'''Zhao Bo''' – Widow's sister, who took a very different career path; she is a low-ranking financial auditor in Hong Kong's financial investigative body. Plagued by what she thought were psychiatric problems through her life, it was only since her sister Changed that she discovered the truth – the voices in her head were spirits. She is a Wolf-Blooded with the Waystone Tell.

===Humans===
*The exterminators of '''Yellow Kowloon Pest Control''' are the employees and associates of Arran's character. Working out of an office and storehouse in the territory, they're perhaps the most 'in the know' of all the humans about the supernatural, and they'd probably be hunters if they hadn't been brought under the wing of the pack. The company was briefly used as a front by a Rat Host, which is what drew the pack's attention.
*Several of the market's '''security guards''', Ko Lei's colleagues, are pack members. They know enough to understand that the pack have their back in keeping control of the Night Market, and they like to hang out with pack members to absorb some of the respect and fear that the werewolves are accorded.
*A half-dozen of the stall vendors are, like the security guards, pack members; they form the '''Mutual Activity Committee''' of the market, and the other shopkeepers know they're an 'inner circle' separate from the actual management (who are not pack members).
*'''Zhongli Zhuang''', or 'Uncle' Zhuang, is an old former Sun Yee On triad member and the husband of Auntie Hu. Despite his age, he still possesses a heavy frame; these days he sells occult tat and the like alongside his wife, but he also keeps an eye on the black market dealers in the area for the pack.
*'''Yi Kun''', owner of the Yi Healthy Wu Kwan (martial club), is a martial artist trainer who knows enough about the Uratha to understand their role as guardians of the area; he's had a few unpleasant run-ins over the years.

===Others===
*Michael Jin – a former manager of the Night Market, Michael died in the early 2000s in a horrific murder; a business rival with schemes on the property's future arranged for a construction 'accident' when a large block of concrete fell from scaffolding onto the man. Mister Jin was a client of the pack at the time, who were surprised by the lucidity his ghost retained after death. Michael is odd, fussy and obsessive, the broken remains of a personality clinging on to existence through his ties to the Night Market.

===The Totem - Eight Lanterns Minister (''Usufunsugal'' in the First Tongue)===
'''Rank 2 night market spirit''' 
'''Attributes:''' Power 2 Finesse 5 Resistance 2 
'''Willpower:''' 7 
'''Essence:''' 15 
'''Initiative:''' 7 
'''Defence:''' 2 
'''Speed:''' 10 
'''Size:''' 5 
'''Corpus:''' 7 
'''Influences:''' Wealth 1, Light 1 
'''Numina:''' Awe, Coin Curse*, Sign 
''Coin Curse – New Numina:'' The spirit may use this power on anyone it witnesses cheating in a trade, making a false deal or forcing a grievously unfair exchange, as long as money of some sort is involved. Coin Curse costs 1 Essence to use, and affects a coin, bank note, cheque or even money existing only as an electronic transfer. For as long as the character possesses that money in any way, they are affected by an increasingly unpleasant withering disease and the moderate Sick Tilt persistently; even if treated, it will return. Throwing or giving away the money ends the effect. 
'''Manifestations:''' Twilight Form, Gauntlet Breach, Materialise 
'''Ban:''' While the Cherry Gardens shrine of prosperity is damaged or desecrated, the Eight Lanterns Minister cannot leave the night market; if outside the market when the shrine is damaged, it is immediately called back. 
'''Bane:''' Glass from broken lights. 

==Cherry Gardens Market==
The pack's territory is centred around '''Cherry Gardens Night Market''', a night market that lies on the border between '''Sham Shui Po''' district (poor, working-class, lots of public housing) and '''Yau Tsim Mong''' district (core urban area, very high population density, lots of commercial). Cherry Gardens isn't as large or well-known as Temple Street, but it is still a bustling, busy market through the night hours.

The '''night market''' is the beating heart of the territory, catering to the workers of the two districts – cheap tat, mobile phones, clothes, cooked food, incense and paper offerings, and plenty more besides. The pack also holds:
- The surrounding '''residential blocks''' (shops on ground floors, cramped flats above, several with rooftop slums) up to two streets in each direction. These are mostly known by their block number - Lao Min's family lives in Tower 2, for example.
- To the west, the ground under the '''motorway fly-overs''' and then the '''waterfront'''. As well as some storehouses and parks, there are black market dealers and fortune-tellers in the shadow of the motorway.
- The waterfront is a '''typhoon shelter''', protected by a sea wall and a mixture of industrial and private – floating crane platforms, piles of shipping containers and junk-yards.

Crime in Cherry Gardens Night Market is low – petty theft, shoplifting and pickpocketing are common, but the market security guards have been aligned with the pack for years and have a reputation for brutality when dealing with real threats. The local triad gang, led by a Red Pole of the 14K Triad called 'Emperor' Koi, wants control of the night market but has never been able to extend his influence over it.

===Cherry Gardens characters===
*'''Chen Jin''', Spirit-Urged arsonist. Worker who lived in Tower 2 and was assembling some sort of occult explosive device that would use a summoned fire spirit to create an inferno. Appears to have been influenced by particular Wolf-Blooded, possibly tied to the Sung-Ti. Killed by Lao Min during her First Change.
*'''She Wanli''', manager of Tower 7 and shop owner. Affable, overweight local man who had his guts ripped out by the rampaging Taotie.
*'''Kwo Tien''', young tough. Lives in Cherry Gardens, claims to be part of the 14k Triad. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Taesuk Weyen''', patriarch of the Taesuk family. Lives in Cherry Gardens. Holds grudge against the Kwo family. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Hua''', minor tech criminal. Tattooed and hyperactive, Hua purveys petty illegalities - wiping stolen phones and computers, dealing in stolen data and the like.

===Cherry Gardens locations===
* The '''Blossom Society hall''' is a spacious basement subdivided into several smaller rooms, situated under a small laundry and bath-house on the night market shop-front. Once a triad gambling den, the basement includes a strong locus of prosperity and wealth (and, perhaps, greed) in the form of a shrine; the locus leads directly into the silken court of lanterns in the Shadow from which the Eight Lanterns Minister rules.
* One of the '''rooftop slums''' hangs precariously between towers 2 and 3, where the salvaged metal and wood bridge-way plays host to a minor locus of despair. The previous ithaeur, Mark, kept the insidious energies of the locus in check.

==Spirits and their Ilk==

===Lesser Spirits & Independents===
*The '''Crowdling''', a spirit of crowds that lairs around the Old Olympic MTR station. Carved the City Gift into Lucky Rat after being hunted in a chase that it greatly enjoyed.

===Nobles===
*'''Rotting Heart of Decay''', a lesser Ensih of urban decay and rot that held power over the run-down district of Bedford Rise. Granted boons by its liege, Crimson and White Agony, to let it better control the fief. Destroyed by the Blossom Society in a challenge for power and territory.
*'''Eight Lanterns Minister''', ruler of the Cherry Gardens Night Market.

===Servitors===
*'''Elders of Naga''', strange serpentine spirits of rock and bone. Follow in the wake of Death Wolf.

==The Five Great Packs==
The five pillars of Hong Kong Uratha society, born from agreements forged in 1899 alongside those made between the British colony and the local Chinese Punti clans, are called the Great Packs. Originally, each pack corresponded to the same mortal clan that it took the name of, but in the modern day there is no major link between the Punti clan families and the make-up of the pack in question. Most of the Great Packs are large, powerful and have two tiers amongst their Uratha members. The lower tier of 'nieces' and 'nephews' operate somewhat more like a conventional pack, but the upper tier of 'aunts' and 'uncles' are, oddly, less tightly bound together. The aunts and uncles are mentors, experts, revered elders and the like who focus more on their own matters, loosely connected to the other aunts and uncles but not necessarily very involved in the day-to-day running of the pack's assets. When an aunt or uncle asks for a service, the nephews and nieces are expected to snap to attention, but they are in turn expected not to abuse this authority to any great extent. Each Great Pack has a different system for providing more concrete leadership; the Hou select a single overall leader so that the other upper tier Uratha don't need to be bothered by petty concerns, while the Tang demand regular meetings of their aunts and uncles to ensure co-ordination.

The Great Packs are heavily tied into the occult fabric of Hong Kong, and possess considerable knowledge, influence and stockpiles of materials. A Lodge's leadership usually comes from Great Pack members. Each possesses an incredibly powerful totem spirit, but the nature of that relationship between pack and totem is closely guarded and outsiders suspect whatever agreement was signed in 1899 plays a heavy part.

===The Wen – Yau Tsim Mong===
Forsaken, mostly Hunters in Darkness and Iron Masters; their totem is the Serpent of Dreams and Bile, a spirit of incense, drugs and pollution. Known for their influence in shipping, narcotics, and their deep occult knowledge. The Wen have long been obsessed with hunting down the source of the Scourge, as they call the phenomenon that blights First Changes, and are known to truck with jiang shi, yao guai and other, stranger entities in their search for the truth.

Wen '''Aunts/Uncles''':
* '''Yeung He, 'Lightning Paper Fan'''' - Iron Master Ithaeur. Yeung He is one of the principle uncles of the Wen, a wealthy Hong Kong businessman who serves as the Great Pack's principle face of its occult side.
* '''Ten-Eyes Tsang''' - Storm Lord Ithaeur. Ten-Eyes is a drugs chemist and the principle responsible for the Wen drugs operation. Tsang is said to be a ''samzukwu'' or Three-Legged Crow, a member of the Lodge of Crows.

Wen '''Nieces/Nephews''':
* '''Dantea Wen''' - Hunter in Darkness Elodoth. Dantea is one of the most trusted lower-rankers in the Wen, slated for promotion and thus access to the pack's extensive resources. She is the local representative of the Lodge of the Seven Venoms, and a trained doctor.
* '''"Tightrope" Lei''' - Iron Master Irraka. Named for her habit of garroting prey, not for acrobatics.
*'''"Hapless" Fung''' - Storm Lord Rahu. Possesses incredible luck and is said to be cursed.
*'''"Pup" Sau''' - Iron Master Cahalith. Optimistic and hyperactive.

Wen '''Wolf-Blooded''':
*Inspector Hau Chen - HKPF Inspector and general police-force informant and contact for the Wen and affiliated packs. Tell is unknown.
*Zheng Fang - Full-time trusted gofer for the Wen. Immaculately dressed and presented but rumoured to be a very capable leg-breaker despite her appearance. Tell is rumoured to be very powerful for a Wolf-Blooded, possibly that she can summon spirit-wolves or turn into a spirit herself.

===The Hou – Kwun Tong===
Pure, Ivory Claws; their totem is Crimson and White Agony, a spirit of salt and pain. Known for their incredible ancestral and bloodline records, as well as their heavy involvement in Hong Kong politics and medical services. The Hou are seen as cruel, cold and clinical; few fates are worse than falling into the hands of a Hou torturer. The Hou claim to be the oldest and most legitimate of all the Five Great Packs, as unlike the other four the Hou already existed prior to 1899; Hou stories have it that they formed when the Punti migrated to Hong Kong in the 1200s, taking over the sacred mantle of an even older pack who were appointed by the Nine Dragons.

===The Peng – Hongkong Island===
Pure, mostly Ivory Claws; their totem is the Thousand Roaring Eyes and Mouths, a spirit of water and destruction. Known for their wealth and the role they play as financial agents for Pure across the world, their foreign contacts and also their martial traditions. The Peng claim that Hong Kong is actually the site on which Wolf was slain by its treacherous children. They are known for undertaking lavish, extravagant rituals offering sacrifices to the spirits and the waters in penance, to which werewolves of all stripes are invited. Despite their outwards expressions of wealth and openness, they're also said to be a hotbed of internal scheming due to the influence of rival spirit lords.

===The Tang – Hongkong Island===
Forsaken, mostly Bone Shadows and Storm Lords; their totem is the Pale Mandarin, a spirit of secrets, knowledge and fear. They are known for their information network and the dirt they're said to hold on every figure of note in Hong Kong, their knowledge of death and the Underworld, and their involvement in urban planning and development. Rumour has it that the Tang have successfully used occult geometries to create paths into the Deep Shadow. A few pieces of particularly bitter hearsay that refuse to die have it that the Tang take their marching orders from packs in Beijing.

Tang '''nieces/nephews''':
*'''Makisig''', Storm Lord Elodoth. A young Filipino from a relatively wealthy background, Makisig is tasked with keeping an eye on the younger parts of the population in Central & Western and Wan Chai. He's said to be involved in the city's music scene.

===The Liao – New Territories===
Forsaken, mostly Blood Talons; their totem is the Torn Banner, a spirit of change and violence. They are known for their fighting prowess, their trade and manufacture of spiritual goods (including fetishes and talens) and their connections to mainland China. The Liao are generally seen as the most traditionalist and conservative of the Five Great Packs, ironic given the nature of their totem and their own history; they were originally mostly Predator Kings, changing allegiance to the Forsaken via bloody infighting shortly after the Japanese occupation.

==Other Packs==

===The Sung-Ti – Mong Kok===
The Sung-Ti are a largely Fire-Touched pack of Pure holding territory to the north-east of the pack – and they still nurse a grudge over the loss of Cherry Gardens to Melissa Tsang in the 80s. Pitching themselves as judges of certain sins, the Sung-Ti reputedly have significant involvement in both the criminal side of Kowloon and its charities.

* ? Ash Talon ? - Fire-Touched crafter, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.
* ? Kanomi ? - Wolf-Blooded capable of overwhelming those who see her into believing she possesses incredible beauty, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.

===The Stone Lions – Various===
The Stone Lions are mostly Hunters in Darkness who oversee the occult maintenance of Boundary Street, once the limit of Hong Kong. The Lions are a 'daughter pack' of the Liao; they are also rumoured to participate in various sinister rituals to maintain their power.

===The Eyeless – Sham Shui Po===
The Eyeless are a strange and esoteric pack, believed to be a reclusive and likely heretical group of Forsaken. They generally avoid outside contact, but it is known that they pluck their own eyes out for some cultic purpose. Rumour links the Eyeless to the Japanese occupation, and those who would mock them call them the 'Nopera-Bo'.

===The Two Claw Society – Sham Shui Po===
The Two Claw Society are a pack of Bone Shadows and Blood Talons known to be particularly vicious in defending their territory, but also respected as being highly honourable. The Two Claws was created to deal with a horrific Wound resulting from a Japanese concentration camp on their territory – a Wound that still exists despite the pack's best efforts.

* Fan Chau, 'Crimson Autumn' - Bone Shadow Rahu. Belligerent member of the Lodge of Voices. Appears to have one of her hands replaced with someone else's through unknown means.

===The Tsen-Kuang – Tsim Sha Tsui===
A Pure pack on the south of the peninsula, known to be largely made up of Fire-Touched. The Tsen-Kuang have their claws firmly dug into the flow of migrants moving through Hong Kong, and are rumoured to cavort with Beshilu and other, even fouler denizens of the waterfronts. They are reputed to venerate an entity that they believe is responsible for stealing the Changes of nusuzul in Hong Kong; the Tsen-Kuang believe it to be a judge that weeds out those who are not worthy.

===Silver Horizon Futures - Various===
SH Futures appears to be a strange fusion of pack and corporation operating in Hong Kong. A subsidiary of the globe-spanning Cheiron, SHF is best known for its work in the bio-sciences and innovative energy generation solutions. The pack certainly includes both werewolves and Wolf-Blooded; the latter appear to hold the administrative and executive positions within the arrangement.

==Other Groups and Entities==

===Civilians===
*'''Dachan Cuifen''', curator of the Taotie exhibit at the museum and university archaeology lecturer.
*'''Alec & Rong''', friends of Lao Min and fellow students at the university.

===14K Triad===

*'''Hom Wie, Hive-Claimed'''. Rumoured to be a Taoist sorcerer and feared by the lower ranks of the Triad for his brutality and twisted appearance. Hom Wie has some sort of link or connection to Wang Jing from the past, sufficiently strong to warn her of a forthcoming Triad war.
*''''Emperor' Koi''', 14K Red Pole. An influential Red Pole in the Sham Shui Po and Yau Tsim Mong districts, with designs on drugs and prostitution rackets throughout the area. Has long attempted to extend his influence over Cherry Gardens but has been held back to the influence of the Blossom Society.
*'''Man Sie''', 14K fence. Deals in technical and technological goods primarily, operating out of the Lamp House.

===Wo Shing Wo Triad===

===Beshilu===

*'''Mister Shu'''. Ancestor of Lao Min, but apparently still alive and well in San Hui in the New Territories. Some sort of spirit or petty divinity associated with rats that romanced a Lao woman in the early 1900s. Has Rat Hosts under his control. May actually be some sort of Rat Host of a previously unknown kind.

===Taotie===
Also known as the 'gluttonous ogres', taotie are very powerful entities of hunger that have been bound into ceramic masks and pottery. The mortal wielder of a taotie gains monstrous physical strength, the ability to cross the Gauntlet, and the ability to take the internal organs of a victim and place them within his or her own body. In return for this power, the taotie demands the sacrifice of the mortal wielder's own internal organs to feed its hunger. Manifesting its powers causes the taotie to drain a vast amount of Essence from the nearby ''Hisil'', often catastrophically for weaker spirits in the vicinity.
*'''Chua Chuo''', Sham Shui Po businessman and Taotie wielder - murdered Mark Callaghan-Cheung and She Wanli over property scheme using the power of the taotie. Killed by the Blossom Society. Apparently found the mask amongst some family belongings passed down to him.

==Other Locations==

===Sham Shui Po===
*The '''Lamp House''', a 14K-patronised club and meeting space for transactions of stolen goods and the like.
*'''Bedford Rise''', a run-down neighbourhood influenced by the Rotting Heart of Decay. Bedford Rise centres around a pedestrianised central street, crammed full of cheap stores, dive clubs and massage parlours. The 14K operate in the area under the auspices of the Red Pole Koi.
*'''Tung Chau Battery''' is an old historical military building in Bedford Rise, now dilapidated and crumbling. Inhabited by the homeless and drug users in the Flesh, it served the Rotting Heart of Decay as a lair in the Shadow.

==Beyond Hong Kong==

===Macau – The Zealous Warlord's Domain===
Often referred to as the 'darker sibling' by Hong Kong Uratha, Macau has a sinister reputation amongst werewolves – even despite it being a Forsaken stronghold. Beneath its seemingly placid surface, Macau is a place of nightmares. From 1966 onwards, the notorious Blood Talon warlord 'Silver Claw' Yin fought a sustained and bloody campaign against the Pure, claiming to have been given divine visions by the Moon and instructions from the Lunes. After just ten years, the last Pure were annihilated or driven out of the city. In 1987, however, the Pure attempted to return. In the three decades since, Macau has seen repeated attacks by the Pure, particularly under the leadership of the Fire-Touched sibling Elders Sheu-Fuh and Shunyan, although they have not yet regained a foothold for more than a few months at a time. Its occult landscape is a mess, scarred by brutality, madness and the mostly-unchecked spiritual off-flow of the mass of humanity crammed into the region. Other things have also been drawn in or caught up by the violence; it is said there is an alchemist amongst the Iron Masters of Macau who knows how to render sorcerers down for their power, while both Bone Shadows and Ivory Claws are said to have some means of producing vampires which they use as disposable agents and killers in their shadow war. Both Destroyer Wolf and Red Wolf are said to have taken an active interest in events in Macau since the 60s, but there is a much, much older shrine to Red Wolf in the city that the Forsaken defend fanatically – some rumours allege it is Pangaean in origin. For now, Yin continues to rule her Protectorate with an iron fist.

Characters of Macau:
*'''Adao''' - Iron Master Elodoth. Portuguese smuggler.
*'''Red Mask''' - Iron Master ?. Revered as the high priest of Red Wolf's shrine in Macau.

===Shenzen – The City Without History===
Shenzen is a mirror of Hong Kong's success story – a busy port, major financial centre and huge city butting against its northern border. Shenzen exploded from a small town in the 80s to the urban behemoth of today, and the the Uratha of the province know full well its growth was down to more than just the PRC labelling it a Special Economic Zone. Something has long been awry with the very fabric of reality in Shenzen and someone, or something, caused the expansion of the city by stealing it from a history that never happened, a Shenzen that never was, and overlaying it into this world. The layout of the city possesses innumerable minor pieces of occult geometry, coming together into some sort of vast chronal siphon that forces this reality to match the Other Shenzen. For years, the 'city without history' and the time spirits that flock there served as a major attraction for Uratha seers and secret-seekers of both Pure and Forsaken, with bitter fighting breaking out across its prime territories, but the Cull have moved in in recent years – and established a major Deep Shadow monastery as a bastion. Now this major land route into Hong Kong is threatened, the Cull bringing in more adherents as the months progress and the Uratha of the City of Nine Dragons watching uneasily from over the border. Word has it that the Thousand Steel Teeth are gathering their own war parties, determined to defend their supply lines that run through Hong Kong and Shenzen out into the wider world. The new city of Shenzen may be about to become a battleground for a particularly vicious phase of the war with the Cull.

===Guangdong – Riches Worth Fighting For===
The province of Guangdong may be a large and prosperous region, but for the Forsaken of the area it is perhaps most characterised by its river spirits. Threading down to the Pearl River Delta, these spirits are probably the most organised, widespread and outright hostile court of Guangdong; the feud dates back to the battle of Yamen in 1279. Defeating and subjugating the local river spirits is an ongoing struggle, not at all helped by the Pure's own alliance with the River King. Despite this hostility, there is much for the Forsaken to covet here – the wealth of the human population and the uncommonly high number of wellsprings of Essence. Guangdong has a great abundance of sites that naturally form talens, rich loci of rare Resonances, and unusual qualities to the Shadow that make certain rites – such as those that craft fetishes – easier to work than elsewhere. The Claimed are a particular threat across the province, and the Storm Lords have traditionally been very powerful here; there are several Tribal bastions where the Iminir protect ancient artefacts and relics that are the destination of pilgrims from across the globe. The Storm Lords of Guangdong have a highly organised Tribal structure that crosses throughout the packs and Protectorates of the province, leading up to an elected gong whose task is to tend to the ancient, revered Tribal elder known as the Zongshi – a near-mythical figure amongst the Forsaken, said to alternate between sleeping in a Storm Lord fastness and prowling the Deep Shadow for the most terrifying of prey. Guangdong regularly sees the conflict between Forsaken and Pure flare into open and brutal warfare, but these periods are almost always short – usually a year or two at most before things lapse once again, agreements are made and lines redrawn. The recent arrival of sects of the Cull from the west and north, however, threatens to upset that balance.

===Taiwan – Tyrants of the Earth===
Taiwan's Shadow was once ruled by the spirits of the mountains and the grumbling, shifting earth – but around two centuries ago, the Forsaken of the island undertook a great and mighty binding on the lords of rock and stone to chain them with fetters of symbolism. This caused a great rift amongst the Taiwanese Tribes, with the Bone Shadows breaking off to form their own separate faction, condemning the act as one of hubris that would only serve to harm Shadow and Flesh alike. For two centuries now, the bindings have mostly held – but when they weaken or shift, the furious spirits of the earth vent their rage on the world. Even today, the Bone Shadows remain separate to the other Forsaken and have, as the years turn, formed a distinct identity from Hirfathra Hissu elsewhere as well. The Predator Kings have long sought to unmake the chains that bind the mountain spirits and once formed the bulk of the Pure numbers in Taiwan, but since the Chinese Civil War the other two Pure Tribes have made significant inroads into what was once almost entirely under Forsaken control. Today, Taiwanese Uratha are renowned for their mastery of rites and the binding of spirits, but often considered prideful and arrogant in their disdain for other werewolves who do not have the strength to chain the Shadow to their will. Taiwanese packs commonly include spirits enslaved to the pack's will, and even totems are treated less as respected equals and more as vassals or servants. The Bone Shadows continue to warn that a reckoning will yet come; but as each decade passes without sign of their forecast apocalypse, so does the scorn for the fifth Tribe rise amongst the Taiwanese.

===Philippines – The Spinner Hag's Bastion===
In many ways, Uratha in the Philippines have lives similar to werewolves elsewhere – though the boundaries of territories in the archipelago are often delineated by coastline and travel between islands can be tricky. The rising prosperity and development of the country has left Uratha with many of the same challenges and opportunities as in other nations. The Shadow across the Philippines, however, is in a ruinous state – and has been for millennia. By local lore, the Great Predator fought much of its battle with the Spinner Hag over what became these islands, and in many places the Gauntlet is still torn asunder by the mere echo of Wolf's claws and teeth. Worse, other patches of Gauntlet are thick and distended, shrouded in Azlo webs and said to contain oozing gobbets of the Hag's carcass. The Azlu are numerous and powerful here, and are no mere monstrous beasts – the Host spider-witches of the Philippines think and plan with an alien but clinically precise approach, their schemes spanning centuries. The poor state of the Gauntlet has also resulted in a much higher number of spirits crossing over into the Flesh, bizarre and unique forms of Claimed, and other entities born by the fusion of the two worlds. Repeated rumours bubble up that there are actually still areas of Pangaea itself hidden away, somehow saved from the Great Predator's death-howl. Unsurprisingly, the Hunters in Darkness lead the Forsaken here, and Filipino werewolves are said to be both particularly vigilant – or paranoid, by the less charitable – and particularly talented in the matter of wards and occult protections. The Philippines have long served as a destination for Hunter in Darkness pilgrimages – old and veteran Meninna from other countries, even far-off continents, have been known to 'retire' to this heart of Azlu power, and werewolves seeking lore and insights into the spider Hosts often seek out Filipino brethren for aid.

===Vietnam – The Harmonious Kings===
Early in the 20th Century, the Pure of Vietnam began to tip the scales against their Forsaken counterparts; they took advantage of the disruption and conflict that plagued the country until, after the US-Vietnam war and the fall of the South, the Fire-Touched and Predator Kings had near total domination of the unified country. The Forsaken of today, though, are having a comparatively easy time of it; the Pure are far more focused on warring with each other, and there are a number of powerful spirit nobles that have sided with the Forsaken in the wake of the Pure calling down horrific spirit-horrors from beyond Luna's orbit. The Predator Kings have split into two factions that battle one another with brutal ferocity, mainly due to the emergence of a radical, heretical Ninna Farakh Lodge called the Lan that has rapidly surged in converts. The Lan adhere to portions of Dire Wolf's philosophy, but are far more connected to humanity than their erstwhile comrades; the totem's ban makes it difficult for the Lan to work within society so they instead use a large cult of human and Wolf-Blooded go-betweens to sink their claws into Vietnam. Espousing a creed that the Predator Kings should adapt to the changing world and shepherd humanity to a harmonious union with the wild and the hunt, the Lan are largely uninterested in pursuing the Forsaken compared to destroying the Fire-Touched and converting or killing the rest of their Tribe. To the Forsaken, it all looks very much like the Predator Kings' penchant for savagery has finally turned inwards while the real Vietnam moves beyond their outmoded ways – but there are those who worry that the Harmonious Kings of the Lan are winning, and fear what may happen once they have done so. Some wonder if the Lan might be converted in turn to the Forsaken, but the Lodge has shown little interest in any Urdaga Creeds.

==New Material==

===New Rites===

'''Vex (Wolf Rite ●)''' 
This petty curse calls upon spirits of misfortune and malevolence to plague whoever has drawn the werewolf's ire. 
'''Symbols:''' Fire, venom, violence, the skill that is to be targeted. 
'''Cost:''' 1 Essence 
'''Action:''' Extended (5 successes; each roll represents 1 minute); resisted by the target's Composure. 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The Essence used to fuel this rite must come from a locus of hatred, pain, despair or decay. Additionally, the ritemaster must have a possession of the target, a nail clipping, a lock of hair or some other bodily substance from the intended victim. The ritemaster selects a single skill that will be cursed; thereafter, the first time the victim uses that skill in the following month, her result becomes a dramatic failure regardless of what she rolls. The ritemaster immediately knows when this happens. A character may only be the subject of a single vex at a time, and cannot be subjected again until the rite's month of duration has passed. 

'''Drain the Well (Pack Rite ●●●)''' 
This rite uses a locus to draw in its Resonance from the surrounding ar ea, draining the Shadow of Essence attuned to its nature. Paradoxically, this ensures the locus surges deep with Essence of that kind; if left untended, it will wash back out again stronger than before.
'''Symbols:''' Water, pain, piercing or draining, the Resonance type. 
'''Action:''' Extended (20 successes; each roll represents 10 minutes) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed at the site of a locus, draining Resonance into it. This has several effects: spirits and Uratha within 100 yards per dot of the rating of the Locus, or within the entire territory (whichever is larger), take the locus's rating as a penalty to all rolls for Influences that match its Resonance when outside its direct area. The Resonance is reduced in general, removing many incidents of the Resonant Condition across the affected region; draining a locus of pain would cause injuries and aches to inflict less pain, humans and animals will recover faster from harm and may simply not notice minor damage. This will have long-term effects on the Shadow and the material world. 
The ritemaster gains a persistent Ban Condition for the duration of the rite's effect, reflecting the Resonance of the locus; this Condition lifts when the rite ends. If the ritemaster ever violates the ban, the effects of the rite immediately end. If ended via ban violation, or if this rite is not performed on the locus again within a week of its duration ending, the locus becomes empowered for one month as if it were the subject of the Wellspring rite.

'''Shadow Signs (Pack Rite ●●●●)''' 
This rite may only be invoked on a territory that the ritemaster's pack has already sanctified with the Hunting Ground rite. It draws upon the secrets, the names and the flows of Essence that thread between the spirits of the territory's Shadow, revealing truths to the Uratha. 
'''Symbols:''' Writing or tattooing, wounds, whispers, the wind. 
'''Action:''' Extended (10 successes; each roll represents 1 minute) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month. 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed in the Shadow, within territory that the ritemaster's pack has placed the Hunting Ground rite upon. This causes that spot to become a nexus of information about the territory's Shadow. Over roughly a day, words and glyphs will carve themselves into the Shadow-stuff of an area roughly ten feet in radius, often oozing blood or ichor; these words spell out the names of powerful spirits in the area (Rank 3 and higher, as well as spirit nobles), indicate significant Shadow phenomena (like barrens, shoals, or an impending emotion-storm), and may also indicate other threats in the Shadow (such as warning of the warping spells that a Mage is using on the Hisil, or of a non-native monstrosity that has somehow breached the Gauntlet and is now marauding the spirits). The words update roughly every day, with old, bleeding warnings squirming aside for eruptions of fresh and oozing names as new, powerful spirits move in or a threat manifests itself. Any Uratha who reads the shadow signs gains a +3 bonus to locate or perceive spirits, entities or phenomena that they have seen the warnings or names of, while the rite lasts. However, picking key information out of the mass of glyphs and sigils is not necessarily straightforward.

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T16:38:32Z

Acrozatarim: /* Other Groups and Entities */

=Werewolf: the Forsaken - The Eater of Names=
A Werewolf: the Forsaken game set in Hong Kong.

==Hong Kong==

===Werewolf Oddities of Hong Kong===
*Something steals the First Change of the majority of nusuzul. At the moment of the Change, they have their newfound nature torn out of them by an unknown force, leaving them as normal humans suffering a psychotic break – even former Wolf-Blooded have their inheritance stripped from them at this moment.
*The territories of Hong Kong are a complete patchwork between the different factions. There are no solid battle lines between Pure and Forsaken, and the vertical nature of the urban landscape means that even a small scrap of land can be more than enough to patrol for most packs. The Shadow reflection of the city sees a spiritual ecosystem that is just as confused and turbulent.
*Due to the sheer population density and the patchwork nature of the territories, Hong Kong packs have strong traditions about hospitality and allowances for crossing another pack's turf – even between Pure and Forsaken.
*There are no Protectorates in Hong Kong. The closest to any sort of formal structure are the Five Great Packs – the Wen, Hou, Peng, Tang and Liao, formed from amongst the Uratha of the mortal clans of the area in 1899. The Great Packs are probably the largest and most influential of the city, but with respect comes responsibility, and they are expected to provide aid and guidance to other werewolves. These expectations, again, cross factional lines.
*Tribes and allegiances to Pure and Forsaken are important, but Hong Kong also plays host to a number of strange packs allied to neither faction, packs amongst foreign immigrant populations with odd practices and traditions, and a focus on Lodges. The sheer density of the city can make the patchwork of territories confusing and Tribes rarely organise on a wide scale, but Lodge connections matter and underpin much of the social fabric of Hong Kong.
*With so much movement in and out of Hong Kong, its transitional position in the world (geographically, politically and symbolically) and its possession of so many layers and shadows that even the werewolves cannot plumb them all, the city is a hotbed for weirdness and occult conspiracies. Yao guai and jiang shi slither through the darkness, hungry ghosts and watery shades prowl at the fringes, and now the forces of the dreaded Cull are preparing to assault the borders of the territory – something that has both Pure and Forsaken alike on edge.
*Local Uratha lore has it that, in some past age, Hong Kong was the site of a meeting between the Nine Dragons – held to be the eight Firstborn of the Pure and the Forsaken, and a last figure of disputed nature. Some believe it was one of the first Chinese emperors. It was this gathering of beings of incredible power that, it is claimed, is responsible for the strong currents of Essence that pour through the region's Shadow even today.
*The chenghuanshen, the city-spirit of Hong Kong, definitely exists – but its nature is not entirely clear. It may actually be a consciousness split across a number of powerful urban spirits, and seems quite capable of fighting with itself as much as any other spirit nobles of the region. Furthermore, it has a long-running feud with the spirits of the mountains and the peaks.

==The Blossom Society Pack==
History is important to the packs of Hong Kong, although knowledge of the past of the Forsaken is usually rather patchy:
*Most Kowloon Forsaken hark back to the '''Salt Eaters''', a pack that controlled much of the area in the middle of the second millenium.
*In the late 1800s, the third bubonic plague wracked China; as a result the '''Yellow-Feathered Owls''', a pack of Bone Shadows and Hunters in Darkness, controlled what is now Sham Shui Po.
*In 1899, territorial unrest with the five Chinese clans in the area resulted in the creation of the Five Great Packs; the original Cherry Gardens themselves were held by a daughter pack of the Wen, the '''White Jade''' pack.
*After the Japanese occupation, the predecessors of the Blossom Society took over the area. They were not opposed in doing so; the sheer damage done by the occupation had resulted in the deportation or deaths of most of the White Jade and their extended pack.

Of the pack's previous Uratha, the existing pack members may know of the following:
*''''Red Shroud'''' – Bone Shadow, formed pack in aftermath of Japanese occupation – famous for dealing with a terrifying plague of restless ghosts and widely venerated by Uratha across Hong Kong for her accomplishments.
*'''Wen Liang''' – Iron Master, powerful figure amongst the packs in the 60's and 70's, infamous for his involvement in the 1967 riots and his killing of a number of communist ringleaders. A name both respected and feared.
*'''Melissa Tsang''' – Blood Talon, took control of the Cherry Garden Night Market in the 80s by driving out the '''Sung-Ti''', a vicious yao guai and its Fire-Touched Pure followers.

The recent losses the pack has suffered are:
*'''James 'Steeljaw Trap' Liu''' – Hunter in Darkness Cahalith and member of the Lodge of Seven Venoms. Died five years ago fighting beshilu in the typhoon shelter; he sank a floating crane raft infested with Rat Hosts while he was still onboard.
*'''Gwok Mei''' – Bone Shadow Rahu and member of the Lodge of Death. Left two years ago in response to the Lodge calling a pilgrimage against the Cull in northern China. She has not been heard from since.
*'''Mark Callahan-Cheung''' – Iron Master shaman, local landlord and member of the Yau Tsim Mong district council. Died under strange circumstances one month before the game's beginning, which the pack had difficulties investigating due to Mark's public position as a councilman and the police and press interest in the case.

The totem of the pack is the '''Eight Lanterns Minister''', spirit of the Cherry Gardens Night Market. The minister appears in the form of a set of grandiose mandarin ministerial garb, threaded with lines of neon and jangling talismans of commerce, wrapped around a withered but strong frame. Its face is concealed behind a veil, but seems to emanate a gentle glow. Lanterns hang from a frame of lacquered wood that floats behind its shoulders; the colours of the lanterns often indicate the spirit's mood.

The Eight Lanterns Minister has served the pack as totem since the 1980s, its fortunes waxing and waning over that time. It is devious, smart and opportunistic. The Minister is a very lowly spirit noble, with a paltry court of lesser spirits of the market at its beck and call; it in turn is the vassal of the spirit noble of Temple Street Night Market, which has caused some friction with the Wen over the years.

===Werewolves===
*'''Red Lantern Widow, Bone Shadow Elodoth''', formerly wife of an up and coming politician until she killed him during her First Change. She uses his skull as a focus in her rites.
*'''Lucky Rat, Hunter in Darkness Rahu''', whose pest control company gives him an overwatch on Beshilu activity in the area. Possesses some anger issues.
*'''Wang Lee, Bone Shadow Irraka''', the youngest of the pack members and something of a street rat. Son of Wang Jing.
*'''Lao Min, newly-Changed Ithaeur''', straight-A's university student whose First Change was triggered by a manifestation of Death Wolf. Despite appearing as an embodiment of that Firstborn, she's leaning towards Red Wolf's Tribe.

===Wolf-Blooded===
*'''Zhongli Hu''' – 'Auntie' Hu is an elderly fortune-teller and seller of offerings and incense in the night market. She is also a Wolf-Blooded with the Piercing Eyes Tell. Hu was a little girl when Red Shroud ran these streets, claims to have been Wen Liang's mistress, and has certainly lived a storied life.
*'''Ko Lei''' runs the market's security, a sturdy man with a pock-marked face and a quick temper. Lei is a Wolf-Blooded with the Wolf's Meat Tell. He used to be a member of the 14K triad.
*'''Wang Jing''' – She owns and runs the Hive Bar, just outside the night market. She has the Skinner Tell, and has obviously been mentally scarred by some of what she has seen and done. The older pack members would only reference her past activities obliquely and refuse to give details. Some tension between her and her son.
*'''Zhao Bo''' – Widow's sister, who took a very different career path; she is a low-ranking financial auditor in Hong Kong's financial investigative body. Plagued by what she thought were psychiatric problems through her life, it was only since her sister Changed that she discovered the truth – the voices in her head were spirits. She is a Wolf-Blooded with the Waystone Tell.

===Humans===
*The exterminators of '''Yellow Kowloon Pest Control''' are the employees and associates of Arran's character. Working out of an office and storehouse in the territory, they're perhaps the most 'in the know' of all the humans about the supernatural, and they'd probably be hunters if they hadn't been brought under the wing of the pack. The company was briefly used as a front by a Rat Host, which is what drew the pack's attention.
*Several of the market's '''security guards''', Ko Lei's colleagues, are pack members. They know enough to understand that the pack have their back in keeping control of the Night Market, and they like to hang out with pack members to absorb some of the respect and fear that the werewolves are accorded.
*A half-dozen of the stall vendors are, like the security guards, pack members; they form the '''Mutual Activity Committee''' of the market, and the other shopkeepers know they're an 'inner circle' separate from the actual management (who are not pack members).
*'''Zhongli Zhuang''', or 'Uncle' Zhuang, is an old former Sun Yee On triad member and the husband of Auntie Hu. Despite his age, he still possesses a heavy frame; these days he sells occult tat and the like alongside his wife, but he also keeps an eye on the black market dealers in the area for the pack.
*'''Yi Kun''', owner of the Yi Healthy Wu Kwan (martial club), is a martial artist trainer who knows enough about the Uratha to understand their role as guardians of the area; he's had a few unpleasant run-ins over the years.

===Others===
*Michael Jin – a former manager of the Night Market, Michael died in the early 2000s in a horrific murder; a business rival with schemes on the property's future arranged for a construction 'accident' when a large block of concrete fell from scaffolding onto the man. Mister Jin was a client of the pack at the time, who were surprised by the lucidity his ghost retained after death. Michael is odd, fussy and obsessive, the broken remains of a personality clinging on to existence through his ties to the Night Market.

===The Totem - Eight Lanterns Minister (''Usufunsugal'' in the First Tongue)===
'''Rank 2 night market spirit''' 
'''Attributes:''' Power 2 Finesse 5 Resistance 2 
'''Willpower:''' 7 
'''Essence:''' 15 
'''Initiative:''' 7 
'''Defence:''' 2 
'''Speed:''' 10 
'''Size:''' 5 
'''Corpus:''' 7 
'''Influences:''' Wealth 1, Light 1 
'''Numina:''' Awe, Coin Curse*, Sign 
''Coin Curse – New Numina:'' The spirit may use this power on anyone it witnesses cheating in a trade, making a false deal or forcing a grievously unfair exchange, as long as money of some sort is involved. Coin Curse costs 1 Essence to use, and affects a coin, bank note, cheque or even money existing only as an electronic transfer. For as long as the character possesses that money in any way, they are affected by an increasingly unpleasant withering disease and the moderate Sick Tilt persistently; even if treated, it will return. Throwing or giving away the money ends the effect. 
'''Manifestations:''' Twilight Form, Gauntlet Breach, Materialise 
'''Ban:''' While the Cherry Gardens shrine of prosperity is damaged or desecrated, the Eight Lanterns Minister cannot leave the night market; if outside the market when the shrine is damaged, it is immediately called back. 
'''Bane:''' Glass from broken lights. 

==Cherry Gardens Market==
The pack's territory is centred around '''Cherry Gardens Night Market''', a night market that lies on the border between '''Sham Shui Po''' district (poor, working-class, lots of public housing) and '''Yau Tsim Mong''' district (core urban area, very high population density, lots of commercial). Cherry Gardens isn't as large or well-known as Temple Street, but it is still a bustling, busy market through the night hours.

The '''night market''' is the beating heart of the territory, catering to the workers of the two districts – cheap tat, mobile phones, clothes, cooked food, incense and paper offerings, and plenty more besides. The pack also holds:
- The surrounding '''residential blocks''' (shops on ground floors, cramped flats above, several with rooftop slums) up to two streets in each direction. These are mostly known by their block number - Lao Min's family lives in Tower 2, for example.
- To the west, the ground under the '''motorway fly-overs''' and then the '''waterfront'''. As well as some storehouses and parks, there are black market dealers and fortune-tellers in the shadow of the motorway.
- The waterfront is a '''typhoon shelter''', protected by a sea wall and a mixture of industrial and private – floating crane platforms, piles of shipping containers and junk-yards.

Crime in Cherry Gardens Night Market is low – petty theft, shoplifting and pickpocketing are common, but the market security guards have been aligned with the pack for years and have a reputation for brutality when dealing with real threats. The local triad gang, led by a Red Pole of the 14K Triad called 'Emperor' Koi, wants control of the night market but has never been able to extend his influence over it.

===Cherry Gardens characters===
*'''Chen Jin''', Spirit-Urged arsonist. Worker who lived in Tower 2 and was assembling some sort of occult explosive device that would use a summoned fire spirit to create an inferno. Appears to have been influenced by particular Wolf-Blooded, possibly tied to the Sung-Ti. Killed by Lao Min during her First Change.
*'''She Wanli''', manager of Tower 7 and shop owner. Affable, overweight local man who had his guts ripped out by the rampaging Taotie.
*'''Kwo Tien''', young tough. Lives in Cherry Gardens, claims to be part of the 14k Triad. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Taesuk Weyen''', patriarch of the Taesuk family. Lives in Cherry Gardens. Holds grudge against the Kwo family. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Hua''', minor tech criminal. Tattooed and hyperactive, Hua purveys petty illegalities - wiping stolen phones and computers, dealing in stolen data and the like.

===Cherry Gardens locations===
* The '''Blossom Society hall''' is a spacious basement subdivided into several smaller rooms, situated under a small laundry and bath-house on the night market shop-front. Once a triad gambling den, the basement includes a strong locus of prosperity and wealth (and, perhaps, greed) in the form of a shrine; the locus leads directly into the silken court of lanterns in the Shadow from which the Eight Lanterns Minister rules.
* One of the '''rooftop slums''' hangs precariously between towers 2 and 3, where the salvaged metal and wood bridge-way plays host to a minor locus of despair. The previous ithaeur, Mark, kept the insidious energies of the locus in check.

==Spirits and their Ilk==

===Lesser Spirits & Independents===
*The '''Crowdling''', a spirit of crowds that lairs around the Old Olympic MTR station. Carved the City Gift into Lucky Rat after being hunted in a chase that it greatly enjoyed.

===Nobles===
*'''Rotting Heart of Decay''', a lesser Ensih of urban decay and rot that held power over the run-down district of Bedford Rise. Granted boons by its liege, Crimson and White Agony, to let it better control the fief. Destroyed by the Blossom Society in a challenge for power and territory.
*'''Eight Lanterns Minister''', ruler of the Cherry Gardens Night Market.

===Servitors===
*'''Elders of Naga''', strange serpentine spirits of rock and bone. Follow in the wake of Death Wolf.

==The Five Great Packs==
The five pillars of Hong Kong Uratha society, born from agreements forged in 1899 alongside those made between the British colony and the local Chinese Punti clans, are called the Great Packs. Originally, each pack corresponded to the same mortal clan that it took the name of, but in the modern day there is no major link between the Punti clan families and the make-up of the pack in question. Most of the Great Packs are large, powerful and have two tiers amongst their Uratha members. The lower tier of 'nieces' and 'nephews' operate somewhat more like a conventional pack, but the upper tier of 'aunts' and 'uncles' are, oddly, less tightly bound together. The aunts and uncles are mentors, experts, revered elders and the like who focus more on their own matters, loosely connected to the other aunts and uncles but not necessarily very involved in the day-to-day running of the pack's assets. When an aunt or uncle asks for a service, the nephews and nieces are expected to snap to attention, but they are in turn expected not to abuse this authority to any great extent. Each Great Pack has a different system for providing more concrete leadership; the Hou select a single overall leader so that the other upper tier Uratha don't need to be bothered by petty concerns, while the Tang demand regular meetings of their aunts and uncles to ensure co-ordination.

The Great Packs are heavily tied into the occult fabric of Hong Kong, and possess considerable knowledge, influence and stockpiles of materials. A Lodge's leadership usually comes from Great Pack members. Each possesses an incredibly powerful totem spirit, but the nature of that relationship between pack and totem is closely guarded and outsiders suspect whatever agreement was signed in 1899 plays a heavy part.

===The Wen – Yau Tsim Mong===
Forsaken, mostly Hunters in Darkness and Iron Masters; their totem is the Serpent of Dreams and Bile, a spirit of incense, drugs and pollution. Known for their influence in shipping, narcotics, and their deep occult knowledge. The Wen have long been obsessed with hunting down the source of the Scourge, as they call the phenomenon that blights First Changes, and are known to truck with jiang shi, yao guai and other, stranger entities in their search for the truth.

Wen '''Aunts/Uncles''':
* '''Yeung He, 'Lightning Paper Fan'''' - Iron Master Ithaeur. Yeung He is one of the principle uncles of the Wen, a wealthy Hong Kong businessman who serves as the Great Pack's principle face of its occult side.
* '''Ten-Eyes Tsang''' - Storm Lord Ithaeur. Ten-Eyes is a drugs chemist and the principle responsible for the Wen drugs operation. Tsang is said to be a ''samzukwu'' or Three-Legged Crow, a member of the Lodge of Crows.

Wen '''Nieces/Nephews''':
* '''Dantea Wen''' - Hunter in Darkness Elodoth. Dantea is one of the most trusted lower-rankers in the Wen, slated for promotion and thus access to the pack's extensive resources. She is the local representative of the Lodge of the Seven Venoms, and a trained doctor.
* '''"Tightrope" Lei''' - Iron Master Irraka. Named for her habit of garroting prey, not for acrobatics.
*'''"Hapless" Fung''' - Storm Lord Rahu. Possesses incredible luck and is said to be cursed.
*'''"Pup" Sau''' - Iron Master Cahalith. Optimistic and hyperactive.

Wen '''Wolf-Blooded''':
*Inspector Hau Chen - HKPF Inspector and general police-force informant and contact for the Wen and affiliated packs. Tell is unknown.
*Zheng Fang - Full-time trusted gofer for the Wen. Immaculately dressed and presented but rumoured to be a very capable leg-breaker despite her appearance. Tell is rumoured to be very powerful for a Wolf-Blooded, possibly that she can summon spirit-wolves or turn into a spirit herself.

===The Hou – Kwun Tong===
Pure, Ivory Claws; their totem is Crimson and White Agony, a spirit of salt and pain. Known for their incredible ancestral and bloodline records, as well as their heavy involvement in Hong Kong politics and medical services. The Hou are seen as cruel, cold and clinical; few fates are worse than falling into the hands of a Hou torturer. The Hou claim to be the oldest and most legitimate of all the Five Great Packs, as unlike the other four the Hou already existed prior to 1899; Hou stories have it that they formed when the Punti migrated to Hong Kong in the 1200s, taking over the sacred mantle of an even older pack who were appointed by the Nine Dragons.

===The Peng – Hongkong Island===
Pure, mostly Ivory Claws; their totem is the Thousand Roaring Eyes and Mouths, a spirit of water and destruction. Known for their wealth and the role they play as financial agents for Pure across the world, their foreign contacts and also their martial traditions. The Peng claim that Hong Kong is actually the site on which Wolf was slain by its treacherous children. They are known for undertaking lavish, extravagant rituals offering sacrifices to the spirits and the waters in penance, to which werewolves of all stripes are invited. Despite their outwards expressions of wealth and openness, they're also said to be a hotbed of internal scheming due to the influence of rival spirit lords.

===The Tang – Hongkong Island===
Forsaken, mostly Bone Shadows and Storm Lords; their totem is the Pale Mandarin, a spirit of secrets, knowledge and fear. They are known for their information network and the dirt they're said to hold on every figure of note in Hong Kong, their knowledge of death and the Underworld, and their involvement in urban planning and development. Rumour has it that the Tang have successfully used occult geometries to create paths into the Deep Shadow. A few pieces of particularly bitter hearsay that refuse to die have it that the Tang take their marching orders from packs in Beijing.

Tang '''nieces/nephews''':
*'''Makisig''', Storm Lord Elodoth. A young Filipino from a relatively wealthy background, Makisig is tasked with keeping an eye on the younger parts of the population in Central & Western and Wan Chai. He's said to be involved in the city's music scene.

===The Liao – New Territories===
Forsaken, mostly Blood Talons; their totem is the Torn Banner, a spirit of change and violence. They are known for their fighting prowess, their trade and manufacture of spiritual goods (including fetishes and talens) and their connections to mainland China. The Liao are generally seen as the most traditionalist and conservative of the Five Great Packs, ironic given the nature of their totem and their own history; they were originally mostly Predator Kings, changing allegiance to the Forsaken via bloody infighting shortly after the Japanese occupation.

==Other Packs==

===The Sung-Ti – Mong Kok===
The Sung-Ti are a largely Fire-Touched pack of Pure holding territory to the north-east of the pack – and they still nurse a grudge over the loss of Cherry Gardens to Melissa Tsang in the 80s. Pitching themselves as judges of certain sins, the Sung-Ti reputedly have significant involvement in both the criminal side of Kowloon and its charities.

* ? Ash Talon ? - Fire-Touched crafter, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.
* ? Kanomi ? - Wolf-Blooded capable of overwhelming those who see her into believing she possesses incredible beauty, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.

===The Stone Lions – Various===
The Stone Lions are mostly Hunters in Darkness who oversee the occult maintenance of Boundary Street, once the limit of Hong Kong. The Lions are a 'daughter pack' of the Liao; they are also rumoured to participate in various sinister rituals to maintain their power.

===The Eyeless – Sham Shui Po===
The Eyeless are a strange and esoteric pack, believed to be a reclusive and likely heretical group of Forsaken. They generally avoid outside contact, but it is known that they pluck their own eyes out for some cultic purpose. Rumour links the Eyeless to the Japanese occupation, and those who would mock them call them the 'Nopera-Bo'.

===The Two Claw Society – Sham Shui Po===
The Two Claw Society are a pack of Bone Shadows and Blood Talons known to be particularly vicious in defending their territory, but also respected as being highly honourable. The Two Claws was created to deal with a horrific Wound resulting from a Japanese concentration camp on their territory – a Wound that still exists despite the pack's best efforts.

* Fan Chau, 'Crimson Autumn' - Bone Shadow Rahu. Belligerent member of the Lodge of Voices. Appears to have one of her hands replaced with someone else's through unknown means.

===The Tsen-Kuang – Tsim Sha Tsui===
A Pure pack on the south of the peninsula, known to be largely made up of Fire-Touched. The Tsen-Kuang have their claws firmly dug into the flow of migrants moving through Hong Kong, and are rumoured to cavort with Beshilu and other, even fouler denizens of the waterfronts. They are reputed to venerate an entity that they believe is responsible for stealing the Changes of nusuzul in Hong Kong; the Tsen-Kuang believe it to be a judge that weeds out those who are not worthy.

===Silver Horizon Futures - Various===
SH Futures appears to be a strange fusion of pack and corporation operating in Hong Kong. A subsidiary of the globe-spanning Cheiron, SHF is best known for its work in the bio-sciences and innovative energy generation solutions. The pack certainly includes both werewolves and Wolf-Blooded; the latter appear to hold the administrative and executive positions within the arrangement.

==Other Groups and Entities==

===Civilians===
*'''Dachan Cuifen''', curator of the Taotie exhibit at the museum and university archaeology lecturer.
*'''Alec & Rong''', friends of Lao Min and fellow students at the university.

===14K Triad===

*'''Hom Wie, Hive-Claimed'''. Rumoured to be a Taoist sorcerer and feared by the lower ranks of the Triad for his brutality and twisted appearance. Hom Wie has some sort of link or connection to Wang Jing from the past, sufficiently strong to warn her of a forthcoming Triad war.
*''''Emperor' Koi''', 14K Red Pole. An influential Red Pole in the Sham Shui Po and Yau Tsim Mong districts, with designs on drugs and prostitution rackets throughout the area. Has long attempted to extend his influence over Cherry Gardens but has been held back to the influence of the Blossom Society.
*'''Man Sie''', 14K fence. Deals in technical and technological goods primarily, operating out of the Lamp House.

===Wo Shing Wo Triad===

===Taotie===
Also known as the 'gluttonous ogres', taotie are very powerful entities of hunger that have been bound into ceramic masks and pottery. The mortal wielder of a taotie gains monstrous physical strength, the ability to cross the Gauntlet, and the ability to take the internal organs of a victim and place them within his or her own body. In return for this power, the taotie demands the sacrifice of the mortal wielder's own internal organs to feed its hunger. Manifesting its powers causes the taotie to drain a vast amount of Essence from the nearby ''Hisil'', often catastrophically for weaker spirits in the vicinity.
*'''Chua Chuo''', Sham Shui Po businessman and Taotie wielder - murdered Mark Callaghan-Cheung and She Wanli over property scheme using the power of the taotie. Killed by the Blossom Society. Apparently found the mask amongst some family belongings passed down to him.

==Other Locations==

===Sham Shui Po===
*The '''Lamp House''', a 14K-patronised club and meeting space for transactions of stolen goods and the like.
*'''Bedford Rise''', a run-down neighbourhood influenced by the Rotting Heart of Decay. Bedford Rise centres around a pedestrianised central street, crammed full of cheap stores, dive clubs and massage parlours. The 14K operate in the area under the auspices of the Red Pole Koi.
*'''Tung Chau Battery''' is an old historical military building in Bedford Rise, now dilapidated and crumbling. Inhabited by the homeless and drug users in the Flesh, it served the Rotting Heart of Decay as a lair in the Shadow.

==Beyond Hong Kong==

===Macau – The Zealous Warlord's Domain===
Often referred to as the 'darker sibling' by Hong Kong Uratha, Macau has a sinister reputation amongst werewolves – even despite it being a Forsaken stronghold. Beneath its seemingly placid surface, Macau is a place of nightmares. From 1966 onwards, the notorious Blood Talon warlord 'Silver Claw' Yin fought a sustained and bloody campaign against the Pure, claiming to have been given divine visions by the Moon and instructions from the Lunes. After just ten years, the last Pure were annihilated or driven out of the city. In 1987, however, the Pure attempted to return. In the three decades since, Macau has seen repeated attacks by the Pure, particularly under the leadership of the Fire-Touched sibling Elders Sheu-Fuh and Shunyan, although they have not yet regained a foothold for more than a few months at a time. Its occult landscape is a mess, scarred by brutality, madness and the mostly-unchecked spiritual off-flow of the mass of humanity crammed into the region. Other things have also been drawn in or caught up by the violence; it is said there is an alchemist amongst the Iron Masters of Macau who knows how to render sorcerers down for their power, while both Bone Shadows and Ivory Claws are said to have some means of producing vampires which they use as disposable agents and killers in their shadow war. Both Destroyer Wolf and Red Wolf are said to have taken an active interest in events in Macau since the 60s, but there is a much, much older shrine to Red Wolf in the city that the Forsaken defend fanatically – some rumours allege it is Pangaean in origin. For now, Yin continues to rule her Protectorate with an iron fist.

Characters of Macau:
*'''Adao''' - Iron Master Elodoth. Portuguese smuggler.
*'''Red Mask''' - Iron Master ?. Revered as the high priest of Red Wolf's shrine in Macau.

===Shenzen – The City Without History===
Shenzen is a mirror of Hong Kong's success story – a busy port, major financial centre and huge city butting against its northern border. Shenzen exploded from a small town in the 80s to the urban behemoth of today, and the the Uratha of the province know full well its growth was down to more than just the PRC labelling it a Special Economic Zone. Something has long been awry with the very fabric of reality in Shenzen and someone, or something, caused the expansion of the city by stealing it from a history that never happened, a Shenzen that never was, and overlaying it into this world. The layout of the city possesses innumerable minor pieces of occult geometry, coming together into some sort of vast chronal siphon that forces this reality to match the Other Shenzen. For years, the 'city without history' and the time spirits that flock there served as a major attraction for Uratha seers and secret-seekers of both Pure and Forsaken, with bitter fighting breaking out across its prime territories, but the Cull have moved in in recent years – and established a major Deep Shadow monastery as a bastion. Now this major land route into Hong Kong is threatened, the Cull bringing in more adherents as the months progress and the Uratha of the City of Nine Dragons watching uneasily from over the border. Word has it that the Thousand Steel Teeth are gathering their own war parties, determined to defend their supply lines that run through Hong Kong and Shenzen out into the wider world. The new city of Shenzen may be about to become a battleground for a particularly vicious phase of the war with the Cull.

===Guangdong – Riches Worth Fighting For===
The province of Guangdong may be a large and prosperous region, but for the Forsaken of the area it is perhaps most characterised by its river spirits. Threading down to the Pearl River Delta, these spirits are probably the most organised, widespread and outright hostile court of Guangdong; the feud dates back to the battle of Yamen in 1279. Defeating and subjugating the local river spirits is an ongoing struggle, not at all helped by the Pure's own alliance with the River King. Despite this hostility, there is much for the Forsaken to covet here – the wealth of the human population and the uncommonly high number of wellsprings of Essence. Guangdong has a great abundance of sites that naturally form talens, rich loci of rare Resonances, and unusual qualities to the Shadow that make certain rites – such as those that craft fetishes – easier to work than elsewhere. The Claimed are a particular threat across the province, and the Storm Lords have traditionally been very powerful here; there are several Tribal bastions where the Iminir protect ancient artefacts and relics that are the destination of pilgrims from across the globe. The Storm Lords of Guangdong have a highly organised Tribal structure that crosses throughout the packs and Protectorates of the province, leading up to an elected gong whose task is to tend to the ancient, revered Tribal elder known as the Zongshi – a near-mythical figure amongst the Forsaken, said to alternate between sleeping in a Storm Lord fastness and prowling the Deep Shadow for the most terrifying of prey. Guangdong regularly sees the conflict between Forsaken and Pure flare into open and brutal warfare, but these periods are almost always short – usually a year or two at most before things lapse once again, agreements are made and lines redrawn. The recent arrival of sects of the Cull from the west and north, however, threatens to upset that balance.

===Taiwan – Tyrants of the Earth===
Taiwan's Shadow was once ruled by the spirits of the mountains and the grumbling, shifting earth – but around two centuries ago, the Forsaken of the island undertook a great and mighty binding on the lords of rock and stone to chain them with fetters of symbolism. This caused a great rift amongst the Taiwanese Tribes, with the Bone Shadows breaking off to form their own separate faction, condemning the act as one of hubris that would only serve to harm Shadow and Flesh alike. For two centuries now, the bindings have mostly held – but when they weaken or shift, the furious spirits of the earth vent their rage on the world. Even today, the Bone Shadows remain separate to the other Forsaken and have, as the years turn, formed a distinct identity from Hirfathra Hissu elsewhere as well. The Predator Kings have long sought to unmake the chains that bind the mountain spirits and once formed the bulk of the Pure numbers in Taiwan, but since the Chinese Civil War the other two Pure Tribes have made significant inroads into what was once almost entirely under Forsaken control. Today, Taiwanese Uratha are renowned for their mastery of rites and the binding of spirits, but often considered prideful and arrogant in their disdain for other werewolves who do not have the strength to chain the Shadow to their will. Taiwanese packs commonly include spirits enslaved to the pack's will, and even totems are treated less as respected equals and more as vassals or servants. The Bone Shadows continue to warn that a reckoning will yet come; but as each decade passes without sign of their forecast apocalypse, so does the scorn for the fifth Tribe rise amongst the Taiwanese.

===Philippines – The Spinner Hag's Bastion===
In many ways, Uratha in the Philippines have lives similar to werewolves elsewhere – though the boundaries of territories in the archipelago are often delineated by coastline and travel between islands can be tricky. The rising prosperity and development of the country has left Uratha with many of the same challenges and opportunities as in other nations. The Shadow across the Philippines, however, is in a ruinous state – and has been for millennia. By local lore, the Great Predator fought much of its battle with the Spinner Hag over what became these islands, and in many places the Gauntlet is still torn asunder by the mere echo of Wolf's claws and teeth. Worse, other patches of Gauntlet are thick and distended, shrouded in Azlo webs and said to contain oozing gobbets of the Hag's carcass. The Azlu are numerous and powerful here, and are no mere monstrous beasts – the Host spider-witches of the Philippines think and plan with an alien but clinically precise approach, their schemes spanning centuries. The poor state of the Gauntlet has also resulted in a much higher number of spirits crossing over into the Flesh, bizarre and unique forms of Claimed, and other entities born by the fusion of the two worlds. Repeated rumours bubble up that there are actually still areas of Pangaea itself hidden away, somehow saved from the Great Predator's death-howl. Unsurprisingly, the Hunters in Darkness lead the Forsaken here, and Filipino werewolves are said to be both particularly vigilant – or paranoid, by the less charitable – and particularly talented in the matter of wards and occult protections. The Philippines have long served as a destination for Hunter in Darkness pilgrimages – old and veteran Meninna from other countries, even far-off continents, have been known to 'retire' to this heart of Azlu power, and werewolves seeking lore and insights into the spider Hosts often seek out Filipino brethren for aid.

===Vietnam – The Harmonious Kings===
Early in the 20th Century, the Pure of Vietnam began to tip the scales against their Forsaken counterparts; they took advantage of the disruption and conflict that plagued the country until, after the US-Vietnam war and the fall of the South, the Fire-Touched and Predator Kings had near total domination of the unified country. The Forsaken of today, though, are having a comparatively easy time of it; the Pure are far more focused on warring with each other, and there are a number of powerful spirit nobles that have sided with the Forsaken in the wake of the Pure calling down horrific spirit-horrors from beyond Luna's orbit. The Predator Kings have split into two factions that battle one another with brutal ferocity, mainly due to the emergence of a radical, heretical Ninna Farakh Lodge called the Lan that has rapidly surged in converts. The Lan adhere to portions of Dire Wolf's philosophy, but are far more connected to humanity than their erstwhile comrades; the totem's ban makes it difficult for the Lan to work within society so they instead use a large cult of human and Wolf-Blooded go-betweens to sink their claws into Vietnam. Espousing a creed that the Predator Kings should adapt to the changing world and shepherd humanity to a harmonious union with the wild and the hunt, the Lan are largely uninterested in pursuing the Forsaken compared to destroying the Fire-Touched and converting or killing the rest of their Tribe. To the Forsaken, it all looks very much like the Predator Kings' penchant for savagery has finally turned inwards while the real Vietnam moves beyond their outmoded ways – but there are those who worry that the Harmonious Kings of the Lan are winning, and fear what may happen once they have done so. Some wonder if the Lan might be converted in turn to the Forsaken, but the Lodge has shown little interest in any Urdaga Creeds.

==New Material==

===New Rites===

'''Vex (Wolf Rite ●)''' 
This petty curse calls upon spirits of misfortune and malevolence to plague whoever has drawn the werewolf's ire. 
'''Symbols:''' Fire, venom, violence, the skill that is to be targeted. 
'''Cost:''' 1 Essence 
'''Action:''' Extended (5 successes; each roll represents 1 minute); resisted by the target's Composure. 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The Essence used to fuel this rite must come from a locus of hatred, pain, despair or decay. Additionally, the ritemaster must have a possession of the target, a nail clipping, a lock of hair or some other bodily substance from the intended victim. The ritemaster selects a single skill that will be cursed; thereafter, the first time the victim uses that skill in the following month, her result becomes a dramatic failure regardless of what she rolls. The ritemaster immediately knows when this happens. A character may only be the subject of a single vex at a time, and cannot be subjected again until the rite's month of duration has passed. 

'''Drain the Well (Pack Rite ●●●)''' 
This rite uses a locus to draw in its Resonance from the surrounding ar ea, draining the Shadow of Essence attuned to its nature. Paradoxically, this ensures the locus surges deep with Essence of that kind; if left untended, it will wash back out again stronger than before.
'''Symbols:''' Water, pain, piercing or draining, the Resonance type. 
'''Action:''' Extended (20 successes; each roll represents 10 minutes) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed at the site of a locus, draining Resonance into it. This has several effects: spirits and Uratha within 100 yards per dot of the rating of the Locus, or within the entire territory (whichever is larger), take the locus's rating as a penalty to all rolls for Influences that match its Resonance when outside its direct area. The Resonance is reduced in general, removing many incidents of the Resonant Condition across the affected region; draining a locus of pain would cause injuries and aches to inflict less pain, humans and animals will recover faster from harm and may simply not notice minor damage. This will have long-term effects on the Shadow and the material world. 
The ritemaster gains a persistent Ban Condition for the duration of the rite's effect, reflecting the Resonance of the locus; this Condition lifts when the rite ends. If the ritemaster ever violates the ban, the effects of the rite immediately end. If ended via ban violation, or if this rite is not performed on the locus again within a week of its duration ending, the locus becomes empowered for one month as if it were the subject of the Wellspring rite.

'''Shadow Signs (Pack Rite ●●●●)''' 
This rite may only be invoked on a territory that the ritemaster's pack has already sanctified with the Hunting Ground rite. It draws upon the secrets, the names and the flows of Essence that thread between the spirits of the territory's Shadow, revealing truths to the Uratha. 
'''Symbols:''' Writing or tattooing, wounds, whispers, the wind. 
'''Action:''' Extended (10 successes; each roll represents 1 minute) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month. 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed in the Shadow, within territory that the ritemaster's pack has placed the Hunting Ground rite upon. This causes that spot to become a nexus of information about the territory's Shadow. Over roughly a day, words and glyphs will carve themselves into the Shadow-stuff of an area roughly ten feet in radius, often oozing blood or ichor; these words spell out the names of powerful spirits in the area (Rank 3 and higher, as well as spirit nobles), indicate significant Shadow phenomena (like barrens, shoals, or an impending emotion-storm), and may also indicate other threats in the Shadow (such as warning of the warping spells that a Mage is using on the Hisil, or of a non-native monstrosity that has somehow breached the Gauntlet and is now marauding the spirits). The words update roughly every day, with old, bleeding warnings squirming aside for eruptions of fresh and oozing names as new, powerful spirits move in or a threat manifests itself. Any Uratha who reads the shadow signs gains a +3 bonus to locate or perceive spirits, entities or phenomena that they have seen the warnings or names of, while the rite lasts. However, picking key information out of the mass of glyphs and sigils is not necessarily straightforward.

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T16:37:07Z

Acrozatarim: /* The Tang – Hongkong Island */

=Werewolf: the Forsaken - The Eater of Names=
A Werewolf: the Forsaken game set in Hong Kong.

==Hong Kong==

===Werewolf Oddities of Hong Kong===
*Something steals the First Change of the majority of nusuzul. At the moment of the Change, they have their newfound nature torn out of them by an unknown force, leaving them as normal humans suffering a psychotic break – even former Wolf-Blooded have their inheritance stripped from them at this moment.
*The territories of Hong Kong are a complete patchwork between the different factions. There are no solid battle lines between Pure and Forsaken, and the vertical nature of the urban landscape means that even a small scrap of land can be more than enough to patrol for most packs. The Shadow reflection of the city sees a spiritual ecosystem that is just as confused and turbulent.
*Due to the sheer population density and the patchwork nature of the territories, Hong Kong packs have strong traditions about hospitality and allowances for crossing another pack's turf – even between Pure and Forsaken.
*There are no Protectorates in Hong Kong. The closest to any sort of formal structure are the Five Great Packs – the Wen, Hou, Peng, Tang and Liao, formed from amongst the Uratha of the mortal clans of the area in 1899. The Great Packs are probably the largest and most influential of the city, but with respect comes responsibility, and they are expected to provide aid and guidance to other werewolves. These expectations, again, cross factional lines.
*Tribes and allegiances to Pure and Forsaken are important, but Hong Kong also plays host to a number of strange packs allied to neither faction, packs amongst foreign immigrant populations with odd practices and traditions, and a focus on Lodges. The sheer density of the city can make the patchwork of territories confusing and Tribes rarely organise on a wide scale, but Lodge connections matter and underpin much of the social fabric of Hong Kong.
*With so much movement in and out of Hong Kong, its transitional position in the world (geographically, politically and symbolically) and its possession of so many layers and shadows that even the werewolves cannot plumb them all, the city is a hotbed for weirdness and occult conspiracies. Yao guai and jiang shi slither through the darkness, hungry ghosts and watery shades prowl at the fringes, and now the forces of the dreaded Cull are preparing to assault the borders of the territory – something that has both Pure and Forsaken alike on edge.
*Local Uratha lore has it that, in some past age, Hong Kong was the site of a meeting between the Nine Dragons – held to be the eight Firstborn of the Pure and the Forsaken, and a last figure of disputed nature. Some believe it was one of the first Chinese emperors. It was this gathering of beings of incredible power that, it is claimed, is responsible for the strong currents of Essence that pour through the region's Shadow even today.
*The chenghuanshen, the city-spirit of Hong Kong, definitely exists – but its nature is not entirely clear. It may actually be a consciousness split across a number of powerful urban spirits, and seems quite capable of fighting with itself as much as any other spirit nobles of the region. Furthermore, it has a long-running feud with the spirits of the mountains and the peaks.

==The Blossom Society Pack==
History is important to the packs of Hong Kong, although knowledge of the past of the Forsaken is usually rather patchy:
*Most Kowloon Forsaken hark back to the '''Salt Eaters''', a pack that controlled much of the area in the middle of the second millenium.
*In the late 1800s, the third bubonic plague wracked China; as a result the '''Yellow-Feathered Owls''', a pack of Bone Shadows and Hunters in Darkness, controlled what is now Sham Shui Po.
*In 1899, territorial unrest with the five Chinese clans in the area resulted in the creation of the Five Great Packs; the original Cherry Gardens themselves were held by a daughter pack of the Wen, the '''White Jade''' pack.
*After the Japanese occupation, the predecessors of the Blossom Society took over the area. They were not opposed in doing so; the sheer damage done by the occupation had resulted in the deportation or deaths of most of the White Jade and their extended pack.

Of the pack's previous Uratha, the existing pack members may know of the following:
*''''Red Shroud'''' – Bone Shadow, formed pack in aftermath of Japanese occupation – famous for dealing with a terrifying plague of restless ghosts and widely venerated by Uratha across Hong Kong for her accomplishments.
*'''Wen Liang''' – Iron Master, powerful figure amongst the packs in the 60's and 70's, infamous for his involvement in the 1967 riots and his killing of a number of communist ringleaders. A name both respected and feared.
*'''Melissa Tsang''' – Blood Talon, took control of the Cherry Garden Night Market in the 80s by driving out the '''Sung-Ti''', a vicious yao guai and its Fire-Touched Pure followers.

The recent losses the pack has suffered are:
*'''James 'Steeljaw Trap' Liu''' – Hunter in Darkness Cahalith and member of the Lodge of Seven Venoms. Died five years ago fighting beshilu in the typhoon shelter; he sank a floating crane raft infested with Rat Hosts while he was still onboard.
*'''Gwok Mei''' – Bone Shadow Rahu and member of the Lodge of Death. Left two years ago in response to the Lodge calling a pilgrimage against the Cull in northern China. She has not been heard from since.
*'''Mark Callahan-Cheung''' – Iron Master shaman, local landlord and member of the Yau Tsim Mong district council. Died under strange circumstances one month before the game's beginning, which the pack had difficulties investigating due to Mark's public position as a councilman and the police and press interest in the case.

The totem of the pack is the '''Eight Lanterns Minister''', spirit of the Cherry Gardens Night Market. The minister appears in the form of a set of grandiose mandarin ministerial garb, threaded with lines of neon and jangling talismans of commerce, wrapped around a withered but strong frame. Its face is concealed behind a veil, but seems to emanate a gentle glow. Lanterns hang from a frame of lacquered wood that floats behind its shoulders; the colours of the lanterns often indicate the spirit's mood.

The Eight Lanterns Minister has served the pack as totem since the 1980s, its fortunes waxing and waning over that time. It is devious, smart and opportunistic. The Minister is a very lowly spirit noble, with a paltry court of lesser spirits of the market at its beck and call; it in turn is the vassal of the spirit noble of Temple Street Night Market, which has caused some friction with the Wen over the years.

===Werewolves===
*'''Red Lantern Widow, Bone Shadow Elodoth''', formerly wife of an up and coming politician until she killed him during her First Change. She uses his skull as a focus in her rites.
*'''Lucky Rat, Hunter in Darkness Rahu''', whose pest control company gives him an overwatch on Beshilu activity in the area. Possesses some anger issues.
*'''Wang Lee, Bone Shadow Irraka''', the youngest of the pack members and something of a street rat. Son of Wang Jing.
*'''Lao Min, newly-Changed Ithaeur''', straight-A's university student whose First Change was triggered by a manifestation of Death Wolf. Despite appearing as an embodiment of that Firstborn, she's leaning towards Red Wolf's Tribe.

===Wolf-Blooded===
*'''Zhongli Hu''' – 'Auntie' Hu is an elderly fortune-teller and seller of offerings and incense in the night market. She is also a Wolf-Blooded with the Piercing Eyes Tell. Hu was a little girl when Red Shroud ran these streets, claims to have been Wen Liang's mistress, and has certainly lived a storied life.
*'''Ko Lei''' runs the market's security, a sturdy man with a pock-marked face and a quick temper. Lei is a Wolf-Blooded with the Wolf's Meat Tell. He used to be a member of the 14K triad.
*'''Wang Jing''' – She owns and runs the Hive Bar, just outside the night market. She has the Skinner Tell, and has obviously been mentally scarred by some of what she has seen and done. The older pack members would only reference her past activities obliquely and refuse to give details. Some tension between her and her son.
*'''Zhao Bo''' – Widow's sister, who took a very different career path; she is a low-ranking financial auditor in Hong Kong's financial investigative body. Plagued by what she thought were psychiatric problems through her life, it was only since her sister Changed that she discovered the truth – the voices in her head were spirits. She is a Wolf-Blooded with the Waystone Tell.

===Humans===
*The exterminators of '''Yellow Kowloon Pest Control''' are the employees and associates of Arran's character. Working out of an office and storehouse in the territory, they're perhaps the most 'in the know' of all the humans about the supernatural, and they'd probably be hunters if they hadn't been brought under the wing of the pack. The company was briefly used as a front by a Rat Host, which is what drew the pack's attention.
*Several of the market's '''security guards''', Ko Lei's colleagues, are pack members. They know enough to understand that the pack have their back in keeping control of the Night Market, and they like to hang out with pack members to absorb some of the respect and fear that the werewolves are accorded.
*A half-dozen of the stall vendors are, like the security guards, pack members; they form the '''Mutual Activity Committee''' of the market, and the other shopkeepers know they're an 'inner circle' separate from the actual management (who are not pack members).
*'''Zhongli Zhuang''', or 'Uncle' Zhuang, is an old former Sun Yee On triad member and the husband of Auntie Hu. Despite his age, he still possesses a heavy frame; these days he sells occult tat and the like alongside his wife, but he also keeps an eye on the black market dealers in the area for the pack.
*'''Yi Kun''', owner of the Yi Healthy Wu Kwan (martial club), is a martial artist trainer who knows enough about the Uratha to understand their role as guardians of the area; he's had a few unpleasant run-ins over the years.

===Others===
*Michael Jin – a former manager of the Night Market, Michael died in the early 2000s in a horrific murder; a business rival with schemes on the property's future arranged for a construction 'accident' when a large block of concrete fell from scaffolding onto the man. Mister Jin was a client of the pack at the time, who were surprised by the lucidity his ghost retained after death. Michael is odd, fussy and obsessive, the broken remains of a personality clinging on to existence through his ties to the Night Market.

===The Totem - Eight Lanterns Minister (''Usufunsugal'' in the First Tongue)===
'''Rank 2 night market spirit''' 
'''Attributes:''' Power 2 Finesse 5 Resistance 2 
'''Willpower:''' 7 
'''Essence:''' 15 
'''Initiative:''' 7 
'''Defence:''' 2 
'''Speed:''' 10 
'''Size:''' 5 
'''Corpus:''' 7 
'''Influences:''' Wealth 1, Light 1 
'''Numina:''' Awe, Coin Curse*, Sign 
''Coin Curse – New Numina:'' The spirit may use this power on anyone it witnesses cheating in a trade, making a false deal or forcing a grievously unfair exchange, as long as money of some sort is involved. Coin Curse costs 1 Essence to use, and affects a coin, bank note, cheque or even money existing only as an electronic transfer. For as long as the character possesses that money in any way, they are affected by an increasingly unpleasant withering disease and the moderate Sick Tilt persistently; even if treated, it will return. Throwing or giving away the money ends the effect. 
'''Manifestations:''' Twilight Form, Gauntlet Breach, Materialise 
'''Ban:''' While the Cherry Gardens shrine of prosperity is damaged or desecrated, the Eight Lanterns Minister cannot leave the night market; if outside the market when the shrine is damaged, it is immediately called back. 
'''Bane:''' Glass from broken lights. 

==Cherry Gardens Market==
The pack's territory is centred around '''Cherry Gardens Night Market''', a night market that lies on the border between '''Sham Shui Po''' district (poor, working-class, lots of public housing) and '''Yau Tsim Mong''' district (core urban area, very high population density, lots of commercial). Cherry Gardens isn't as large or well-known as Temple Street, but it is still a bustling, busy market through the night hours.

The '''night market''' is the beating heart of the territory, catering to the workers of the two districts – cheap tat, mobile phones, clothes, cooked food, incense and paper offerings, and plenty more besides. The pack also holds:
- The surrounding '''residential blocks''' (shops on ground floors, cramped flats above, several with rooftop slums) up to two streets in each direction. These are mostly known by their block number - Lao Min's family lives in Tower 2, for example.
- To the west, the ground under the '''motorway fly-overs''' and then the '''waterfront'''. As well as some storehouses and parks, there are black market dealers and fortune-tellers in the shadow of the motorway.
- The waterfront is a '''typhoon shelter''', protected by a sea wall and a mixture of industrial and private – floating crane platforms, piles of shipping containers and junk-yards.

Crime in Cherry Gardens Night Market is low – petty theft, shoplifting and pickpocketing are common, but the market security guards have been aligned with the pack for years and have a reputation for brutality when dealing with real threats. The local triad gang, led by a Red Pole of the 14K Triad called 'Emperor' Koi, wants control of the night market but has never been able to extend his influence over it.

===Cherry Gardens characters===
*'''Chen Jin''', Spirit-Urged arsonist. Worker who lived in Tower 2 and was assembling some sort of occult explosive device that would use a summoned fire spirit to create an inferno. Appears to have been influenced by particular Wolf-Blooded, possibly tied to the Sung-Ti. Killed by Lao Min during her First Change.
*'''She Wanli''', manager of Tower 7 and shop owner. Affable, overweight local man who had his guts ripped out by the rampaging Taotie.
*'''Kwo Tien''', young tough. Lives in Cherry Gardens, claims to be part of the 14k Triad. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Taesuk Weyen''', patriarch of the Taesuk family. Lives in Cherry Gardens. Holds grudge against the Kwo family. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Hua''', minor tech criminal. Tattooed and hyperactive, Hua purveys petty illegalities - wiping stolen phones and computers, dealing in stolen data and the like.

===Cherry Gardens locations===
* The '''Blossom Society hall''' is a spacious basement subdivided into several smaller rooms, situated under a small laundry and bath-house on the night market shop-front. Once a triad gambling den, the basement includes a strong locus of prosperity and wealth (and, perhaps, greed) in the form of a shrine; the locus leads directly into the silken court of lanterns in the Shadow from which the Eight Lanterns Minister rules.
* One of the '''rooftop slums''' hangs precariously between towers 2 and 3, where the salvaged metal and wood bridge-way plays host to a minor locus of despair. The previous ithaeur, Mark, kept the insidious energies of the locus in check.

==Spirits and their Ilk==

===Lesser Spirits & Independents===
*The '''Crowdling''', a spirit of crowds that lairs around the Old Olympic MTR station. Carved the City Gift into Lucky Rat after being hunted in a chase that it greatly enjoyed.

===Nobles===
*'''Rotting Heart of Decay''', a lesser Ensih of urban decay and rot that held power over the run-down district of Bedford Rise. Granted boons by its liege, Crimson and White Agony, to let it better control the fief. Destroyed by the Blossom Society in a challenge for power and territory.
*'''Eight Lanterns Minister''', ruler of the Cherry Gardens Night Market.

===Servitors===
*'''Elders of Naga''', strange serpentine spirits of rock and bone. Follow in the wake of Death Wolf.

==The Five Great Packs==
The five pillars of Hong Kong Uratha society, born from agreements forged in 1899 alongside those made between the British colony and the local Chinese Punti clans, are called the Great Packs. Originally, each pack corresponded to the same mortal clan that it took the name of, but in the modern day there is no major link between the Punti clan families and the make-up of the pack in question. Most of the Great Packs are large, powerful and have two tiers amongst their Uratha members. The lower tier of 'nieces' and 'nephews' operate somewhat more like a conventional pack, but the upper tier of 'aunts' and 'uncles' are, oddly, less tightly bound together. The aunts and uncles are mentors, experts, revered elders and the like who focus more on their own matters, loosely connected to the other aunts and uncles but not necessarily very involved in the day-to-day running of the pack's assets. When an aunt or uncle asks for a service, the nephews and nieces are expected to snap to attention, but they are in turn expected not to abuse this authority to any great extent. Each Great Pack has a different system for providing more concrete leadership; the Hou select a single overall leader so that the other upper tier Uratha don't need to be bothered by petty concerns, while the Tang demand regular meetings of their aunts and uncles to ensure co-ordination.

The Great Packs are heavily tied into the occult fabric of Hong Kong, and possess considerable knowledge, influence and stockpiles of materials. A Lodge's leadership usually comes from Great Pack members. Each possesses an incredibly powerful totem spirit, but the nature of that relationship between pack and totem is closely guarded and outsiders suspect whatever agreement was signed in 1899 plays a heavy part.

===The Wen – Yau Tsim Mong===
Forsaken, mostly Hunters in Darkness and Iron Masters; their totem is the Serpent of Dreams and Bile, a spirit of incense, drugs and pollution. Known for their influence in shipping, narcotics, and their deep occult knowledge. The Wen have long been obsessed with hunting down the source of the Scourge, as they call the phenomenon that blights First Changes, and are known to truck with jiang shi, yao guai and other, stranger entities in their search for the truth.

Wen '''Aunts/Uncles''':
* '''Yeung He, 'Lightning Paper Fan'''' - Iron Master Ithaeur. Yeung He is one of the principle uncles of the Wen, a wealthy Hong Kong businessman who serves as the Great Pack's principle face of its occult side.
* '''Ten-Eyes Tsang''' - Storm Lord Ithaeur. Ten-Eyes is a drugs chemist and the principle responsible for the Wen drugs operation. Tsang is said to be a ''samzukwu'' or Three-Legged Crow, a member of the Lodge of Crows.

Wen '''Nieces/Nephews''':
* '''Dantea Wen''' - Hunter in Darkness Elodoth. Dantea is one of the most trusted lower-rankers in the Wen, slated for promotion and thus access to the pack's extensive resources. She is the local representative of the Lodge of the Seven Venoms, and a trained doctor.
* '''"Tightrope" Lei''' - Iron Master Irraka. Named for her habit of garroting prey, not for acrobatics.
*'''"Hapless" Fung''' - Storm Lord Rahu. Possesses incredible luck and is said to be cursed.
*'''"Pup" Sau''' - Iron Master Cahalith. Optimistic and hyperactive.

Wen '''Wolf-Blooded''':
*Inspector Hau Chen - HKPF Inspector and general police-force informant and contact for the Wen and affiliated packs. Tell is unknown.
*Zheng Fang - Full-time trusted gofer for the Wen. Immaculately dressed and presented but rumoured to be a very capable leg-breaker despite her appearance. Tell is rumoured to be very powerful for a Wolf-Blooded, possibly that she can summon spirit-wolves or turn into a spirit herself.

===The Hou – Kwun Tong===
Pure, Ivory Claws; their totem is Crimson and White Agony, a spirit of salt and pain. Known for their incredible ancestral and bloodline records, as well as their heavy involvement in Hong Kong politics and medical services. The Hou are seen as cruel, cold and clinical; few fates are worse than falling into the hands of a Hou torturer. The Hou claim to be the oldest and most legitimate of all the Five Great Packs, as unlike the other four the Hou already existed prior to 1899; Hou stories have it that they formed when the Punti migrated to Hong Kong in the 1200s, taking over the sacred mantle of an even older pack who were appointed by the Nine Dragons.

===The Peng – Hongkong Island===
Pure, mostly Ivory Claws; their totem is the Thousand Roaring Eyes and Mouths, a spirit of water and destruction. Known for their wealth and the role they play as financial agents for Pure across the world, their foreign contacts and also their martial traditions. The Peng claim that Hong Kong is actually the site on which Wolf was slain by its treacherous children. They are known for undertaking lavish, extravagant rituals offering sacrifices to the spirits and the waters in penance, to which werewolves of all stripes are invited. Despite their outwards expressions of wealth and openness, they're also said to be a hotbed of internal scheming due to the influence of rival spirit lords.

===The Tang – Hongkong Island===
Forsaken, mostly Bone Shadows and Storm Lords; their totem is the Pale Mandarin, a spirit of secrets, knowledge and fear. They are known for their information network and the dirt they're said to hold on every figure of note in Hong Kong, their knowledge of death and the Underworld, and their involvement in urban planning and development. Rumour has it that the Tang have successfully used occult geometries to create paths into the Deep Shadow. A few pieces of particularly bitter hearsay that refuse to die have it that the Tang take their marching orders from packs in Beijing.

Tang '''nieces/nephews''':
*'''Makisig''', Storm Lord Elodoth. A young Filipino from a relatively wealthy background, Makisig is tasked with keeping an eye on the younger parts of the population in Central & Western and Wan Chai. He's said to be involved in the city's music scene.

===The Liao – New Territories===
Forsaken, mostly Blood Talons; their totem is the Torn Banner, a spirit of change and violence. They are known for their fighting prowess, their trade and manufacture of spiritual goods (including fetishes and talens) and their connections to mainland China. The Liao are generally seen as the most traditionalist and conservative of the Five Great Packs, ironic given the nature of their totem and their own history; they were originally mostly Predator Kings, changing allegiance to the Forsaken via bloody infighting shortly after the Japanese occupation.

==Other Packs==

===The Sung-Ti – Mong Kok===
The Sung-Ti are a largely Fire-Touched pack of Pure holding territory to the north-east of the pack – and they still nurse a grudge over the loss of Cherry Gardens to Melissa Tsang in the 80s. Pitching themselves as judges of certain sins, the Sung-Ti reputedly have significant involvement in both the criminal side of Kowloon and its charities.

* ? Ash Talon ? - Fire-Touched crafter, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.
* ? Kanomi ? - Wolf-Blooded capable of overwhelming those who see her into believing she possesses incredible beauty, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.

===The Stone Lions – Various===
The Stone Lions are mostly Hunters in Darkness who oversee the occult maintenance of Boundary Street, once the limit of Hong Kong. The Lions are a 'daughter pack' of the Liao; they are also rumoured to participate in various sinister rituals to maintain their power.

===The Eyeless – Sham Shui Po===
The Eyeless are a strange and esoteric pack, believed to be a reclusive and likely heretical group of Forsaken. They generally avoid outside contact, but it is known that they pluck their own eyes out for some cultic purpose. Rumour links the Eyeless to the Japanese occupation, and those who would mock them call them the 'Nopera-Bo'.

===The Two Claw Society – Sham Shui Po===
The Two Claw Society are a pack of Bone Shadows and Blood Talons known to be particularly vicious in defending their territory, but also respected as being highly honourable. The Two Claws was created to deal with a horrific Wound resulting from a Japanese concentration camp on their territory – a Wound that still exists despite the pack's best efforts.

* Fan Chau, 'Crimson Autumn' - Bone Shadow Rahu. Belligerent member of the Lodge of Voices. Appears to have one of her hands replaced with someone else's through unknown means.

===The Tsen-Kuang – Tsim Sha Tsui===
A Pure pack on the south of the peninsula, known to be largely made up of Fire-Touched. The Tsen-Kuang have their claws firmly dug into the flow of migrants moving through Hong Kong, and are rumoured to cavort with Beshilu and other, even fouler denizens of the waterfronts. They are reputed to venerate an entity that they believe is responsible for stealing the Changes of nusuzul in Hong Kong; the Tsen-Kuang believe it to be a judge that weeds out those who are not worthy.

===Silver Horizon Futures - Various===
SH Futures appears to be a strange fusion of pack and corporation operating in Hong Kong. A subsidiary of the globe-spanning Cheiron, SHF is best known for its work in the bio-sciences and innovative energy generation solutions. The pack certainly includes both werewolves and Wolf-Blooded; the latter appear to hold the administrative and executive positions within the arrangement.

==Other Groups and Entities==

===Civilians===
*'''Dachan Cuifen''', curator of the Taotie exhibit at the museum and university archaeology lecturer.
*'''Alec & Rong''', friends of Lao Min and fellow students at the university.

===14K Triad===

*'''Hom Wie, Hive-Claimed'''. Rumoured to be a Taoist sorcerer and feared by the lower ranks of the Triad for his brutality and twisted appearance. Hom Wie has some sort of link or connection to Wang Jing from the past, sufficiently strong to warn her of a forthcoming Triad war.
*''''Emperor' Koi''', 14K Red Pole. An influential Red Pole in the Sham Shui Po and Yau Tsim Mong districts, with designs on drugs and prostitution rackets throughout the area. Has long attempted to extend his influence over Cherry Gardens but has been held back to the influence of the Blossom Society.
*'''Man Sie''', 14K fence. Deals in technical and technological goods primarily, operating out of the Lamp House.

===Taotie===
Also known as the 'gluttonous ogres', taotie are very powerful entities of hunger that have been bound into ceramic masks and pottery. The mortal wielder of a taotie gains monstrous physical strength, the ability to cross the Gauntlet, and the ability to take the internal organs of a victim and place them within his or her own body. In return for this power, the taotie demands the sacrifice of the mortal wielder's own internal organs to feed its hunger. Manifesting its powers causes the taotie to drain a vast amount of Essence from the nearby ''Hisil'', often catastrophically for weaker spirits in the vicinity.
*'''Chua Chuo''', Sham Shui Po businessman and Taotie wielder - murdered Mark Callaghan-Cheung and She Wanli over property scheme using the power of the taotie. Killed by the Blossom Society. Apparently found the mask amongst some family belongings passed down to him.

==Other Locations==

===Sham Shui Po===
*The '''Lamp House''', a 14K-patronised club and meeting space for transactions of stolen goods and the like.
*'''Bedford Rise''', a run-down neighbourhood influenced by the Rotting Heart of Decay. Bedford Rise centres around a pedestrianised central street, crammed full of cheap stores, dive clubs and massage parlours. The 14K operate in the area under the auspices of the Red Pole Koi.
*'''Tung Chau Battery''' is an old historical military building in Bedford Rise, now dilapidated and crumbling. Inhabited by the homeless and drug users in the Flesh, it served the Rotting Heart of Decay as a lair in the Shadow.

==Beyond Hong Kong==

===Macau – The Zealous Warlord's Domain===
Often referred to as the 'darker sibling' by Hong Kong Uratha, Macau has a sinister reputation amongst werewolves – even despite it being a Forsaken stronghold. Beneath its seemingly placid surface, Macau is a place of nightmares. From 1966 onwards, the notorious Blood Talon warlord 'Silver Claw' Yin fought a sustained and bloody campaign against the Pure, claiming to have been given divine visions by the Moon and instructions from the Lunes. After just ten years, the last Pure were annihilated or driven out of the city. In 1987, however, the Pure attempted to return. In the three decades since, Macau has seen repeated attacks by the Pure, particularly under the leadership of the Fire-Touched sibling Elders Sheu-Fuh and Shunyan, although they have not yet regained a foothold for more than a few months at a time. Its occult landscape is a mess, scarred by brutality, madness and the mostly-unchecked spiritual off-flow of the mass of humanity crammed into the region. Other things have also been drawn in or caught up by the violence; it is said there is an alchemist amongst the Iron Masters of Macau who knows how to render sorcerers down for their power, while both Bone Shadows and Ivory Claws are said to have some means of producing vampires which they use as disposable agents and killers in their shadow war. Both Destroyer Wolf and Red Wolf are said to have taken an active interest in events in Macau since the 60s, but there is a much, much older shrine to Red Wolf in the city that the Forsaken defend fanatically – some rumours allege it is Pangaean in origin. For now, Yin continues to rule her Protectorate with an iron fist.

Characters of Macau:
*'''Adao''' - Iron Master Elodoth. Portuguese smuggler.
*'''Red Mask''' - Iron Master ?. Revered as the high priest of Red Wolf's shrine in Macau.

===Shenzen – The City Without History===
Shenzen is a mirror of Hong Kong's success story – a busy port, major financial centre and huge city butting against its northern border. Shenzen exploded from a small town in the 80s to the urban behemoth of today, and the the Uratha of the province know full well its growth was down to more than just the PRC labelling it a Special Economic Zone. Something has long been awry with the very fabric of reality in Shenzen and someone, or something, caused the expansion of the city by stealing it from a history that never happened, a Shenzen that never was, and overlaying it into this world. The layout of the city possesses innumerable minor pieces of occult geometry, coming together into some sort of vast chronal siphon that forces this reality to match the Other Shenzen. For years, the 'city without history' and the time spirits that flock there served as a major attraction for Uratha seers and secret-seekers of both Pure and Forsaken, with bitter fighting breaking out across its prime territories, but the Cull have moved in in recent years – and established a major Deep Shadow monastery as a bastion. Now this major land route into Hong Kong is threatened, the Cull bringing in more adherents as the months progress and the Uratha of the City of Nine Dragons watching uneasily from over the border. Word has it that the Thousand Steel Teeth are gathering their own war parties, determined to defend their supply lines that run through Hong Kong and Shenzen out into the wider world. The new city of Shenzen may be about to become a battleground for a particularly vicious phase of the war with the Cull.

===Guangdong – Riches Worth Fighting For===
The province of Guangdong may be a large and prosperous region, but for the Forsaken of the area it is perhaps most characterised by its river spirits. Threading down to the Pearl River Delta, these spirits are probably the most organised, widespread and outright hostile court of Guangdong; the feud dates back to the battle of Yamen in 1279. Defeating and subjugating the local river spirits is an ongoing struggle, not at all helped by the Pure's own alliance with the River King. Despite this hostility, there is much for the Forsaken to covet here – the wealth of the human population and the uncommonly high number of wellsprings of Essence. Guangdong has a great abundance of sites that naturally form talens, rich loci of rare Resonances, and unusual qualities to the Shadow that make certain rites – such as those that craft fetishes – easier to work than elsewhere. The Claimed are a particular threat across the province, and the Storm Lords have traditionally been very powerful here; there are several Tribal bastions where the Iminir protect ancient artefacts and relics that are the destination of pilgrims from across the globe. The Storm Lords of Guangdong have a highly organised Tribal structure that crosses throughout the packs and Protectorates of the province, leading up to an elected gong whose task is to tend to the ancient, revered Tribal elder known as the Zongshi – a near-mythical figure amongst the Forsaken, said to alternate between sleeping in a Storm Lord fastness and prowling the Deep Shadow for the most terrifying of prey. Guangdong regularly sees the conflict between Forsaken and Pure flare into open and brutal warfare, but these periods are almost always short – usually a year or two at most before things lapse once again, agreements are made and lines redrawn. The recent arrival of sects of the Cull from the west and north, however, threatens to upset that balance.

===Taiwan – Tyrants of the Earth===
Taiwan's Shadow was once ruled by the spirits of the mountains and the grumbling, shifting earth – but around two centuries ago, the Forsaken of the island undertook a great and mighty binding on the lords of rock and stone to chain them with fetters of symbolism. This caused a great rift amongst the Taiwanese Tribes, with the Bone Shadows breaking off to form their own separate faction, condemning the act as one of hubris that would only serve to harm Shadow and Flesh alike. For two centuries now, the bindings have mostly held – but when they weaken or shift, the furious spirits of the earth vent their rage on the world. Even today, the Bone Shadows remain separate to the other Forsaken and have, as the years turn, formed a distinct identity from Hirfathra Hissu elsewhere as well. The Predator Kings have long sought to unmake the chains that bind the mountain spirits and once formed the bulk of the Pure numbers in Taiwan, but since the Chinese Civil War the other two Pure Tribes have made significant inroads into what was once almost entirely under Forsaken control. Today, Taiwanese Uratha are renowned for their mastery of rites and the binding of spirits, but often considered prideful and arrogant in their disdain for other werewolves who do not have the strength to chain the Shadow to their will. Taiwanese packs commonly include spirits enslaved to the pack's will, and even totems are treated less as respected equals and more as vassals or servants. The Bone Shadows continue to warn that a reckoning will yet come; but as each decade passes without sign of their forecast apocalypse, so does the scorn for the fifth Tribe rise amongst the Taiwanese.

===Philippines – The Spinner Hag's Bastion===
In many ways, Uratha in the Philippines have lives similar to werewolves elsewhere – though the boundaries of territories in the archipelago are often delineated by coastline and travel between islands can be tricky. The rising prosperity and development of the country has left Uratha with many of the same challenges and opportunities as in other nations. The Shadow across the Philippines, however, is in a ruinous state – and has been for millennia. By local lore, the Great Predator fought much of its battle with the Spinner Hag over what became these islands, and in many places the Gauntlet is still torn asunder by the mere echo of Wolf's claws and teeth. Worse, other patches of Gauntlet are thick and distended, shrouded in Azlo webs and said to contain oozing gobbets of the Hag's carcass. The Azlu are numerous and powerful here, and are no mere monstrous beasts – the Host spider-witches of the Philippines think and plan with an alien but clinically precise approach, their schemes spanning centuries. The poor state of the Gauntlet has also resulted in a much higher number of spirits crossing over into the Flesh, bizarre and unique forms of Claimed, and other entities born by the fusion of the two worlds. Repeated rumours bubble up that there are actually still areas of Pangaea itself hidden away, somehow saved from the Great Predator's death-howl. Unsurprisingly, the Hunters in Darkness lead the Forsaken here, and Filipino werewolves are said to be both particularly vigilant – or paranoid, by the less charitable – and particularly talented in the matter of wards and occult protections. The Philippines have long served as a destination for Hunter in Darkness pilgrimages – old and veteran Meninna from other countries, even far-off continents, have been known to 'retire' to this heart of Azlu power, and werewolves seeking lore and insights into the spider Hosts often seek out Filipino brethren for aid.

===Vietnam – The Harmonious Kings===
Early in the 20th Century, the Pure of Vietnam began to tip the scales against their Forsaken counterparts; they took advantage of the disruption and conflict that plagued the country until, after the US-Vietnam war and the fall of the South, the Fire-Touched and Predator Kings had near total domination of the unified country. The Forsaken of today, though, are having a comparatively easy time of it; the Pure are far more focused on warring with each other, and there are a number of powerful spirit nobles that have sided with the Forsaken in the wake of the Pure calling down horrific spirit-horrors from beyond Luna's orbit. The Predator Kings have split into two factions that battle one another with brutal ferocity, mainly due to the emergence of a radical, heretical Ninna Farakh Lodge called the Lan that has rapidly surged in converts. The Lan adhere to portions of Dire Wolf's philosophy, but are far more connected to humanity than their erstwhile comrades; the totem's ban makes it difficult for the Lan to work within society so they instead use a large cult of human and Wolf-Blooded go-betweens to sink their claws into Vietnam. Espousing a creed that the Predator Kings should adapt to the changing world and shepherd humanity to a harmonious union with the wild and the hunt, the Lan are largely uninterested in pursuing the Forsaken compared to destroying the Fire-Touched and converting or killing the rest of their Tribe. To the Forsaken, it all looks very much like the Predator Kings' penchant for savagery has finally turned inwards while the real Vietnam moves beyond their outmoded ways – but there are those who worry that the Harmonious Kings of the Lan are winning, and fear what may happen once they have done so. Some wonder if the Lan might be converted in turn to the Forsaken, but the Lodge has shown little interest in any Urdaga Creeds.

==New Material==

===New Rites===

'''Vex (Wolf Rite ●)''' 
This petty curse calls upon spirits of misfortune and malevolence to plague whoever has drawn the werewolf's ire. 
'''Symbols:''' Fire, venom, violence, the skill that is to be targeted. 
'''Cost:''' 1 Essence 
'''Action:''' Extended (5 successes; each roll represents 1 minute); resisted by the target's Composure. 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The Essence used to fuel this rite must come from a locus of hatred, pain, despair or decay. Additionally, the ritemaster must have a possession of the target, a nail clipping, a lock of hair or some other bodily substance from the intended victim. The ritemaster selects a single skill that will be cursed; thereafter, the first time the victim uses that skill in the following month, her result becomes a dramatic failure regardless of what she rolls. The ritemaster immediately knows when this happens. A character may only be the subject of a single vex at a time, and cannot be subjected again until the rite's month of duration has passed. 

'''Drain the Well (Pack Rite ●●●)''' 
This rite uses a locus to draw in its Resonance from the surrounding ar ea, draining the Shadow of Essence attuned to its nature. Paradoxically, this ensures the locus surges deep with Essence of that kind; if left untended, it will wash back out again stronger than before.
'''Symbols:''' Water, pain, piercing or draining, the Resonance type. 
'''Action:''' Extended (20 successes; each roll represents 10 minutes) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed at the site of a locus, draining Resonance into it. This has several effects: spirits and Uratha within 100 yards per dot of the rating of the Locus, or within the entire territory (whichever is larger), take the locus's rating as a penalty to all rolls for Influences that match its Resonance when outside its direct area. The Resonance is reduced in general, removing many incidents of the Resonant Condition across the affected region; draining a locus of pain would cause injuries and aches to inflict less pain, humans and animals will recover faster from harm and may simply not notice minor damage. This will have long-term effects on the Shadow and the material world. 
The ritemaster gains a persistent Ban Condition for the duration of the rite's effect, reflecting the Resonance of the locus; this Condition lifts when the rite ends. If the ritemaster ever violates the ban, the effects of the rite immediately end. If ended via ban violation, or if this rite is not performed on the locus again within a week of its duration ending, the locus becomes empowered for one month as if it were the subject of the Wellspring rite.

'''Shadow Signs (Pack Rite ●●●●)''' 
This rite may only be invoked on a territory that the ritemaster's pack has already sanctified with the Hunting Ground rite. It draws upon the secrets, the names and the flows of Essence that thread between the spirits of the territory's Shadow, revealing truths to the Uratha. 
'''Symbols:''' Writing or tattooing, wounds, whispers, the wind. 
'''Action:''' Extended (10 successes; each roll represents 1 minute) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month. 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed in the Shadow, within territory that the ritemaster's pack has placed the Hunting Ground rite upon. This causes that spot to become a nexus of information about the territory's Shadow. Over roughly a day, words and glyphs will carve themselves into the Shadow-stuff of an area roughly ten feet in radius, often oozing blood or ichor; these words spell out the names of powerful spirits in the area (Rank 3 and higher, as well as spirit nobles), indicate significant Shadow phenomena (like barrens, shoals, or an impending emotion-storm), and may also indicate other threats in the Shadow (such as warning of the warping spells that a Mage is using on the Hisil, or of a non-native monstrosity that has somehow breached the Gauntlet and is now marauding the spirits). The words update roughly every day, with old, bleeding warnings squirming aside for eruptions of fresh and oozing names as new, powerful spirits move in or a threat manifests itself. Any Uratha who reads the shadow signs gains a +3 bonus to locate or perceive spirits, entities or phenomena that they have seen the warnings or names of, while the rite lasts. However, picking key information out of the mass of glyphs and sigils is not necessarily straightforward.

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T16:33:02Z

Acrozatarim: /* Other Groups and Entities */

=Werewolf: the Forsaken - The Eater of Names=
A Werewolf: the Forsaken game set in Hong Kong.

==Hong Kong==

===Werewolf Oddities of Hong Kong===
*Something steals the First Change of the majority of nusuzul. At the moment of the Change, they have their newfound nature torn out of them by an unknown force, leaving them as normal humans suffering a psychotic break – even former Wolf-Blooded have their inheritance stripped from them at this moment.
*The territories of Hong Kong are a complete patchwork between the different factions. There are no solid battle lines between Pure and Forsaken, and the vertical nature of the urban landscape means that even a small scrap of land can be more than enough to patrol for most packs. The Shadow reflection of the city sees a spiritual ecosystem that is just as confused and turbulent.
*Due to the sheer population density and the patchwork nature of the territories, Hong Kong packs have strong traditions about hospitality and allowances for crossing another pack's turf – even between Pure and Forsaken.
*There are no Protectorates in Hong Kong. The closest to any sort of formal structure are the Five Great Packs – the Wen, Hou, Peng, Tang and Liao, formed from amongst the Uratha of the mortal clans of the area in 1899. The Great Packs are probably the largest and most influential of the city, but with respect comes responsibility, and they are expected to provide aid and guidance to other werewolves. These expectations, again, cross factional lines.
*Tribes and allegiances to Pure and Forsaken are important, but Hong Kong also plays host to a number of strange packs allied to neither faction, packs amongst foreign immigrant populations with odd practices and traditions, and a focus on Lodges. The sheer density of the city can make the patchwork of territories confusing and Tribes rarely organise on a wide scale, but Lodge connections matter and underpin much of the social fabric of Hong Kong.
*With so much movement in and out of Hong Kong, its transitional position in the world (geographically, politically and symbolically) and its possession of so many layers and shadows that even the werewolves cannot plumb them all, the city is a hotbed for weirdness and occult conspiracies. Yao guai and jiang shi slither through the darkness, hungry ghosts and watery shades prowl at the fringes, and now the forces of the dreaded Cull are preparing to assault the borders of the territory – something that has both Pure and Forsaken alike on edge.
*Local Uratha lore has it that, in some past age, Hong Kong was the site of a meeting between the Nine Dragons – held to be the eight Firstborn of the Pure and the Forsaken, and a last figure of disputed nature. Some believe it was one of the first Chinese emperors. It was this gathering of beings of incredible power that, it is claimed, is responsible for the strong currents of Essence that pour through the region's Shadow even today.
*The chenghuanshen, the city-spirit of Hong Kong, definitely exists – but its nature is not entirely clear. It may actually be a consciousness split across a number of powerful urban spirits, and seems quite capable of fighting with itself as much as any other spirit nobles of the region. Furthermore, it has a long-running feud with the spirits of the mountains and the peaks.

==The Blossom Society Pack==
History is important to the packs of Hong Kong, although knowledge of the past of the Forsaken is usually rather patchy:
*Most Kowloon Forsaken hark back to the '''Salt Eaters''', a pack that controlled much of the area in the middle of the second millenium.
*In the late 1800s, the third bubonic plague wracked China; as a result the '''Yellow-Feathered Owls''', a pack of Bone Shadows and Hunters in Darkness, controlled what is now Sham Shui Po.
*In 1899, territorial unrest with the five Chinese clans in the area resulted in the creation of the Five Great Packs; the original Cherry Gardens themselves were held by a daughter pack of the Wen, the '''White Jade''' pack.
*After the Japanese occupation, the predecessors of the Blossom Society took over the area. They were not opposed in doing so; the sheer damage done by the occupation had resulted in the deportation or deaths of most of the White Jade and their extended pack.

Of the pack's previous Uratha, the existing pack members may know of the following:
*''''Red Shroud'''' – Bone Shadow, formed pack in aftermath of Japanese occupation – famous for dealing with a terrifying plague of restless ghosts and widely venerated by Uratha across Hong Kong for her accomplishments.
*'''Wen Liang''' – Iron Master, powerful figure amongst the packs in the 60's and 70's, infamous for his involvement in the 1967 riots and his killing of a number of communist ringleaders. A name both respected and feared.
*'''Melissa Tsang''' – Blood Talon, took control of the Cherry Garden Night Market in the 80s by driving out the '''Sung-Ti''', a vicious yao guai and its Fire-Touched Pure followers.

The recent losses the pack has suffered are:
*'''James 'Steeljaw Trap' Liu''' – Hunter in Darkness Cahalith and member of the Lodge of Seven Venoms. Died five years ago fighting beshilu in the typhoon shelter; he sank a floating crane raft infested with Rat Hosts while he was still onboard.
*'''Gwok Mei''' – Bone Shadow Rahu and member of the Lodge of Death. Left two years ago in response to the Lodge calling a pilgrimage against the Cull in northern China. She has not been heard from since.
*'''Mark Callahan-Cheung''' – Iron Master shaman, local landlord and member of the Yau Tsim Mong district council. Died under strange circumstances one month before the game's beginning, which the pack had difficulties investigating due to Mark's public position as a councilman and the police and press interest in the case.

The totem of the pack is the '''Eight Lanterns Minister''', spirit of the Cherry Gardens Night Market. The minister appears in the form of a set of grandiose mandarin ministerial garb, threaded with lines of neon and jangling talismans of commerce, wrapped around a withered but strong frame. Its face is concealed behind a veil, but seems to emanate a gentle glow. Lanterns hang from a frame of lacquered wood that floats behind its shoulders; the colours of the lanterns often indicate the spirit's mood.

The Eight Lanterns Minister has served the pack as totem since the 1980s, its fortunes waxing and waning over that time. It is devious, smart and opportunistic. The Minister is a very lowly spirit noble, with a paltry court of lesser spirits of the market at its beck and call; it in turn is the vassal of the spirit noble of Temple Street Night Market, which has caused some friction with the Wen over the years.

===Werewolves===
*'''Red Lantern Widow, Bone Shadow Elodoth''', formerly wife of an up and coming politician until she killed him during her First Change. She uses his skull as a focus in her rites.
*'''Lucky Rat, Hunter in Darkness Rahu''', whose pest control company gives him an overwatch on Beshilu activity in the area. Possesses some anger issues.
*'''Wang Lee, Bone Shadow Irraka''', the youngest of the pack members and something of a street rat. Son of Wang Jing.
*'''Lao Min, newly-Changed Ithaeur''', straight-A's university student whose First Change was triggered by a manifestation of Death Wolf. Despite appearing as an embodiment of that Firstborn, she's leaning towards Red Wolf's Tribe.

===Wolf-Blooded===
*'''Zhongli Hu''' – 'Auntie' Hu is an elderly fortune-teller and seller of offerings and incense in the night market. She is also a Wolf-Blooded with the Piercing Eyes Tell. Hu was a little girl when Red Shroud ran these streets, claims to have been Wen Liang's mistress, and has certainly lived a storied life.
*'''Ko Lei''' runs the market's security, a sturdy man with a pock-marked face and a quick temper. Lei is a Wolf-Blooded with the Wolf's Meat Tell. He used to be a member of the 14K triad.
*'''Wang Jing''' – She owns and runs the Hive Bar, just outside the night market. She has the Skinner Tell, and has obviously been mentally scarred by some of what she has seen and done. The older pack members would only reference her past activities obliquely and refuse to give details. Some tension between her and her son.
*'''Zhao Bo''' – Widow's sister, who took a very different career path; she is a low-ranking financial auditor in Hong Kong's financial investigative body. Plagued by what she thought were psychiatric problems through her life, it was only since her sister Changed that she discovered the truth – the voices in her head were spirits. She is a Wolf-Blooded with the Waystone Tell.

===Humans===
*The exterminators of '''Yellow Kowloon Pest Control''' are the employees and associates of Arran's character. Working out of an office and storehouse in the territory, they're perhaps the most 'in the know' of all the humans about the supernatural, and they'd probably be hunters if they hadn't been brought under the wing of the pack. The company was briefly used as a front by a Rat Host, which is what drew the pack's attention.
*Several of the market's '''security guards''', Ko Lei's colleagues, are pack members. They know enough to understand that the pack have their back in keeping control of the Night Market, and they like to hang out with pack members to absorb some of the respect and fear that the werewolves are accorded.
*A half-dozen of the stall vendors are, like the security guards, pack members; they form the '''Mutual Activity Committee''' of the market, and the other shopkeepers know they're an 'inner circle' separate from the actual management (who are not pack members).
*'''Zhongli Zhuang''', or 'Uncle' Zhuang, is an old former Sun Yee On triad member and the husband of Auntie Hu. Despite his age, he still possesses a heavy frame; these days he sells occult tat and the like alongside his wife, but he also keeps an eye on the black market dealers in the area for the pack.
*'''Yi Kun''', owner of the Yi Healthy Wu Kwan (martial club), is a martial artist trainer who knows enough about the Uratha to understand their role as guardians of the area; he's had a few unpleasant run-ins over the years.

===Others===
*Michael Jin – a former manager of the Night Market, Michael died in the early 2000s in a horrific murder; a business rival with schemes on the property's future arranged for a construction 'accident' when a large block of concrete fell from scaffolding onto the man. Mister Jin was a client of the pack at the time, who were surprised by the lucidity his ghost retained after death. Michael is odd, fussy and obsessive, the broken remains of a personality clinging on to existence through his ties to the Night Market.

===The Totem - Eight Lanterns Minister (''Usufunsugal'' in the First Tongue)===
'''Rank 2 night market spirit''' 
'''Attributes:''' Power 2 Finesse 5 Resistance 2 
'''Willpower:''' 7 
'''Essence:''' 15 
'''Initiative:''' 7 
'''Defence:''' 2 
'''Speed:''' 10 
'''Size:''' 5 
'''Corpus:''' 7 
'''Influences:''' Wealth 1, Light 1 
'''Numina:''' Awe, Coin Curse*, Sign 
''Coin Curse – New Numina:'' The spirit may use this power on anyone it witnesses cheating in a trade, making a false deal or forcing a grievously unfair exchange, as long as money of some sort is involved. Coin Curse costs 1 Essence to use, and affects a coin, bank note, cheque or even money existing only as an electronic transfer. For as long as the character possesses that money in any way, they are affected by an increasingly unpleasant withering disease and the moderate Sick Tilt persistently; even if treated, it will return. Throwing or giving away the money ends the effect. 
'''Manifestations:''' Twilight Form, Gauntlet Breach, Materialise 
'''Ban:''' While the Cherry Gardens shrine of prosperity is damaged or desecrated, the Eight Lanterns Minister cannot leave the night market; if outside the market when the shrine is damaged, it is immediately called back. 
'''Bane:''' Glass from broken lights. 

==Cherry Gardens Market==
The pack's territory is centred around '''Cherry Gardens Night Market''', a night market that lies on the border between '''Sham Shui Po''' district (poor, working-class, lots of public housing) and '''Yau Tsim Mong''' district (core urban area, very high population density, lots of commercial). Cherry Gardens isn't as large or well-known as Temple Street, but it is still a bustling, busy market through the night hours.

The '''night market''' is the beating heart of the territory, catering to the workers of the two districts – cheap tat, mobile phones, clothes, cooked food, incense and paper offerings, and plenty more besides. The pack also holds:
- The surrounding '''residential blocks''' (shops on ground floors, cramped flats above, several with rooftop slums) up to two streets in each direction. These are mostly known by their block number - Lao Min's family lives in Tower 2, for example.
- To the west, the ground under the '''motorway fly-overs''' and then the '''waterfront'''. As well as some storehouses and parks, there are black market dealers and fortune-tellers in the shadow of the motorway.
- The waterfront is a '''typhoon shelter''', protected by a sea wall and a mixture of industrial and private – floating crane platforms, piles of shipping containers and junk-yards.

Crime in Cherry Gardens Night Market is low – petty theft, shoplifting and pickpocketing are common, but the market security guards have been aligned with the pack for years and have a reputation for brutality when dealing with real threats. The local triad gang, led by a Red Pole of the 14K Triad called 'Emperor' Koi, wants control of the night market but has never been able to extend his influence over it.

===Cherry Gardens characters===
*'''Chen Jin''', Spirit-Urged arsonist. Worker who lived in Tower 2 and was assembling some sort of occult explosive device that would use a summoned fire spirit to create an inferno. Appears to have been influenced by particular Wolf-Blooded, possibly tied to the Sung-Ti. Killed by Lao Min during her First Change.
*'''She Wanli''', manager of Tower 7 and shop owner. Affable, overweight local man who had his guts ripped out by the rampaging Taotie.
*'''Kwo Tien''', young tough. Lives in Cherry Gardens, claims to be part of the 14k Triad. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Taesuk Weyen''', patriarch of the Taesuk family. Lives in Cherry Gardens. Holds grudge against the Kwo family. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Hua''', minor tech criminal. Tattooed and hyperactive, Hua purveys petty illegalities - wiping stolen phones and computers, dealing in stolen data and the like.

===Cherry Gardens locations===
* The '''Blossom Society hall''' is a spacious basement subdivided into several smaller rooms, situated under a small laundry and bath-house on the night market shop-front. Once a triad gambling den, the basement includes a strong locus of prosperity and wealth (and, perhaps, greed) in the form of a shrine; the locus leads directly into the silken court of lanterns in the Shadow from which the Eight Lanterns Minister rules.
* One of the '''rooftop slums''' hangs precariously between towers 2 and 3, where the salvaged metal and wood bridge-way plays host to a minor locus of despair. The previous ithaeur, Mark, kept the insidious energies of the locus in check.

==Spirits and their Ilk==

===Lesser Spirits & Independents===
*The '''Crowdling''', a spirit of crowds that lairs around the Old Olympic MTR station. Carved the City Gift into Lucky Rat after being hunted in a chase that it greatly enjoyed.

===Nobles===
*'''Rotting Heart of Decay''', a lesser Ensih of urban decay and rot that held power over the run-down district of Bedford Rise. Granted boons by its liege, Crimson and White Agony, to let it better control the fief. Destroyed by the Blossom Society in a challenge for power and territory.
*'''Eight Lanterns Minister''', ruler of the Cherry Gardens Night Market.

===Servitors===
*'''Elders of Naga''', strange serpentine spirits of rock and bone. Follow in the wake of Death Wolf.

==The Five Great Packs==
The five pillars of Hong Kong Uratha society, born from agreements forged in 1899 alongside those made between the British colony and the local Chinese Punti clans, are called the Great Packs. Originally, each pack corresponded to the same mortal clan that it took the name of, but in the modern day there is no major link between the Punti clan families and the make-up of the pack in question. Most of the Great Packs are large, powerful and have two tiers amongst their Uratha members. The lower tier of 'nieces' and 'nephews' operate somewhat more like a conventional pack, but the upper tier of 'aunts' and 'uncles' are, oddly, less tightly bound together. The aunts and uncles are mentors, experts, revered elders and the like who focus more on their own matters, loosely connected to the other aunts and uncles but not necessarily very involved in the day-to-day running of the pack's assets. When an aunt or uncle asks for a service, the nephews and nieces are expected to snap to attention, but they are in turn expected not to abuse this authority to any great extent. Each Great Pack has a different system for providing more concrete leadership; the Hou select a single overall leader so that the other upper tier Uratha don't need to be bothered by petty concerns, while the Tang demand regular meetings of their aunts and uncles to ensure co-ordination.

The Great Packs are heavily tied into the occult fabric of Hong Kong, and possess considerable knowledge, influence and stockpiles of materials. A Lodge's leadership usually comes from Great Pack members. Each possesses an incredibly powerful totem spirit, but the nature of that relationship between pack and totem is closely guarded and outsiders suspect whatever agreement was signed in 1899 plays a heavy part.

===The Wen – Yau Tsim Mong===
Forsaken, mostly Hunters in Darkness and Iron Masters; their totem is the Serpent of Dreams and Bile, a spirit of incense, drugs and pollution. Known for their influence in shipping, narcotics, and their deep occult knowledge. The Wen have long been obsessed with hunting down the source of the Scourge, as they call the phenomenon that blights First Changes, and are known to truck with jiang shi, yao guai and other, stranger entities in their search for the truth.

Wen '''Aunts/Uncles''':
* '''Yeung He, 'Lightning Paper Fan'''' - Iron Master Ithaeur. Yeung He is one of the principle uncles of the Wen, a wealthy Hong Kong businessman who serves as the Great Pack's principle face of its occult side.
* '''Ten-Eyes Tsang''' - Storm Lord Ithaeur. Ten-Eyes is a drugs chemist and the principle responsible for the Wen drugs operation. Tsang is said to be a ''samzukwu'' or Three-Legged Crow, a member of the Lodge of Crows.

Wen '''Nieces/Nephews''':
* '''Dantea Wen''' - Hunter in Darkness Elodoth. Dantea is one of the most trusted lower-rankers in the Wen, slated for promotion and thus access to the pack's extensive resources. She is the local representative of the Lodge of the Seven Venoms, and a trained doctor.
* '''"Tightrope" Lei''' - Iron Master Irraka. Named for her habit of garroting prey, not for acrobatics.
*'''"Hapless" Fung''' - Storm Lord Rahu. Possesses incredible luck and is said to be cursed.
*'''"Pup" Sau''' - Iron Master Cahalith. Optimistic and hyperactive.

Wen '''Wolf-Blooded''':
*Inspector Hau Chen - HKPF Inspector and general police-force informant and contact for the Wen and affiliated packs. Tell is unknown.
*Zheng Fang - Full-time trusted gofer for the Wen. Immaculately dressed and presented but rumoured to be a very capable leg-breaker despite her appearance. Tell is rumoured to be very powerful for a Wolf-Blooded, possibly that she can summon spirit-wolves or turn into a spirit herself.

===The Hou – Kwun Tong===
Pure, Ivory Claws; their totem is Crimson and White Agony, a spirit of salt and pain. Known for their incredible ancestral and bloodline records, as well as their heavy involvement in Hong Kong politics and medical services. The Hou are seen as cruel, cold and clinical; few fates are worse than falling into the hands of a Hou torturer. The Hou claim to be the oldest and most legitimate of all the Five Great Packs, as unlike the other four the Hou already existed prior to 1899; Hou stories have it that they formed when the Punti migrated to Hong Kong in the 1200s, taking over the sacred mantle of an even older pack who were appointed by the Nine Dragons.

===The Peng – Hongkong Island===
Pure, mostly Ivory Claws; their totem is the Thousand Roaring Eyes and Mouths, a spirit of water and destruction. Known for their wealth and the role they play as financial agents for Pure across the world, their foreign contacts and also their martial traditions. The Peng claim that Hong Kong is actually the site on which Wolf was slain by its treacherous children. They are known for undertaking lavish, extravagant rituals offering sacrifices to the spirits and the waters in penance, to which werewolves of all stripes are invited. Despite their outwards expressions of wealth and openness, they're also said to be a hotbed of internal scheming due to the influence of rival spirit lords.

===The Tang – Hongkong Island===
Forsaken, mostly Bone Shadows and Storm Lords; their totem is the Pale Mandarin, a spirit of secrets, knowledge and fear. They are known for their information network and the dirt they're said to hold on every figure of note in Hong Kong, their knowledge of death and the Underworld, and their involvement in urban planning and development. Rumour has it that the Tang have successfully used occult geometries to create paths into the Deep Shadow. A few pieces of particularly bitter hearsay that refuse to die have it that the Tang take their marching orders from packs in Beijing.

===The Liao – New Territories===
Forsaken, mostly Blood Talons; their totem is the Torn Banner, a spirit of change and violence. They are known for their fighting prowess, their trade and manufacture of spiritual goods (including fetishes and talens) and their connections to mainland China. The Liao are generally seen as the most traditionalist and conservative of the Five Great Packs, ironic given the nature of their totem and their own history; they were originally mostly Predator Kings, changing allegiance to the Forsaken via bloody infighting shortly after the Japanese occupation.

==Other Packs==

===The Sung-Ti – Mong Kok===
The Sung-Ti are a largely Fire-Touched pack of Pure holding territory to the north-east of the pack – and they still nurse a grudge over the loss of Cherry Gardens to Melissa Tsang in the 80s. Pitching themselves as judges of certain sins, the Sung-Ti reputedly have significant involvement in both the criminal side of Kowloon and its charities.

* ? Ash Talon ? - Fire-Touched crafter, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.
* ? Kanomi ? - Wolf-Blooded capable of overwhelming those who see her into believing she possesses incredible beauty, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.

===The Stone Lions – Various===
The Stone Lions are mostly Hunters in Darkness who oversee the occult maintenance of Boundary Street, once the limit of Hong Kong. The Lions are a 'daughter pack' of the Liao; they are also rumoured to participate in various sinister rituals to maintain their power.

===The Eyeless – Sham Shui Po===
The Eyeless are a strange and esoteric pack, believed to be a reclusive and likely heretical group of Forsaken. They generally avoid outside contact, but it is known that they pluck their own eyes out for some cultic purpose. Rumour links the Eyeless to the Japanese occupation, and those who would mock them call them the 'Nopera-Bo'.

===The Two Claw Society – Sham Shui Po===
The Two Claw Society are a pack of Bone Shadows and Blood Talons known to be particularly vicious in defending their territory, but also respected as being highly honourable. The Two Claws was created to deal with a horrific Wound resulting from a Japanese concentration camp on their territory – a Wound that still exists despite the pack's best efforts.

* Fan Chau, 'Crimson Autumn' - Bone Shadow Rahu. Belligerent member of the Lodge of Voices. Appears to have one of her hands replaced with someone else's through unknown means.

===The Tsen-Kuang – Tsim Sha Tsui===
A Pure pack on the south of the peninsula, known to be largely made up of Fire-Touched. The Tsen-Kuang have their claws firmly dug into the flow of migrants moving through Hong Kong, and are rumoured to cavort with Beshilu and other, even fouler denizens of the waterfronts. They are reputed to venerate an entity that they believe is responsible for stealing the Changes of nusuzul in Hong Kong; the Tsen-Kuang believe it to be a judge that weeds out those who are not worthy.

===Silver Horizon Futures - Various===
SH Futures appears to be a strange fusion of pack and corporation operating in Hong Kong. A subsidiary of the globe-spanning Cheiron, SHF is best known for its work in the bio-sciences and innovative energy generation solutions. The pack certainly includes both werewolves and Wolf-Blooded; the latter appear to hold the administrative and executive positions within the arrangement.

==Other Groups and Entities==

===Civilians===
*'''Dachan Cuifen''', curator of the Taotie exhibit at the museum and university archaeology lecturer.
*'''Alec & Rong''', friends of Lao Min and fellow students at the university.

===14K Triad===

*'''Hom Wie, Hive-Claimed'''. Rumoured to be a Taoist sorcerer and feared by the lower ranks of the Triad for his brutality and twisted appearance. Hom Wie has some sort of link or connection to Wang Jing from the past, sufficiently strong to warn her of a forthcoming Triad war.
*''''Emperor' Koi''', 14K Red Pole. An influential Red Pole in the Sham Shui Po and Yau Tsim Mong districts, with designs on drugs and prostitution rackets throughout the area. Has long attempted to extend his influence over Cherry Gardens but has been held back to the influence of the Blossom Society.
*'''Man Sie''', 14K fence. Deals in technical and technological goods primarily, operating out of the Lamp House.

===Taotie===
Also known as the 'gluttonous ogres', taotie are very powerful entities of hunger that have been bound into ceramic masks and pottery. The mortal wielder of a taotie gains monstrous physical strength, the ability to cross the Gauntlet, and the ability to take the internal organs of a victim and place them within his or her own body. In return for this power, the taotie demands the sacrifice of the mortal wielder's own internal organs to feed its hunger. Manifesting its powers causes the taotie to drain a vast amount of Essence from the nearby ''Hisil'', often catastrophically for weaker spirits in the vicinity.
*'''Chua Chuo''', Sham Shui Po businessman and Taotie wielder - murdered Mark Callaghan-Cheung and She Wanli over property scheme using the power of the taotie. Killed by the Blossom Society. Apparently found the mask amongst some family belongings passed down to him.

==Other Locations==

===Sham Shui Po===
*The '''Lamp House''', a 14K-patronised club and meeting space for transactions of stolen goods and the like.
*'''Bedford Rise''', a run-down neighbourhood influenced by the Rotting Heart of Decay. Bedford Rise centres around a pedestrianised central street, crammed full of cheap stores, dive clubs and massage parlours. The 14K operate in the area under the auspices of the Red Pole Koi.
*'''Tung Chau Battery''' is an old historical military building in Bedford Rise, now dilapidated and crumbling. Inhabited by the homeless and drug users in the Flesh, it served the Rotting Heart of Decay as a lair in the Shadow.

==Beyond Hong Kong==

===Macau – The Zealous Warlord's Domain===
Often referred to as the 'darker sibling' by Hong Kong Uratha, Macau has a sinister reputation amongst werewolves – even despite it being a Forsaken stronghold. Beneath its seemingly placid surface, Macau is a place of nightmares. From 1966 onwards, the notorious Blood Talon warlord 'Silver Claw' Yin fought a sustained and bloody campaign against the Pure, claiming to have been given divine visions by the Moon and instructions from the Lunes. After just ten years, the last Pure were annihilated or driven out of the city. In 1987, however, the Pure attempted to return. In the three decades since, Macau has seen repeated attacks by the Pure, particularly under the leadership of the Fire-Touched sibling Elders Sheu-Fuh and Shunyan, although they have not yet regained a foothold for more than a few months at a time. Its occult landscape is a mess, scarred by brutality, madness and the mostly-unchecked spiritual off-flow of the mass of humanity crammed into the region. Other things have also been drawn in or caught up by the violence; it is said there is an alchemist amongst the Iron Masters of Macau who knows how to render sorcerers down for their power, while both Bone Shadows and Ivory Claws are said to have some means of producing vampires which they use as disposable agents and killers in their shadow war. Both Destroyer Wolf and Red Wolf are said to have taken an active interest in events in Macau since the 60s, but there is a much, much older shrine to Red Wolf in the city that the Forsaken defend fanatically – some rumours allege it is Pangaean in origin. For now, Yin continues to rule her Protectorate with an iron fist.

Characters of Macau:
*'''Adao''' - Iron Master Elodoth. Portuguese smuggler.
*'''Red Mask''' - Iron Master ?. Revered as the high priest of Red Wolf's shrine in Macau.

===Shenzen – The City Without History===
Shenzen is a mirror of Hong Kong's success story – a busy port, major financial centre and huge city butting against its northern border. Shenzen exploded from a small town in the 80s to the urban behemoth of today, and the the Uratha of the province know full well its growth was down to more than just the PRC labelling it a Special Economic Zone. Something has long been awry with the very fabric of reality in Shenzen and someone, or something, caused the expansion of the city by stealing it from a history that never happened, a Shenzen that never was, and overlaying it into this world. The layout of the city possesses innumerable minor pieces of occult geometry, coming together into some sort of vast chronal siphon that forces this reality to match the Other Shenzen. For years, the 'city without history' and the time spirits that flock there served as a major attraction for Uratha seers and secret-seekers of both Pure and Forsaken, with bitter fighting breaking out across its prime territories, but the Cull have moved in in recent years – and established a major Deep Shadow monastery as a bastion. Now this major land route into Hong Kong is threatened, the Cull bringing in more adherents as the months progress and the Uratha of the City of Nine Dragons watching uneasily from over the border. Word has it that the Thousand Steel Teeth are gathering their own war parties, determined to defend their supply lines that run through Hong Kong and Shenzen out into the wider world. The new city of Shenzen may be about to become a battleground for a particularly vicious phase of the war with the Cull.

===Guangdong – Riches Worth Fighting For===
The province of Guangdong may be a large and prosperous region, but for the Forsaken of the area it is perhaps most characterised by its river spirits. Threading down to the Pearl River Delta, these spirits are probably the most organised, widespread and outright hostile court of Guangdong; the feud dates back to the battle of Yamen in 1279. Defeating and subjugating the local river spirits is an ongoing struggle, not at all helped by the Pure's own alliance with the River King. Despite this hostility, there is much for the Forsaken to covet here – the wealth of the human population and the uncommonly high number of wellsprings of Essence. Guangdong has a great abundance of sites that naturally form talens, rich loci of rare Resonances, and unusual qualities to the Shadow that make certain rites – such as those that craft fetishes – easier to work than elsewhere. The Claimed are a particular threat across the province, and the Storm Lords have traditionally been very powerful here; there are several Tribal bastions where the Iminir protect ancient artefacts and relics that are the destination of pilgrims from across the globe. The Storm Lords of Guangdong have a highly organised Tribal structure that crosses throughout the packs and Protectorates of the province, leading up to an elected gong whose task is to tend to the ancient, revered Tribal elder known as the Zongshi – a near-mythical figure amongst the Forsaken, said to alternate between sleeping in a Storm Lord fastness and prowling the Deep Shadow for the most terrifying of prey. Guangdong regularly sees the conflict between Forsaken and Pure flare into open and brutal warfare, but these periods are almost always short – usually a year or two at most before things lapse once again, agreements are made and lines redrawn. The recent arrival of sects of the Cull from the west and north, however, threatens to upset that balance.

===Taiwan – Tyrants of the Earth===
Taiwan's Shadow was once ruled by the spirits of the mountains and the grumbling, shifting earth – but around two centuries ago, the Forsaken of the island undertook a great and mighty binding on the lords of rock and stone to chain them with fetters of symbolism. This caused a great rift amongst the Taiwanese Tribes, with the Bone Shadows breaking off to form their own separate faction, condemning the act as one of hubris that would only serve to harm Shadow and Flesh alike. For two centuries now, the bindings have mostly held – but when they weaken or shift, the furious spirits of the earth vent their rage on the world. Even today, the Bone Shadows remain separate to the other Forsaken and have, as the years turn, formed a distinct identity from Hirfathra Hissu elsewhere as well. The Predator Kings have long sought to unmake the chains that bind the mountain spirits and once formed the bulk of the Pure numbers in Taiwan, but since the Chinese Civil War the other two Pure Tribes have made significant inroads into what was once almost entirely under Forsaken control. Today, Taiwanese Uratha are renowned for their mastery of rites and the binding of spirits, but often considered prideful and arrogant in their disdain for other werewolves who do not have the strength to chain the Shadow to their will. Taiwanese packs commonly include spirits enslaved to the pack's will, and even totems are treated less as respected equals and more as vassals or servants. The Bone Shadows continue to warn that a reckoning will yet come; but as each decade passes without sign of their forecast apocalypse, so does the scorn for the fifth Tribe rise amongst the Taiwanese.

===Philippines – The Spinner Hag's Bastion===
In many ways, Uratha in the Philippines have lives similar to werewolves elsewhere – though the boundaries of territories in the archipelago are often delineated by coastline and travel between islands can be tricky. The rising prosperity and development of the country has left Uratha with many of the same challenges and opportunities as in other nations. The Shadow across the Philippines, however, is in a ruinous state – and has been for millennia. By local lore, the Great Predator fought much of its battle with the Spinner Hag over what became these islands, and in many places the Gauntlet is still torn asunder by the mere echo of Wolf's claws and teeth. Worse, other patches of Gauntlet are thick and distended, shrouded in Azlo webs and said to contain oozing gobbets of the Hag's carcass. The Azlu are numerous and powerful here, and are no mere monstrous beasts – the Host spider-witches of the Philippines think and plan with an alien but clinically precise approach, their schemes spanning centuries. The poor state of the Gauntlet has also resulted in a much higher number of spirits crossing over into the Flesh, bizarre and unique forms of Claimed, and other entities born by the fusion of the two worlds. Repeated rumours bubble up that there are actually still areas of Pangaea itself hidden away, somehow saved from the Great Predator's death-howl. Unsurprisingly, the Hunters in Darkness lead the Forsaken here, and Filipino werewolves are said to be both particularly vigilant – or paranoid, by the less charitable – and particularly talented in the matter of wards and occult protections. The Philippines have long served as a destination for Hunter in Darkness pilgrimages – old and veteran Meninna from other countries, even far-off continents, have been known to 'retire' to this heart of Azlu power, and werewolves seeking lore and insights into the spider Hosts often seek out Filipino brethren for aid.

===Vietnam – The Harmonious Kings===
Early in the 20th Century, the Pure of Vietnam began to tip the scales against their Forsaken counterparts; they took advantage of the disruption and conflict that plagued the country until, after the US-Vietnam war and the fall of the South, the Fire-Touched and Predator Kings had near total domination of the unified country. The Forsaken of today, though, are having a comparatively easy time of it; the Pure are far more focused on warring with each other, and there are a number of powerful spirit nobles that have sided with the Forsaken in the wake of the Pure calling down horrific spirit-horrors from beyond Luna's orbit. The Predator Kings have split into two factions that battle one another with brutal ferocity, mainly due to the emergence of a radical, heretical Ninna Farakh Lodge called the Lan that has rapidly surged in converts. The Lan adhere to portions of Dire Wolf's philosophy, but are far more connected to humanity than their erstwhile comrades; the totem's ban makes it difficult for the Lan to work within society so they instead use a large cult of human and Wolf-Blooded go-betweens to sink their claws into Vietnam. Espousing a creed that the Predator Kings should adapt to the changing world and shepherd humanity to a harmonious union with the wild and the hunt, the Lan are largely uninterested in pursuing the Forsaken compared to destroying the Fire-Touched and converting or killing the rest of their Tribe. To the Forsaken, it all looks very much like the Predator Kings' penchant for savagery has finally turned inwards while the real Vietnam moves beyond their outmoded ways – but there are those who worry that the Harmonious Kings of the Lan are winning, and fear what may happen once they have done so. Some wonder if the Lan might be converted in turn to the Forsaken, but the Lodge has shown little interest in any Urdaga Creeds.

==New Material==

===New Rites===

'''Vex (Wolf Rite ●)''' 
This petty curse calls upon spirits of misfortune and malevolence to plague whoever has drawn the werewolf's ire. 
'''Symbols:''' Fire, venom, violence, the skill that is to be targeted. 
'''Cost:''' 1 Essence 
'''Action:''' Extended (5 successes; each roll represents 1 minute); resisted by the target's Composure. 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The Essence used to fuel this rite must come from a locus of hatred, pain, despair or decay. Additionally, the ritemaster must have a possession of the target, a nail clipping, a lock of hair or some other bodily substance from the intended victim. The ritemaster selects a single skill that will be cursed; thereafter, the first time the victim uses that skill in the following month, her result becomes a dramatic failure regardless of what she rolls. The ritemaster immediately knows when this happens. A character may only be the subject of a single vex at a time, and cannot be subjected again until the rite's month of duration has passed. 

'''Drain the Well (Pack Rite ●●●)''' 
This rite uses a locus to draw in its Resonance from the surrounding ar ea, draining the Shadow of Essence attuned to its nature. Paradoxically, this ensures the locus surges deep with Essence of that kind; if left untended, it will wash back out again stronger than before.
'''Symbols:''' Water, pain, piercing or draining, the Resonance type. 
'''Action:''' Extended (20 successes; each roll represents 10 minutes) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed at the site of a locus, draining Resonance into it. This has several effects: spirits and Uratha within 100 yards per dot of the rating of the Locus, or within the entire territory (whichever is larger), take the locus's rating as a penalty to all rolls for Influences that match its Resonance when outside its direct area. The Resonance is reduced in general, removing many incidents of the Resonant Condition across the affected region; draining a locus of pain would cause injuries and aches to inflict less pain, humans and animals will recover faster from harm and may simply not notice minor damage. This will have long-term effects on the Shadow and the material world. 
The ritemaster gains a persistent Ban Condition for the duration of the rite's effect, reflecting the Resonance of the locus; this Condition lifts when the rite ends. If the ritemaster ever violates the ban, the effects of the rite immediately end. If ended via ban violation, or if this rite is not performed on the locus again within a week of its duration ending, the locus becomes empowered for one month as if it were the subject of the Wellspring rite.

'''Shadow Signs (Pack Rite ●●●●)''' 
This rite may only be invoked on a territory that the ritemaster's pack has already sanctified with the Hunting Ground rite. It draws upon the secrets, the names and the flows of Essence that thread between the spirits of the territory's Shadow, revealing truths to the Uratha. 
'''Symbols:''' Writing or tattooing, wounds, whispers, the wind. 
'''Action:''' Extended (10 successes; each roll represents 1 minute) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month. 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed in the Shadow, within territory that the ritemaster's pack has placed the Hunting Ground rite upon. This causes that spot to become a nexus of information about the territory's Shadow. Over roughly a day, words and glyphs will carve themselves into the Shadow-stuff of an area roughly ten feet in radius, often oozing blood or ichor; these words spell out the names of powerful spirits in the area (Rank 3 and higher, as well as spirit nobles), indicate significant Shadow phenomena (like barrens, shoals, or an impending emotion-storm), and may also indicate other threats in the Shadow (such as warning of the warping spells that a Mage is using on the Hisil, or of a non-native monstrosity that has somehow breached the Gauntlet and is now marauding the spirits). The words update roughly every day, with old, bleeding warnings squirming aside for eruptions of fresh and oozing names as new, powerful spirits move in or a threat manifests itself. Any Uratha who reads the shadow signs gains a +3 bonus to locate or perceive spirits, entities or phenomena that they have seen the warnings or names of, while the rite lasts. However, picking key information out of the mass of glyphs and sigils is not necessarily straightforward.

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T16:30:30Z

Acrozatarim: /* Other Locations */

=Werewolf: the Forsaken - The Eater of Names=
A Werewolf: the Forsaken game set in Hong Kong.

==Hong Kong==

===Werewolf Oddities of Hong Kong===
*Something steals the First Change of the majority of nusuzul. At the moment of the Change, they have their newfound nature torn out of them by an unknown force, leaving them as normal humans suffering a psychotic break – even former Wolf-Blooded have their inheritance stripped from them at this moment.
*The territories of Hong Kong are a complete patchwork between the different factions. There are no solid battle lines between Pure and Forsaken, and the vertical nature of the urban landscape means that even a small scrap of land can be more than enough to patrol for most packs. The Shadow reflection of the city sees a spiritual ecosystem that is just as confused and turbulent.
*Due to the sheer population density and the patchwork nature of the territories, Hong Kong packs have strong traditions about hospitality and allowances for crossing another pack's turf – even between Pure and Forsaken.
*There are no Protectorates in Hong Kong. The closest to any sort of formal structure are the Five Great Packs – the Wen, Hou, Peng, Tang and Liao, formed from amongst the Uratha of the mortal clans of the area in 1899. The Great Packs are probably the largest and most influential of the city, but with respect comes responsibility, and they are expected to provide aid and guidance to other werewolves. These expectations, again, cross factional lines.
*Tribes and allegiances to Pure and Forsaken are important, but Hong Kong also plays host to a number of strange packs allied to neither faction, packs amongst foreign immigrant populations with odd practices and traditions, and a focus on Lodges. The sheer density of the city can make the patchwork of territories confusing and Tribes rarely organise on a wide scale, but Lodge connections matter and underpin much of the social fabric of Hong Kong.
*With so much movement in and out of Hong Kong, its transitional position in the world (geographically, politically and symbolically) and its possession of so many layers and shadows that even the werewolves cannot plumb them all, the city is a hotbed for weirdness and occult conspiracies. Yao guai and jiang shi slither through the darkness, hungry ghosts and watery shades prowl at the fringes, and now the forces of the dreaded Cull are preparing to assault the borders of the territory – something that has both Pure and Forsaken alike on edge.
*Local Uratha lore has it that, in some past age, Hong Kong was the site of a meeting between the Nine Dragons – held to be the eight Firstborn of the Pure and the Forsaken, and a last figure of disputed nature. Some believe it was one of the first Chinese emperors. It was this gathering of beings of incredible power that, it is claimed, is responsible for the strong currents of Essence that pour through the region's Shadow even today.
*The chenghuanshen, the city-spirit of Hong Kong, definitely exists – but its nature is not entirely clear. It may actually be a consciousness split across a number of powerful urban spirits, and seems quite capable of fighting with itself as much as any other spirit nobles of the region. Furthermore, it has a long-running feud with the spirits of the mountains and the peaks.

==The Blossom Society Pack==
History is important to the packs of Hong Kong, although knowledge of the past of the Forsaken is usually rather patchy:
*Most Kowloon Forsaken hark back to the '''Salt Eaters''', a pack that controlled much of the area in the middle of the second millenium.
*In the late 1800s, the third bubonic plague wracked China; as a result the '''Yellow-Feathered Owls''', a pack of Bone Shadows and Hunters in Darkness, controlled what is now Sham Shui Po.
*In 1899, territorial unrest with the five Chinese clans in the area resulted in the creation of the Five Great Packs; the original Cherry Gardens themselves were held by a daughter pack of the Wen, the '''White Jade''' pack.
*After the Japanese occupation, the predecessors of the Blossom Society took over the area. They were not opposed in doing so; the sheer damage done by the occupation had resulted in the deportation or deaths of most of the White Jade and their extended pack.

Of the pack's previous Uratha, the existing pack members may know of the following:
*''''Red Shroud'''' – Bone Shadow, formed pack in aftermath of Japanese occupation – famous for dealing with a terrifying plague of restless ghosts and widely venerated by Uratha across Hong Kong for her accomplishments.
*'''Wen Liang''' – Iron Master, powerful figure amongst the packs in the 60's and 70's, infamous for his involvement in the 1967 riots and his killing of a number of communist ringleaders. A name both respected and feared.
*'''Melissa Tsang''' – Blood Talon, took control of the Cherry Garden Night Market in the 80s by driving out the '''Sung-Ti''', a vicious yao guai and its Fire-Touched Pure followers.

The recent losses the pack has suffered are:
*'''James 'Steeljaw Trap' Liu''' – Hunter in Darkness Cahalith and member of the Lodge of Seven Venoms. Died five years ago fighting beshilu in the typhoon shelter; he sank a floating crane raft infested with Rat Hosts while he was still onboard.
*'''Gwok Mei''' – Bone Shadow Rahu and member of the Lodge of Death. Left two years ago in response to the Lodge calling a pilgrimage against the Cull in northern China. She has not been heard from since.
*'''Mark Callahan-Cheung''' – Iron Master shaman, local landlord and member of the Yau Tsim Mong district council. Died under strange circumstances one month before the game's beginning, which the pack had difficulties investigating due to Mark's public position as a councilman and the police and press interest in the case.

The totem of the pack is the '''Eight Lanterns Minister''', spirit of the Cherry Gardens Night Market. The minister appears in the form of a set of grandiose mandarin ministerial garb, threaded with lines of neon and jangling talismans of commerce, wrapped around a withered but strong frame. Its face is concealed behind a veil, but seems to emanate a gentle glow. Lanterns hang from a frame of lacquered wood that floats behind its shoulders; the colours of the lanterns often indicate the spirit's mood.

The Eight Lanterns Minister has served the pack as totem since the 1980s, its fortunes waxing and waning over that time. It is devious, smart and opportunistic. The Minister is a very lowly spirit noble, with a paltry court of lesser spirits of the market at its beck and call; it in turn is the vassal of the spirit noble of Temple Street Night Market, which has caused some friction with the Wen over the years.

===Werewolves===
*'''Red Lantern Widow, Bone Shadow Elodoth''', formerly wife of an up and coming politician until she killed him during her First Change. She uses his skull as a focus in her rites.
*'''Lucky Rat, Hunter in Darkness Rahu''', whose pest control company gives him an overwatch on Beshilu activity in the area. Possesses some anger issues.
*'''Wang Lee, Bone Shadow Irraka''', the youngest of the pack members and something of a street rat. Son of Wang Jing.
*'''Lao Min, newly-Changed Ithaeur''', straight-A's university student whose First Change was triggered by a manifestation of Death Wolf. Despite appearing as an embodiment of that Firstborn, she's leaning towards Red Wolf's Tribe.

===Wolf-Blooded===
*'''Zhongli Hu''' – 'Auntie' Hu is an elderly fortune-teller and seller of offerings and incense in the night market. She is also a Wolf-Blooded with the Piercing Eyes Tell. Hu was a little girl when Red Shroud ran these streets, claims to have been Wen Liang's mistress, and has certainly lived a storied life.
*'''Ko Lei''' runs the market's security, a sturdy man with a pock-marked face and a quick temper. Lei is a Wolf-Blooded with the Wolf's Meat Tell. He used to be a member of the 14K triad.
*'''Wang Jing''' – She owns and runs the Hive Bar, just outside the night market. She has the Skinner Tell, and has obviously been mentally scarred by some of what she has seen and done. The older pack members would only reference her past activities obliquely and refuse to give details. Some tension between her and her son.
*'''Zhao Bo''' – Widow's sister, who took a very different career path; she is a low-ranking financial auditor in Hong Kong's financial investigative body. Plagued by what she thought were psychiatric problems through her life, it was only since her sister Changed that she discovered the truth – the voices in her head were spirits. She is a Wolf-Blooded with the Waystone Tell.

===Humans===
*The exterminators of '''Yellow Kowloon Pest Control''' are the employees and associates of Arran's character. Working out of an office and storehouse in the territory, they're perhaps the most 'in the know' of all the humans about the supernatural, and they'd probably be hunters if they hadn't been brought under the wing of the pack. The company was briefly used as a front by a Rat Host, which is what drew the pack's attention.
*Several of the market's '''security guards''', Ko Lei's colleagues, are pack members. They know enough to understand that the pack have their back in keeping control of the Night Market, and they like to hang out with pack members to absorb some of the respect and fear that the werewolves are accorded.
*A half-dozen of the stall vendors are, like the security guards, pack members; they form the '''Mutual Activity Committee''' of the market, and the other shopkeepers know they're an 'inner circle' separate from the actual management (who are not pack members).
*'''Zhongli Zhuang''', or 'Uncle' Zhuang, is an old former Sun Yee On triad member and the husband of Auntie Hu. Despite his age, he still possesses a heavy frame; these days he sells occult tat and the like alongside his wife, but he also keeps an eye on the black market dealers in the area for the pack.
*'''Yi Kun''', owner of the Yi Healthy Wu Kwan (martial club), is a martial artist trainer who knows enough about the Uratha to understand their role as guardians of the area; he's had a few unpleasant run-ins over the years.

===Others===
*Michael Jin – a former manager of the Night Market, Michael died in the early 2000s in a horrific murder; a business rival with schemes on the property's future arranged for a construction 'accident' when a large block of concrete fell from scaffolding onto the man. Mister Jin was a client of the pack at the time, who were surprised by the lucidity his ghost retained after death. Michael is odd, fussy and obsessive, the broken remains of a personality clinging on to existence through his ties to the Night Market.

===The Totem - Eight Lanterns Minister (''Usufunsugal'' in the First Tongue)===
'''Rank 2 night market spirit''' 
'''Attributes:''' Power 2 Finesse 5 Resistance 2 
'''Willpower:''' 7 
'''Essence:''' 15 
'''Initiative:''' 7 
'''Defence:''' 2 
'''Speed:''' 10 
'''Size:''' 5 
'''Corpus:''' 7 
'''Influences:''' Wealth 1, Light 1 
'''Numina:''' Awe, Coin Curse*, Sign 
''Coin Curse – New Numina:'' The spirit may use this power on anyone it witnesses cheating in a trade, making a false deal or forcing a grievously unfair exchange, as long as money of some sort is involved. Coin Curse costs 1 Essence to use, and affects a coin, bank note, cheque or even money existing only as an electronic transfer. For as long as the character possesses that money in any way, they are affected by an increasingly unpleasant withering disease and the moderate Sick Tilt persistently; even if treated, it will return. Throwing or giving away the money ends the effect. 
'''Manifestations:''' Twilight Form, Gauntlet Breach, Materialise 
'''Ban:''' While the Cherry Gardens shrine of prosperity is damaged or desecrated, the Eight Lanterns Minister cannot leave the night market; if outside the market when the shrine is damaged, it is immediately called back. 
'''Bane:''' Glass from broken lights. 

==Cherry Gardens Market==
The pack's territory is centred around '''Cherry Gardens Night Market''', a night market that lies on the border between '''Sham Shui Po''' district (poor, working-class, lots of public housing) and '''Yau Tsim Mong''' district (core urban area, very high population density, lots of commercial). Cherry Gardens isn't as large or well-known as Temple Street, but it is still a bustling, busy market through the night hours.

The '''night market''' is the beating heart of the territory, catering to the workers of the two districts – cheap tat, mobile phones, clothes, cooked food, incense and paper offerings, and plenty more besides. The pack also holds:
- The surrounding '''residential blocks''' (shops on ground floors, cramped flats above, several with rooftop slums) up to two streets in each direction. These are mostly known by their block number - Lao Min's family lives in Tower 2, for example.
- To the west, the ground under the '''motorway fly-overs''' and then the '''waterfront'''. As well as some storehouses and parks, there are black market dealers and fortune-tellers in the shadow of the motorway.
- The waterfront is a '''typhoon shelter''', protected by a sea wall and a mixture of industrial and private – floating crane platforms, piles of shipping containers and junk-yards.

Crime in Cherry Gardens Night Market is low – petty theft, shoplifting and pickpocketing are common, but the market security guards have been aligned with the pack for years and have a reputation for brutality when dealing with real threats. The local triad gang, led by a Red Pole of the 14K Triad called 'Emperor' Koi, wants control of the night market but has never been able to extend his influence over it.

===Cherry Gardens characters===
*'''Chen Jin''', Spirit-Urged arsonist. Worker who lived in Tower 2 and was assembling some sort of occult explosive device that would use a summoned fire spirit to create an inferno. Appears to have been influenced by particular Wolf-Blooded, possibly tied to the Sung-Ti. Killed by Lao Min during her First Change.
*'''She Wanli''', manager of Tower 7 and shop owner. Affable, overweight local man who had his guts ripped out by the rampaging Taotie.
*'''Kwo Tien''', young tough. Lives in Cherry Gardens, claims to be part of the 14k Triad. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Taesuk Weyen''', patriarch of the Taesuk family. Lives in Cherry Gardens. Holds grudge against the Kwo family. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Hua''', minor tech criminal. Tattooed and hyperactive, Hua purveys petty illegalities - wiping stolen phones and computers, dealing in stolen data and the like.

===Cherry Gardens locations===
* The '''Blossom Society hall''' is a spacious basement subdivided into several smaller rooms, situated under a small laundry and bath-house on the night market shop-front. Once a triad gambling den, the basement includes a strong locus of prosperity and wealth (and, perhaps, greed) in the form of a shrine; the locus leads directly into the silken court of lanterns in the Shadow from which the Eight Lanterns Minister rules.
* One of the '''rooftop slums''' hangs precariously between towers 2 and 3, where the salvaged metal and wood bridge-way plays host to a minor locus of despair. The previous ithaeur, Mark, kept the insidious energies of the locus in check.

==Spirits and their Ilk==

===Lesser Spirits & Independents===
*The '''Crowdling''', a spirit of crowds that lairs around the Old Olympic MTR station. Carved the City Gift into Lucky Rat after being hunted in a chase that it greatly enjoyed.

===Nobles===
*'''Rotting Heart of Decay''', a lesser Ensih of urban decay and rot that held power over the run-down district of Bedford Rise. Granted boons by its liege, Crimson and White Agony, to let it better control the fief. Destroyed by the Blossom Society in a challenge for power and territory.
*'''Eight Lanterns Minister''', ruler of the Cherry Gardens Night Market.

===Servitors===
*'''Elders of Naga''', strange serpentine spirits of rock and bone. Follow in the wake of Death Wolf.

==The Five Great Packs==
The five pillars of Hong Kong Uratha society, born from agreements forged in 1899 alongside those made between the British colony and the local Chinese Punti clans, are called the Great Packs. Originally, each pack corresponded to the same mortal clan that it took the name of, but in the modern day there is no major link between the Punti clan families and the make-up of the pack in question. Most of the Great Packs are large, powerful and have two tiers amongst their Uratha members. The lower tier of 'nieces' and 'nephews' operate somewhat more like a conventional pack, but the upper tier of 'aunts' and 'uncles' are, oddly, less tightly bound together. The aunts and uncles are mentors, experts, revered elders and the like who focus more on their own matters, loosely connected to the other aunts and uncles but not necessarily very involved in the day-to-day running of the pack's assets. When an aunt or uncle asks for a service, the nephews and nieces are expected to snap to attention, but they are in turn expected not to abuse this authority to any great extent. Each Great Pack has a different system for providing more concrete leadership; the Hou select a single overall leader so that the other upper tier Uratha don't need to be bothered by petty concerns, while the Tang demand regular meetings of their aunts and uncles to ensure co-ordination.

The Great Packs are heavily tied into the occult fabric of Hong Kong, and possess considerable knowledge, influence and stockpiles of materials. A Lodge's leadership usually comes from Great Pack members. Each possesses an incredibly powerful totem spirit, but the nature of that relationship between pack and totem is closely guarded and outsiders suspect whatever agreement was signed in 1899 plays a heavy part.

===The Wen – Yau Tsim Mong===
Forsaken, mostly Hunters in Darkness and Iron Masters; their totem is the Serpent of Dreams and Bile, a spirit of incense, drugs and pollution. Known for their influence in shipping, narcotics, and their deep occult knowledge. The Wen have long been obsessed with hunting down the source of the Scourge, as they call the phenomenon that blights First Changes, and are known to truck with jiang shi, yao guai and other, stranger entities in their search for the truth.

Wen '''Aunts/Uncles''':
* '''Yeung He, 'Lightning Paper Fan'''' - Iron Master Ithaeur. Yeung He is one of the principle uncles of the Wen, a wealthy Hong Kong businessman who serves as the Great Pack's principle face of its occult side.
* '''Ten-Eyes Tsang''' - Storm Lord Ithaeur. Ten-Eyes is a drugs chemist and the principle responsible for the Wen drugs operation. Tsang is said to be a ''samzukwu'' or Three-Legged Crow, a member of the Lodge of Crows.

Wen '''Nieces/Nephews''':
* '''Dantea Wen''' - Hunter in Darkness Elodoth. Dantea is one of the most trusted lower-rankers in the Wen, slated for promotion and thus access to the pack's extensive resources. She is the local representative of the Lodge of the Seven Venoms, and a trained doctor.
* '''"Tightrope" Lei''' - Iron Master Irraka. Named for her habit of garroting prey, not for acrobatics.
*'''"Hapless" Fung''' - Storm Lord Rahu. Possesses incredible luck and is said to be cursed.
*'''"Pup" Sau''' - Iron Master Cahalith. Optimistic and hyperactive.

Wen '''Wolf-Blooded''':
*Inspector Hau Chen - HKPF Inspector and general police-force informant and contact for the Wen and affiliated packs. Tell is unknown.
*Zheng Fang - Full-time trusted gofer for the Wen. Immaculately dressed and presented but rumoured to be a very capable leg-breaker despite her appearance. Tell is rumoured to be very powerful for a Wolf-Blooded, possibly that she can summon spirit-wolves or turn into a spirit herself.

===The Hou – Kwun Tong===
Pure, Ivory Claws; their totem is Crimson and White Agony, a spirit of salt and pain. Known for their incredible ancestral and bloodline records, as well as their heavy involvement in Hong Kong politics and medical services. The Hou are seen as cruel, cold and clinical; few fates are worse than falling into the hands of a Hou torturer. The Hou claim to be the oldest and most legitimate of all the Five Great Packs, as unlike the other four the Hou already existed prior to 1899; Hou stories have it that they formed when the Punti migrated to Hong Kong in the 1200s, taking over the sacred mantle of an even older pack who were appointed by the Nine Dragons.

===The Peng – Hongkong Island===
Pure, mostly Ivory Claws; their totem is the Thousand Roaring Eyes and Mouths, a spirit of water and destruction. Known for their wealth and the role they play as financial agents for Pure across the world, their foreign contacts and also their martial traditions. The Peng claim that Hong Kong is actually the site on which Wolf was slain by its treacherous children. They are known for undertaking lavish, extravagant rituals offering sacrifices to the spirits and the waters in penance, to which werewolves of all stripes are invited. Despite their outwards expressions of wealth and openness, they're also said to be a hotbed of internal scheming due to the influence of rival spirit lords.

===The Tang – Hongkong Island===
Forsaken, mostly Bone Shadows and Storm Lords; their totem is the Pale Mandarin, a spirit of secrets, knowledge and fear. They are known for their information network and the dirt they're said to hold on every figure of note in Hong Kong, their knowledge of death and the Underworld, and their involvement in urban planning and development. Rumour has it that the Tang have successfully used occult geometries to create paths into the Deep Shadow. A few pieces of particularly bitter hearsay that refuse to die have it that the Tang take their marching orders from packs in Beijing.

===The Liao – New Territories===
Forsaken, mostly Blood Talons; their totem is the Torn Banner, a spirit of change and violence. They are known for their fighting prowess, their trade and manufacture of spiritual goods (including fetishes and talens) and their connections to mainland China. The Liao are generally seen as the most traditionalist and conservative of the Five Great Packs, ironic given the nature of their totem and their own history; they were originally mostly Predator Kings, changing allegiance to the Forsaken via bloody infighting shortly after the Japanese occupation.

==Other Packs==

===The Sung-Ti – Mong Kok===
The Sung-Ti are a largely Fire-Touched pack of Pure holding territory to the north-east of the pack – and they still nurse a grudge over the loss of Cherry Gardens to Melissa Tsang in the 80s. Pitching themselves as judges of certain sins, the Sung-Ti reputedly have significant involvement in both the criminal side of Kowloon and its charities.

* ? Ash Talon ? - Fire-Touched crafter, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.
* ? Kanomi ? - Wolf-Blooded capable of overwhelming those who see her into believing she possesses incredible beauty, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.

===The Stone Lions – Various===
The Stone Lions are mostly Hunters in Darkness who oversee the occult maintenance of Boundary Street, once the limit of Hong Kong. The Lions are a 'daughter pack' of the Liao; they are also rumoured to participate in various sinister rituals to maintain their power.

===The Eyeless – Sham Shui Po===
The Eyeless are a strange and esoteric pack, believed to be a reclusive and likely heretical group of Forsaken. They generally avoid outside contact, but it is known that they pluck their own eyes out for some cultic purpose. Rumour links the Eyeless to the Japanese occupation, and those who would mock them call them the 'Nopera-Bo'.

===The Two Claw Society – Sham Shui Po===
The Two Claw Society are a pack of Bone Shadows and Blood Talons known to be particularly vicious in defending their territory, but also respected as being highly honourable. The Two Claws was created to deal with a horrific Wound resulting from a Japanese concentration camp on their territory – a Wound that still exists despite the pack's best efforts.

* Fan Chau, 'Crimson Autumn' - Bone Shadow Rahu. Belligerent member of the Lodge of Voices. Appears to have one of her hands replaced with someone else's through unknown means.

===The Tsen-Kuang – Tsim Sha Tsui===
A Pure pack on the south of the peninsula, known to be largely made up of Fire-Touched. The Tsen-Kuang have their claws firmly dug into the flow of migrants moving through Hong Kong, and are rumoured to cavort with Beshilu and other, even fouler denizens of the waterfronts. They are reputed to venerate an entity that they believe is responsible for stealing the Changes of nusuzul in Hong Kong; the Tsen-Kuang believe it to be a judge that weeds out those who are not worthy.

===Silver Horizon Futures - Various===
SH Futures appears to be a strange fusion of pack and corporation operating in Hong Kong. A subsidiary of the globe-spanning Cheiron, SHF is best known for its work in the bio-sciences and innovative energy generation solutions. The pack certainly includes both werewolves and Wolf-Blooded; the latter appear to hold the administrative and executive positions within the arrangement.

==Other Groups and Entities==

===Civilians===
*'''Dachan Cuifen''', curator of the Taotie exhibit at the museum and university archaeology lecturer.
*'''Alec & Rong''', friends of Lao Min and fellow students at the university.

===14K Triad===

*'''Hom Wie, Hive-Claimed'''. Rumoured to be a Taoist sorcerer and feared by the lower ranks of the Triad for his brutality and twisted appearance. Hom Wie has some sort of link or connection to Wang Jing from the past, sufficiently strong to warn her of a forthcoming Triad war.

===Taotie===
Also known as the 'gluttonous ogres', taotie are very powerful entities of hunger that have been bound into ceramic masks and pottery. The mortal wielder of a taotie gains monstrous physical strength, the ability to cross the Gauntlet, and the ability to take the internal organs of a victim and place them within his or her own body. In return for this power, the taotie demands the sacrifice of the mortal wielder's own internal organs to feed its hunger. Manifesting its powers causes the taotie to drain a vast amount of Essence from the nearby ''Hisil'', often catastrophically for weaker spirits in the vicinity.
*'''Chua Chuo''', Sham Shui Po businessman and Taotie wielder - murdered Mark Callaghan-Cheung and She Wanli over property scheme using the power of the taotie. Killed by the Blossom Society. Apparently found the mask amongst some family belongings passed down to him.

==Other Locations==

===Sham Shui Po===
*The '''Lamp House''', a 14K-patronised club and meeting space for transactions of stolen goods and the like.
*'''Bedford Rise''', a run-down neighbourhood influenced by the Rotting Heart of Decay. Bedford Rise centres around a pedestrianised central street, crammed full of cheap stores, dive clubs and massage parlours. The 14K operate in the area under the auspices of the Red Pole Koi.
*'''Tung Chau Battery''' is an old historical military building in Bedford Rise, now dilapidated and crumbling. Inhabited by the homeless and drug users in the Flesh, it served the Rotting Heart of Decay as a lair in the Shadow.

==Beyond Hong Kong==

===Macau – The Zealous Warlord's Domain===
Often referred to as the 'darker sibling' by Hong Kong Uratha, Macau has a sinister reputation amongst werewolves – even despite it being a Forsaken stronghold. Beneath its seemingly placid surface, Macau is a place of nightmares. From 1966 onwards, the notorious Blood Talon warlord 'Silver Claw' Yin fought a sustained and bloody campaign against the Pure, claiming to have been given divine visions by the Moon and instructions from the Lunes. After just ten years, the last Pure were annihilated or driven out of the city. In 1987, however, the Pure attempted to return. In the three decades since, Macau has seen repeated attacks by the Pure, particularly under the leadership of the Fire-Touched sibling Elders Sheu-Fuh and Shunyan, although they have not yet regained a foothold for more than a few months at a time. Its occult landscape is a mess, scarred by brutality, madness and the mostly-unchecked spiritual off-flow of the mass of humanity crammed into the region. Other things have also been drawn in or caught up by the violence; it is said there is an alchemist amongst the Iron Masters of Macau who knows how to render sorcerers down for their power, while both Bone Shadows and Ivory Claws are said to have some means of producing vampires which they use as disposable agents and killers in their shadow war. Both Destroyer Wolf and Red Wolf are said to have taken an active interest in events in Macau since the 60s, but there is a much, much older shrine to Red Wolf in the city that the Forsaken defend fanatically – some rumours allege it is Pangaean in origin. For now, Yin continues to rule her Protectorate with an iron fist.

Characters of Macau:
*'''Adao''' - Iron Master Elodoth. Portuguese smuggler.
*'''Red Mask''' - Iron Master ?. Revered as the high priest of Red Wolf's shrine in Macau.

===Shenzen – The City Without History===
Shenzen is a mirror of Hong Kong's success story – a busy port, major financial centre and huge city butting against its northern border. Shenzen exploded from a small town in the 80s to the urban behemoth of today, and the the Uratha of the province know full well its growth was down to more than just the PRC labelling it a Special Economic Zone. Something has long been awry with the very fabric of reality in Shenzen and someone, or something, caused the expansion of the city by stealing it from a history that never happened, a Shenzen that never was, and overlaying it into this world. The layout of the city possesses innumerable minor pieces of occult geometry, coming together into some sort of vast chronal siphon that forces this reality to match the Other Shenzen. For years, the 'city without history' and the time spirits that flock there served as a major attraction for Uratha seers and secret-seekers of both Pure and Forsaken, with bitter fighting breaking out across its prime territories, but the Cull have moved in in recent years – and established a major Deep Shadow monastery as a bastion. Now this major land route into Hong Kong is threatened, the Cull bringing in more adherents as the months progress and the Uratha of the City of Nine Dragons watching uneasily from over the border. Word has it that the Thousand Steel Teeth are gathering their own war parties, determined to defend their supply lines that run through Hong Kong and Shenzen out into the wider world. The new city of Shenzen may be about to become a battleground for a particularly vicious phase of the war with the Cull.

===Guangdong – Riches Worth Fighting For===
The province of Guangdong may be a large and prosperous region, but for the Forsaken of the area it is perhaps most characterised by its river spirits. Threading down to the Pearl River Delta, these spirits are probably the most organised, widespread and outright hostile court of Guangdong; the feud dates back to the battle of Yamen in 1279. Defeating and subjugating the local river spirits is an ongoing struggle, not at all helped by the Pure's own alliance with the River King. Despite this hostility, there is much for the Forsaken to covet here – the wealth of the human population and the uncommonly high number of wellsprings of Essence. Guangdong has a great abundance of sites that naturally form talens, rich loci of rare Resonances, and unusual qualities to the Shadow that make certain rites – such as those that craft fetishes – easier to work than elsewhere. The Claimed are a particular threat across the province, and the Storm Lords have traditionally been very powerful here; there are several Tribal bastions where the Iminir protect ancient artefacts and relics that are the destination of pilgrims from across the globe. The Storm Lords of Guangdong have a highly organised Tribal structure that crosses throughout the packs and Protectorates of the province, leading up to an elected gong whose task is to tend to the ancient, revered Tribal elder known as the Zongshi – a near-mythical figure amongst the Forsaken, said to alternate between sleeping in a Storm Lord fastness and prowling the Deep Shadow for the most terrifying of prey. Guangdong regularly sees the conflict between Forsaken and Pure flare into open and brutal warfare, but these periods are almost always short – usually a year or two at most before things lapse once again, agreements are made and lines redrawn. The recent arrival of sects of the Cull from the west and north, however, threatens to upset that balance.

===Taiwan – Tyrants of the Earth===
Taiwan's Shadow was once ruled by the spirits of the mountains and the grumbling, shifting earth – but around two centuries ago, the Forsaken of the island undertook a great and mighty binding on the lords of rock and stone to chain them with fetters of symbolism. This caused a great rift amongst the Taiwanese Tribes, with the Bone Shadows breaking off to form their own separate faction, condemning the act as one of hubris that would only serve to harm Shadow and Flesh alike. For two centuries now, the bindings have mostly held – but when they weaken or shift, the furious spirits of the earth vent their rage on the world. Even today, the Bone Shadows remain separate to the other Forsaken and have, as the years turn, formed a distinct identity from Hirfathra Hissu elsewhere as well. The Predator Kings have long sought to unmake the chains that bind the mountain spirits and once formed the bulk of the Pure numbers in Taiwan, but since the Chinese Civil War the other two Pure Tribes have made significant inroads into what was once almost entirely under Forsaken control. Today, Taiwanese Uratha are renowned for their mastery of rites and the binding of spirits, but often considered prideful and arrogant in their disdain for other werewolves who do not have the strength to chain the Shadow to their will. Taiwanese packs commonly include spirits enslaved to the pack's will, and even totems are treated less as respected equals and more as vassals or servants. The Bone Shadows continue to warn that a reckoning will yet come; but as each decade passes without sign of their forecast apocalypse, so does the scorn for the fifth Tribe rise amongst the Taiwanese.

===Philippines – The Spinner Hag's Bastion===
In many ways, Uratha in the Philippines have lives similar to werewolves elsewhere – though the boundaries of territories in the archipelago are often delineated by coastline and travel between islands can be tricky. The rising prosperity and development of the country has left Uratha with many of the same challenges and opportunities as in other nations. The Shadow across the Philippines, however, is in a ruinous state – and has been for millennia. By local lore, the Great Predator fought much of its battle with the Spinner Hag over what became these islands, and in many places the Gauntlet is still torn asunder by the mere echo of Wolf's claws and teeth. Worse, other patches of Gauntlet are thick and distended, shrouded in Azlo webs and said to contain oozing gobbets of the Hag's carcass. The Azlu are numerous and powerful here, and are no mere monstrous beasts – the Host spider-witches of the Philippines think and plan with an alien but clinically precise approach, their schemes spanning centuries. The poor state of the Gauntlet has also resulted in a much higher number of spirits crossing over into the Flesh, bizarre and unique forms of Claimed, and other entities born by the fusion of the two worlds. Repeated rumours bubble up that there are actually still areas of Pangaea itself hidden away, somehow saved from the Great Predator's death-howl. Unsurprisingly, the Hunters in Darkness lead the Forsaken here, and Filipino werewolves are said to be both particularly vigilant – or paranoid, by the less charitable – and particularly talented in the matter of wards and occult protections. The Philippines have long served as a destination for Hunter in Darkness pilgrimages – old and veteran Meninna from other countries, even far-off continents, have been known to 'retire' to this heart of Azlu power, and werewolves seeking lore and insights into the spider Hosts often seek out Filipino brethren for aid.

===Vietnam – The Harmonious Kings===
Early in the 20th Century, the Pure of Vietnam began to tip the scales against their Forsaken counterparts; they took advantage of the disruption and conflict that plagued the country until, after the US-Vietnam war and the fall of the South, the Fire-Touched and Predator Kings had near total domination of the unified country. The Forsaken of today, though, are having a comparatively easy time of it; the Pure are far more focused on warring with each other, and there are a number of powerful spirit nobles that have sided with the Forsaken in the wake of the Pure calling down horrific spirit-horrors from beyond Luna's orbit. The Predator Kings have split into two factions that battle one another with brutal ferocity, mainly due to the emergence of a radical, heretical Ninna Farakh Lodge called the Lan that has rapidly surged in converts. The Lan adhere to portions of Dire Wolf's philosophy, but are far more connected to humanity than their erstwhile comrades; the totem's ban makes it difficult for the Lan to work within society so they instead use a large cult of human and Wolf-Blooded go-betweens to sink their claws into Vietnam. Espousing a creed that the Predator Kings should adapt to the changing world and shepherd humanity to a harmonious union with the wild and the hunt, the Lan are largely uninterested in pursuing the Forsaken compared to destroying the Fire-Touched and converting or killing the rest of their Tribe. To the Forsaken, it all looks very much like the Predator Kings' penchant for savagery has finally turned inwards while the real Vietnam moves beyond their outmoded ways – but there are those who worry that the Harmonious Kings of the Lan are winning, and fear what may happen once they have done so. Some wonder if the Lan might be converted in turn to the Forsaken, but the Lodge has shown little interest in any Urdaga Creeds.

==New Material==

===New Rites===

'''Vex (Wolf Rite ●)''' 
This petty curse calls upon spirits of misfortune and malevolence to plague whoever has drawn the werewolf's ire. 
'''Symbols:''' Fire, venom, violence, the skill that is to be targeted. 
'''Cost:''' 1 Essence 
'''Action:''' Extended (5 successes; each roll represents 1 minute); resisted by the target's Composure. 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The Essence used to fuel this rite must come from a locus of hatred, pain, despair or decay. Additionally, the ritemaster must have a possession of the target, a nail clipping, a lock of hair or some other bodily substance from the intended victim. The ritemaster selects a single skill that will be cursed; thereafter, the first time the victim uses that skill in the following month, her result becomes a dramatic failure regardless of what she rolls. The ritemaster immediately knows when this happens. A character may only be the subject of a single vex at a time, and cannot be subjected again until the rite's month of duration has passed. 

'''Drain the Well (Pack Rite ●●●)''' 
This rite uses a locus to draw in its Resonance from the surrounding ar ea, draining the Shadow of Essence attuned to its nature. Paradoxically, this ensures the locus surges deep with Essence of that kind; if left untended, it will wash back out again stronger than before.
'''Symbols:''' Water, pain, piercing or draining, the Resonance type. 
'''Action:''' Extended (20 successes; each roll represents 10 minutes) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed at the site of a locus, draining Resonance into it. This has several effects: spirits and Uratha within 100 yards per dot of the rating of the Locus, or within the entire territory (whichever is larger), take the locus's rating as a penalty to all rolls for Influences that match its Resonance when outside its direct area. The Resonance is reduced in general, removing many incidents of the Resonant Condition across the affected region; draining a locus of pain would cause injuries and aches to inflict less pain, humans and animals will recover faster from harm and may simply not notice minor damage. This will have long-term effects on the Shadow and the material world. 
The ritemaster gains a persistent Ban Condition for the duration of the rite's effect, reflecting the Resonance of the locus; this Condition lifts when the rite ends. If the ritemaster ever violates the ban, the effects of the rite immediately end. If ended via ban violation, or if this rite is not performed on the locus again within a week of its duration ending, the locus becomes empowered for one month as if it were the subject of the Wellspring rite.

'''Shadow Signs (Pack Rite ●●●●)''' 
This rite may only be invoked on a territory that the ritemaster's pack has already sanctified with the Hunting Ground rite. It draws upon the secrets, the names and the flows of Essence that thread between the spirits of the territory's Shadow, revealing truths to the Uratha. 
'''Symbols:''' Writing or tattooing, wounds, whispers, the wind. 
'''Action:''' Extended (10 successes; each roll represents 1 minute) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month. 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed in the Shadow, within territory that the ritemaster's pack has placed the Hunting Ground rite upon. This causes that spot to become a nexus of information about the territory's Shadow. Over roughly a day, words and glyphs will carve themselves into the Shadow-stuff of an area roughly ten feet in radius, often oozing blood or ichor; these words spell out the names of powerful spirits in the area (Rank 3 and higher, as well as spirit nobles), indicate significant Shadow phenomena (like barrens, shoals, or an impending emotion-storm), and may also indicate other threats in the Shadow (such as warning of the warping spells that a Mage is using on the Hisil, or of a non-native monstrosity that has somehow breached the Gauntlet and is now marauding the spirits). The words update roughly every day, with old, bleeding warnings squirming aside for eruptions of fresh and oozing names as new, powerful spirits move in or a threat manifests itself. Any Uratha who reads the shadow signs gains a +3 bonus to locate or perceive spirits, entities or phenomena that they have seen the warnings or names of, while the rite lasts. However, picking key information out of the mass of glyphs and sigils is not necessarily straightforward.

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T16:25:32Z

Acrozatarim:

=Werewolf: the Forsaken - The Eater of Names=
A Werewolf: the Forsaken game set in Hong Kong.

==Hong Kong==

===Werewolf Oddities of Hong Kong===
*Something steals the First Change of the majority of nusuzul. At the moment of the Change, they have their newfound nature torn out of them by an unknown force, leaving them as normal humans suffering a psychotic break – even former Wolf-Blooded have their inheritance stripped from them at this moment.
*The territories of Hong Kong are a complete patchwork between the different factions. There are no solid battle lines between Pure and Forsaken, and the vertical nature of the urban landscape means that even a small scrap of land can be more than enough to patrol for most packs. The Shadow reflection of the city sees a spiritual ecosystem that is just as confused and turbulent.
*Due to the sheer population density and the patchwork nature of the territories, Hong Kong packs have strong traditions about hospitality and allowances for crossing another pack's turf – even between Pure and Forsaken.
*There are no Protectorates in Hong Kong. The closest to any sort of formal structure are the Five Great Packs – the Wen, Hou, Peng, Tang and Liao, formed from amongst the Uratha of the mortal clans of the area in 1899. The Great Packs are probably the largest and most influential of the city, but with respect comes responsibility, and they are expected to provide aid and guidance to other werewolves. These expectations, again, cross factional lines.
*Tribes and allegiances to Pure and Forsaken are important, but Hong Kong also plays host to a number of strange packs allied to neither faction, packs amongst foreign immigrant populations with odd practices and traditions, and a focus on Lodges. The sheer density of the city can make the patchwork of territories confusing and Tribes rarely organise on a wide scale, but Lodge connections matter and underpin much of the social fabric of Hong Kong.
*With so much movement in and out of Hong Kong, its transitional position in the world (geographically, politically and symbolically) and its possession of so many layers and shadows that even the werewolves cannot plumb them all, the city is a hotbed for weirdness and occult conspiracies. Yao guai and jiang shi slither through the darkness, hungry ghosts and watery shades prowl at the fringes, and now the forces of the dreaded Cull are preparing to assault the borders of the territory – something that has both Pure and Forsaken alike on edge.
*Local Uratha lore has it that, in some past age, Hong Kong was the site of a meeting between the Nine Dragons – held to be the eight Firstborn of the Pure and the Forsaken, and a last figure of disputed nature. Some believe it was one of the first Chinese emperors. It was this gathering of beings of incredible power that, it is claimed, is responsible for the strong currents of Essence that pour through the region's Shadow even today.
*The chenghuanshen, the city-spirit of Hong Kong, definitely exists – but its nature is not entirely clear. It may actually be a consciousness split across a number of powerful urban spirits, and seems quite capable of fighting with itself as much as any other spirit nobles of the region. Furthermore, it has a long-running feud with the spirits of the mountains and the peaks.

==The Blossom Society Pack==
History is important to the packs of Hong Kong, although knowledge of the past of the Forsaken is usually rather patchy:
*Most Kowloon Forsaken hark back to the '''Salt Eaters''', a pack that controlled much of the area in the middle of the second millenium.
*In the late 1800s, the third bubonic plague wracked China; as a result the '''Yellow-Feathered Owls''', a pack of Bone Shadows and Hunters in Darkness, controlled what is now Sham Shui Po.
*In 1899, territorial unrest with the five Chinese clans in the area resulted in the creation of the Five Great Packs; the original Cherry Gardens themselves were held by a daughter pack of the Wen, the '''White Jade''' pack.
*After the Japanese occupation, the predecessors of the Blossom Society took over the area. They were not opposed in doing so; the sheer damage done by the occupation had resulted in the deportation or deaths of most of the White Jade and their extended pack.

Of the pack's previous Uratha, the existing pack members may know of the following:
*''''Red Shroud'''' – Bone Shadow, formed pack in aftermath of Japanese occupation – famous for dealing with a terrifying plague of restless ghosts and widely venerated by Uratha across Hong Kong for her accomplishments.
*'''Wen Liang''' – Iron Master, powerful figure amongst the packs in the 60's and 70's, infamous for his involvement in the 1967 riots and his killing of a number of communist ringleaders. A name both respected and feared.
*'''Melissa Tsang''' – Blood Talon, took control of the Cherry Garden Night Market in the 80s by driving out the '''Sung-Ti''', a vicious yao guai and its Fire-Touched Pure followers.

The recent losses the pack has suffered are:
*'''James 'Steeljaw Trap' Liu''' – Hunter in Darkness Cahalith and member of the Lodge of Seven Venoms. Died five years ago fighting beshilu in the typhoon shelter; he sank a floating crane raft infested with Rat Hosts while he was still onboard.
*'''Gwok Mei''' – Bone Shadow Rahu and member of the Lodge of Death. Left two years ago in response to the Lodge calling a pilgrimage against the Cull in northern China. She has not been heard from since.
*'''Mark Callahan-Cheung''' – Iron Master shaman, local landlord and member of the Yau Tsim Mong district council. Died under strange circumstances one month before the game's beginning, which the pack had difficulties investigating due to Mark's public position as a councilman and the police and press interest in the case.

The totem of the pack is the '''Eight Lanterns Minister''', spirit of the Cherry Gardens Night Market. The minister appears in the form of a set of grandiose mandarin ministerial garb, threaded with lines of neon and jangling talismans of commerce, wrapped around a withered but strong frame. Its face is concealed behind a veil, but seems to emanate a gentle glow. Lanterns hang from a frame of lacquered wood that floats behind its shoulders; the colours of the lanterns often indicate the spirit's mood.

The Eight Lanterns Minister has served the pack as totem since the 1980s, its fortunes waxing and waning over that time. It is devious, smart and opportunistic. The Minister is a very lowly spirit noble, with a paltry court of lesser spirits of the market at its beck and call; it in turn is the vassal of the spirit noble of Temple Street Night Market, which has caused some friction with the Wen over the years.

===Werewolves===
*'''Red Lantern Widow, Bone Shadow Elodoth''', formerly wife of an up and coming politician until she killed him during her First Change. She uses his skull as a focus in her rites.
*'''Lucky Rat, Hunter in Darkness Rahu''', whose pest control company gives him an overwatch on Beshilu activity in the area. Possesses some anger issues.
*'''Wang Lee, Bone Shadow Irraka''', the youngest of the pack members and something of a street rat. Son of Wang Jing.
*'''Lao Min, newly-Changed Ithaeur''', straight-A's university student whose First Change was triggered by a manifestation of Death Wolf. Despite appearing as an embodiment of that Firstborn, she's leaning towards Red Wolf's Tribe.

===Wolf-Blooded===
*'''Zhongli Hu''' – 'Auntie' Hu is an elderly fortune-teller and seller of offerings and incense in the night market. She is also a Wolf-Blooded with the Piercing Eyes Tell. Hu was a little girl when Red Shroud ran these streets, claims to have been Wen Liang's mistress, and has certainly lived a storied life.
*'''Ko Lei''' runs the market's security, a sturdy man with a pock-marked face and a quick temper. Lei is a Wolf-Blooded with the Wolf's Meat Tell. He used to be a member of the 14K triad.
*'''Wang Jing''' – She owns and runs the Hive Bar, just outside the night market. She has the Skinner Tell, and has obviously been mentally scarred by some of what she has seen and done. The older pack members would only reference her past activities obliquely and refuse to give details. Some tension between her and her son.
*'''Zhao Bo''' – Widow's sister, who took a very different career path; she is a low-ranking financial auditor in Hong Kong's financial investigative body. Plagued by what she thought were psychiatric problems through her life, it was only since her sister Changed that she discovered the truth – the voices in her head were spirits. She is a Wolf-Blooded with the Waystone Tell.

===Humans===
*The exterminators of '''Yellow Kowloon Pest Control''' are the employees and associates of Arran's character. Working out of an office and storehouse in the territory, they're perhaps the most 'in the know' of all the humans about the supernatural, and they'd probably be hunters if they hadn't been brought under the wing of the pack. The company was briefly used as a front by a Rat Host, which is what drew the pack's attention.
*Several of the market's '''security guards''', Ko Lei's colleagues, are pack members. They know enough to understand that the pack have their back in keeping control of the Night Market, and they like to hang out with pack members to absorb some of the respect and fear that the werewolves are accorded.
*A half-dozen of the stall vendors are, like the security guards, pack members; they form the '''Mutual Activity Committee''' of the market, and the other shopkeepers know they're an 'inner circle' separate from the actual management (who are not pack members).
*'''Zhongli Zhuang''', or 'Uncle' Zhuang, is an old former Sun Yee On triad member and the husband of Auntie Hu. Despite his age, he still possesses a heavy frame; these days he sells occult tat and the like alongside his wife, but he also keeps an eye on the black market dealers in the area for the pack.
*'''Yi Kun''', owner of the Yi Healthy Wu Kwan (martial club), is a martial artist trainer who knows enough about the Uratha to understand their role as guardians of the area; he's had a few unpleasant run-ins over the years.

===Others===
*Michael Jin – a former manager of the Night Market, Michael died in the early 2000s in a horrific murder; a business rival with schemes on the property's future arranged for a construction 'accident' when a large block of concrete fell from scaffolding onto the man. Mister Jin was a client of the pack at the time, who were surprised by the lucidity his ghost retained after death. Michael is odd, fussy and obsessive, the broken remains of a personality clinging on to existence through his ties to the Night Market.

===The Totem - Eight Lanterns Minister (''Usufunsugal'' in the First Tongue)===
'''Rank 2 night market spirit''' 
'''Attributes:''' Power 2 Finesse 5 Resistance 2 
'''Willpower:''' 7 
'''Essence:''' 15 
'''Initiative:''' 7 
'''Defence:''' 2 
'''Speed:''' 10 
'''Size:''' 5 
'''Corpus:''' 7 
'''Influences:''' Wealth 1, Light 1 
'''Numina:''' Awe, Coin Curse*, Sign 
''Coin Curse – New Numina:'' The spirit may use this power on anyone it witnesses cheating in a trade, making a false deal or forcing a grievously unfair exchange, as long as money of some sort is involved. Coin Curse costs 1 Essence to use, and affects a coin, bank note, cheque or even money existing only as an electronic transfer. For as long as the character possesses that money in any way, they are affected by an increasingly unpleasant withering disease and the moderate Sick Tilt persistently; even if treated, it will return. Throwing or giving away the money ends the effect. 
'''Manifestations:''' Twilight Form, Gauntlet Breach, Materialise 
'''Ban:''' While the Cherry Gardens shrine of prosperity is damaged or desecrated, the Eight Lanterns Minister cannot leave the night market; if outside the market when the shrine is damaged, it is immediately called back. 
'''Bane:''' Glass from broken lights. 

==Cherry Gardens Market==
The pack's territory is centred around '''Cherry Gardens Night Market''', a night market that lies on the border between '''Sham Shui Po''' district (poor, working-class, lots of public housing) and '''Yau Tsim Mong''' district (core urban area, very high population density, lots of commercial). Cherry Gardens isn't as large or well-known as Temple Street, but it is still a bustling, busy market through the night hours.

The '''night market''' is the beating heart of the territory, catering to the workers of the two districts – cheap tat, mobile phones, clothes, cooked food, incense and paper offerings, and plenty more besides. The pack also holds:
- The surrounding '''residential blocks''' (shops on ground floors, cramped flats above, several with rooftop slums) up to two streets in each direction. These are mostly known by their block number - Lao Min's family lives in Tower 2, for example.
- To the west, the ground under the '''motorway fly-overs''' and then the '''waterfront'''. As well as some storehouses and parks, there are black market dealers and fortune-tellers in the shadow of the motorway.
- The waterfront is a '''typhoon shelter''', protected by a sea wall and a mixture of industrial and private – floating crane platforms, piles of shipping containers and junk-yards.

Crime in Cherry Gardens Night Market is low – petty theft, shoplifting and pickpocketing are common, but the market security guards have been aligned with the pack for years and have a reputation for brutality when dealing with real threats. The local triad gang, led by a Red Pole of the 14K Triad called 'Emperor' Koi, wants control of the night market but has never been able to extend his influence over it.

===Cherry Gardens characters===
*'''Chen Jin''', Spirit-Urged arsonist. Worker who lived in Tower 2 and was assembling some sort of occult explosive device that would use a summoned fire spirit to create an inferno. Appears to have been influenced by particular Wolf-Blooded, possibly tied to the Sung-Ti. Killed by Lao Min during her First Change.
*'''She Wanli''', manager of Tower 7 and shop owner. Affable, overweight local man who had his guts ripped out by the rampaging Taotie.
*'''Kwo Tien''', young tough. Lives in Cherry Gardens, claims to be part of the 14k Triad. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Taesuk Weyen''', patriarch of the Taesuk family. Lives in Cherry Gardens. Holds grudge against the Kwo family. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Hua''', minor tech criminal. Tattooed and hyperactive, Hua purveys petty illegalities - wiping stolen phones and computers, dealing in stolen data and the like.

===Cherry Gardens locations===
* The '''Blossom Society hall''' is a spacious basement subdivided into several smaller rooms, situated under a small laundry and bath-house on the night market shop-front. Once a triad gambling den, the basement includes a strong locus of prosperity and wealth (and, perhaps, greed) in the form of a shrine; the locus leads directly into the silken court of lanterns in the Shadow from which the Eight Lanterns Minister rules.
* One of the '''rooftop slums''' hangs precariously between towers 2 and 3, where the salvaged metal and wood bridge-way plays host to a minor locus of despair. The previous ithaeur, Mark, kept the insidious energies of the locus in check.

==Spirits and their Ilk==

===Lesser Spirits & Independents===
*The '''Crowdling''', a spirit of crowds that lairs around the Old Olympic MTR station. Carved the City Gift into Lucky Rat after being hunted in a chase that it greatly enjoyed.

===Nobles===
*'''Rotting Heart of Decay''', a lesser Ensih of urban decay and rot that held power over the run-down district of Bedford Rise. Granted boons by its liege, Crimson and White Agony, to let it better control the fief. Destroyed by the Blossom Society in a challenge for power and territory.
*'''Eight Lanterns Minister''', ruler of the Cherry Gardens Night Market.

===Servitors===
*'''Elders of Naga''', strange serpentine spirits of rock and bone. Follow in the wake of Death Wolf.

==The Five Great Packs==
The five pillars of Hong Kong Uratha society, born from agreements forged in 1899 alongside those made between the British colony and the local Chinese Punti clans, are called the Great Packs. Originally, each pack corresponded to the same mortal clan that it took the name of, but in the modern day there is no major link between the Punti clan families and the make-up of the pack in question. Most of the Great Packs are large, powerful and have two tiers amongst their Uratha members. The lower tier of 'nieces' and 'nephews' operate somewhat more like a conventional pack, but the upper tier of 'aunts' and 'uncles' are, oddly, less tightly bound together. The aunts and uncles are mentors, experts, revered elders and the like who focus more on their own matters, loosely connected to the other aunts and uncles but not necessarily very involved in the day-to-day running of the pack's assets. When an aunt or uncle asks for a service, the nephews and nieces are expected to snap to attention, but they are in turn expected not to abuse this authority to any great extent. Each Great Pack has a different system for providing more concrete leadership; the Hou select a single overall leader so that the other upper tier Uratha don't need to be bothered by petty concerns, while the Tang demand regular meetings of their aunts and uncles to ensure co-ordination.

The Great Packs are heavily tied into the occult fabric of Hong Kong, and possess considerable knowledge, influence and stockpiles of materials. A Lodge's leadership usually comes from Great Pack members. Each possesses an incredibly powerful totem spirit, but the nature of that relationship between pack and totem is closely guarded and outsiders suspect whatever agreement was signed in 1899 plays a heavy part.

===The Wen – Yau Tsim Mong===
Forsaken, mostly Hunters in Darkness and Iron Masters; their totem is the Serpent of Dreams and Bile, a spirit of incense, drugs and pollution. Known for their influence in shipping, narcotics, and their deep occult knowledge. The Wen have long been obsessed with hunting down the source of the Scourge, as they call the phenomenon that blights First Changes, and are known to truck with jiang shi, yao guai and other, stranger entities in their search for the truth.

Wen '''Aunts/Uncles''':
* '''Yeung He, 'Lightning Paper Fan'''' - Iron Master Ithaeur. Yeung He is one of the principle uncles of the Wen, a wealthy Hong Kong businessman who serves as the Great Pack's principle face of its occult side.
* '''Ten-Eyes Tsang''' - Storm Lord Ithaeur. Ten-Eyes is a drugs chemist and the principle responsible for the Wen drugs operation. Tsang is said to be a ''samzukwu'' or Three-Legged Crow, a member of the Lodge of Crows.

Wen '''Nieces/Nephews''':
* '''Dantea Wen''' - Hunter in Darkness Elodoth. Dantea is one of the most trusted lower-rankers in the Wen, slated for promotion and thus access to the pack's extensive resources. She is the local representative of the Lodge of the Seven Venoms, and a trained doctor.
* '''"Tightrope" Lei''' - Iron Master Irraka. Named for her habit of garroting prey, not for acrobatics.
*'''"Hapless" Fung''' - Storm Lord Rahu. Possesses incredible luck and is said to be cursed.
*'''"Pup" Sau''' - Iron Master Cahalith. Optimistic and hyperactive.

Wen '''Wolf-Blooded''':
*Inspector Hau Chen - HKPF Inspector and general police-force informant and contact for the Wen and affiliated packs. Tell is unknown.
*Zheng Fang - Full-time trusted gofer for the Wen. Immaculately dressed and presented but rumoured to be a very capable leg-breaker despite her appearance. Tell is rumoured to be very powerful for a Wolf-Blooded, possibly that she can summon spirit-wolves or turn into a spirit herself.

===The Hou – Kwun Tong===
Pure, Ivory Claws; their totem is Crimson and White Agony, a spirit of salt and pain. Known for their incredible ancestral and bloodline records, as well as their heavy involvement in Hong Kong politics and medical services. The Hou are seen as cruel, cold and clinical; few fates are worse than falling into the hands of a Hou torturer. The Hou claim to be the oldest and most legitimate of all the Five Great Packs, as unlike the other four the Hou already existed prior to 1899; Hou stories have it that they formed when the Punti migrated to Hong Kong in the 1200s, taking over the sacred mantle of an even older pack who were appointed by the Nine Dragons.

===The Peng – Hongkong Island===
Pure, mostly Ivory Claws; their totem is the Thousand Roaring Eyes and Mouths, a spirit of water and destruction. Known for their wealth and the role they play as financial agents for Pure across the world, their foreign contacts and also their martial traditions. The Peng claim that Hong Kong is actually the site on which Wolf was slain by its treacherous children. They are known for undertaking lavish, extravagant rituals offering sacrifices to the spirits and the waters in penance, to which werewolves of all stripes are invited. Despite their outwards expressions of wealth and openness, they're also said to be a hotbed of internal scheming due to the influence of rival spirit lords.

===The Tang – Hongkong Island===
Forsaken, mostly Bone Shadows and Storm Lords; their totem is the Pale Mandarin, a spirit of secrets, knowledge and fear. They are known for their information network and the dirt they're said to hold on every figure of note in Hong Kong, their knowledge of death and the Underworld, and their involvement in urban planning and development. Rumour has it that the Tang have successfully used occult geometries to create paths into the Deep Shadow. A few pieces of particularly bitter hearsay that refuse to die have it that the Tang take their marching orders from packs in Beijing.

===The Liao – New Territories===
Forsaken, mostly Blood Talons; their totem is the Torn Banner, a spirit of change and violence. They are known for their fighting prowess, their trade and manufacture of spiritual goods (including fetishes and talens) and their connections to mainland China. The Liao are generally seen as the most traditionalist and conservative of the Five Great Packs, ironic given the nature of their totem and their own history; they were originally mostly Predator Kings, changing allegiance to the Forsaken via bloody infighting shortly after the Japanese occupation.

==Other Packs==

===The Sung-Ti – Mong Kok===
The Sung-Ti are a largely Fire-Touched pack of Pure holding territory to the north-east of the pack – and they still nurse a grudge over the loss of Cherry Gardens to Melissa Tsang in the 80s. Pitching themselves as judges of certain sins, the Sung-Ti reputedly have significant involvement in both the criminal side of Kowloon and its charities.

* ? Ash Talon ? - Fire-Touched crafter, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.
* ? Kanomi ? - Wolf-Blooded capable of overwhelming those who see her into believing she possesses incredible beauty, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.

===The Stone Lions – Various===
The Stone Lions are mostly Hunters in Darkness who oversee the occult maintenance of Boundary Street, once the limit of Hong Kong. The Lions are a 'daughter pack' of the Liao; they are also rumoured to participate in various sinister rituals to maintain their power.

===The Eyeless – Sham Shui Po===
The Eyeless are a strange and esoteric pack, believed to be a reclusive and likely heretical group of Forsaken. They generally avoid outside contact, but it is known that they pluck their own eyes out for some cultic purpose. Rumour links the Eyeless to the Japanese occupation, and those who would mock them call them the 'Nopera-Bo'.

===The Two Claw Society – Sham Shui Po===
The Two Claw Society are a pack of Bone Shadows and Blood Talons known to be particularly vicious in defending their territory, but also respected as being highly honourable. The Two Claws was created to deal with a horrific Wound resulting from a Japanese concentration camp on their territory – a Wound that still exists despite the pack's best efforts.

* Fan Chau, 'Crimson Autumn' - Bone Shadow Rahu. Belligerent member of the Lodge of Voices. Appears to have one of her hands replaced with someone else's through unknown means.

===The Tsen-Kuang – Tsim Sha Tsui===
A Pure pack on the south of the peninsula, known to be largely made up of Fire-Touched. The Tsen-Kuang have their claws firmly dug into the flow of migrants moving through Hong Kong, and are rumoured to cavort with Beshilu and other, even fouler denizens of the waterfronts. They are reputed to venerate an entity that they believe is responsible for stealing the Changes of nusuzul in Hong Kong; the Tsen-Kuang believe it to be a judge that weeds out those who are not worthy.

===Silver Horizon Futures - Various===
SH Futures appears to be a strange fusion of pack and corporation operating in Hong Kong. A subsidiary of the globe-spanning Cheiron, SHF is best known for its work in the bio-sciences and innovative energy generation solutions. The pack certainly includes both werewolves and Wolf-Blooded; the latter appear to hold the administrative and executive positions within the arrangement.

==Other Groups and Entities==

===Civilians===
*'''Dachan Cuifen''', curator of the Taotie exhibit at the museum and university archaeology lecturer.
*'''Alec & Rong''', friends of Lao Min and fellow students at the university.

===14K Triad===

*'''Hom Wie, Hive-Claimed'''. Rumoured to be a Taoist sorcerer and feared by the lower ranks of the Triad for his brutality and twisted appearance. Hom Wie has some sort of link or connection to Wang Jing from the past, sufficiently strong to warn her of a forthcoming Triad war.

===Taotie===
Also known as the 'gluttonous ogres', taotie are very powerful entities of hunger that have been bound into ceramic masks and pottery. The mortal wielder of a taotie gains monstrous physical strength, the ability to cross the Gauntlet, and the ability to take the internal organs of a victim and place them within his or her own body. In return for this power, the taotie demands the sacrifice of the mortal wielder's own internal organs to feed its hunger. Manifesting its powers causes the taotie to drain a vast amount of Essence from the nearby ''Hisil'', often catastrophically for weaker spirits in the vicinity.
*'''Chua Chuo''', Sham Shui Po businessman and Taotie wielder - murdered Mark Callaghan-Cheung and She Wanli over property scheme using the power of the taotie. Killed by the Blossom Society. Apparently found the mask amongst some family belongings passed down to him.

==Other Locations==

==Beyond Hong Kong==

===Macau – The Zealous Warlord's Domain===
Often referred to as the 'darker sibling' by Hong Kong Uratha, Macau has a sinister reputation amongst werewolves – even despite it being a Forsaken stronghold. Beneath its seemingly placid surface, Macau is a place of nightmares. From 1966 onwards, the notorious Blood Talon warlord 'Silver Claw' Yin fought a sustained and bloody campaign against the Pure, claiming to have been given divine visions by the Moon and instructions from the Lunes. After just ten years, the last Pure were annihilated or driven out of the city. In 1987, however, the Pure attempted to return. In the three decades since, Macau has seen repeated attacks by the Pure, particularly under the leadership of the Fire-Touched sibling Elders Sheu-Fuh and Shunyan, although they have not yet regained a foothold for more than a few months at a time. Its occult landscape is a mess, scarred by brutality, madness and the mostly-unchecked spiritual off-flow of the mass of humanity crammed into the region. Other things have also been drawn in or caught up by the violence; it is said there is an alchemist amongst the Iron Masters of Macau who knows how to render sorcerers down for their power, while both Bone Shadows and Ivory Claws are said to have some means of producing vampires which they use as disposable agents and killers in their shadow war. Both Destroyer Wolf and Red Wolf are said to have taken an active interest in events in Macau since the 60s, but there is a much, much older shrine to Red Wolf in the city that the Forsaken defend fanatically – some rumours allege it is Pangaean in origin. For now, Yin continues to rule her Protectorate with an iron fist.

Characters of Macau:
*'''Adao''' - Iron Master Elodoth. Portuguese smuggler.
*'''Red Mask''' - Iron Master ?. Revered as the high priest of Red Wolf's shrine in Macau.

===Shenzen – The City Without History===
Shenzen is a mirror of Hong Kong's success story – a busy port, major financial centre and huge city butting against its northern border. Shenzen exploded from a small town in the 80s to the urban behemoth of today, and the the Uratha of the province know full well its growth was down to more than just the PRC labelling it a Special Economic Zone. Something has long been awry with the very fabric of reality in Shenzen and someone, or something, caused the expansion of the city by stealing it from a history that never happened, a Shenzen that never was, and overlaying it into this world. The layout of the city possesses innumerable minor pieces of occult geometry, coming together into some sort of vast chronal siphon that forces this reality to match the Other Shenzen. For years, the 'city without history' and the time spirits that flock there served as a major attraction for Uratha seers and secret-seekers of both Pure and Forsaken, with bitter fighting breaking out across its prime territories, but the Cull have moved in in recent years – and established a major Deep Shadow monastery as a bastion. Now this major land route into Hong Kong is threatened, the Cull bringing in more adherents as the months progress and the Uratha of the City of Nine Dragons watching uneasily from over the border. Word has it that the Thousand Steel Teeth are gathering their own war parties, determined to defend their supply lines that run through Hong Kong and Shenzen out into the wider world. The new city of Shenzen may be about to become a battleground for a particularly vicious phase of the war with the Cull.

===Guangdong – Riches Worth Fighting For===
The province of Guangdong may be a large and prosperous region, but for the Forsaken of the area it is perhaps most characterised by its river spirits. Threading down to the Pearl River Delta, these spirits are probably the most organised, widespread and outright hostile court of Guangdong; the feud dates back to the battle of Yamen in 1279. Defeating and subjugating the local river spirits is an ongoing struggle, not at all helped by the Pure's own alliance with the River King. Despite this hostility, there is much for the Forsaken to covet here – the wealth of the human population and the uncommonly high number of wellsprings of Essence. Guangdong has a great abundance of sites that naturally form talens, rich loci of rare Resonances, and unusual qualities to the Shadow that make certain rites – such as those that craft fetishes – easier to work than elsewhere. The Claimed are a particular threat across the province, and the Storm Lords have traditionally been very powerful here; there are several Tribal bastions where the Iminir protect ancient artefacts and relics that are the destination of pilgrims from across the globe. The Storm Lords of Guangdong have a highly organised Tribal structure that crosses throughout the packs and Protectorates of the province, leading up to an elected gong whose task is to tend to the ancient, revered Tribal elder known as the Zongshi – a near-mythical figure amongst the Forsaken, said to alternate between sleeping in a Storm Lord fastness and prowling the Deep Shadow for the most terrifying of prey. Guangdong regularly sees the conflict between Forsaken and Pure flare into open and brutal warfare, but these periods are almost always short – usually a year or two at most before things lapse once again, agreements are made and lines redrawn. The recent arrival of sects of the Cull from the west and north, however, threatens to upset that balance.

===Taiwan – Tyrants of the Earth===
Taiwan's Shadow was once ruled by the spirits of the mountains and the grumbling, shifting earth – but around two centuries ago, the Forsaken of the island undertook a great and mighty binding on the lords of rock and stone to chain them with fetters of symbolism. This caused a great rift amongst the Taiwanese Tribes, with the Bone Shadows breaking off to form their own separate faction, condemning the act as one of hubris that would only serve to harm Shadow and Flesh alike. For two centuries now, the bindings have mostly held – but when they weaken or shift, the furious spirits of the earth vent their rage on the world. Even today, the Bone Shadows remain separate to the other Forsaken and have, as the years turn, formed a distinct identity from Hirfathra Hissu elsewhere as well. The Predator Kings have long sought to unmake the chains that bind the mountain spirits and once formed the bulk of the Pure numbers in Taiwan, but since the Chinese Civil War the other two Pure Tribes have made significant inroads into what was once almost entirely under Forsaken control. Today, Taiwanese Uratha are renowned for their mastery of rites and the binding of spirits, but often considered prideful and arrogant in their disdain for other werewolves who do not have the strength to chain the Shadow to their will. Taiwanese packs commonly include spirits enslaved to the pack's will, and even totems are treated less as respected equals and more as vassals or servants. The Bone Shadows continue to warn that a reckoning will yet come; but as each decade passes without sign of their forecast apocalypse, so does the scorn for the fifth Tribe rise amongst the Taiwanese.

===Philippines – The Spinner Hag's Bastion===
In many ways, Uratha in the Philippines have lives similar to werewolves elsewhere – though the boundaries of territories in the archipelago are often delineated by coastline and travel between islands can be tricky. The rising prosperity and development of the country has left Uratha with many of the same challenges and opportunities as in other nations. The Shadow across the Philippines, however, is in a ruinous state – and has been for millennia. By local lore, the Great Predator fought much of its battle with the Spinner Hag over what became these islands, and in many places the Gauntlet is still torn asunder by the mere echo of Wolf's claws and teeth. Worse, other patches of Gauntlet are thick and distended, shrouded in Azlo webs and said to contain oozing gobbets of the Hag's carcass. The Azlu are numerous and powerful here, and are no mere monstrous beasts – the Host spider-witches of the Philippines think and plan with an alien but clinically precise approach, their schemes spanning centuries. The poor state of the Gauntlet has also resulted in a much higher number of spirits crossing over into the Flesh, bizarre and unique forms of Claimed, and other entities born by the fusion of the two worlds. Repeated rumours bubble up that there are actually still areas of Pangaea itself hidden away, somehow saved from the Great Predator's death-howl. Unsurprisingly, the Hunters in Darkness lead the Forsaken here, and Filipino werewolves are said to be both particularly vigilant – or paranoid, by the less charitable – and particularly talented in the matter of wards and occult protections. The Philippines have long served as a destination for Hunter in Darkness pilgrimages – old and veteran Meninna from other countries, even far-off continents, have been known to 'retire' to this heart of Azlu power, and werewolves seeking lore and insights into the spider Hosts often seek out Filipino brethren for aid.

===Vietnam – The Harmonious Kings===
Early in the 20th Century, the Pure of Vietnam began to tip the scales against their Forsaken counterparts; they took advantage of the disruption and conflict that plagued the country until, after the US-Vietnam war and the fall of the South, the Fire-Touched and Predator Kings had near total domination of the unified country. The Forsaken of today, though, are having a comparatively easy time of it; the Pure are far more focused on warring with each other, and there are a number of powerful spirit nobles that have sided with the Forsaken in the wake of the Pure calling down horrific spirit-horrors from beyond Luna's orbit. The Predator Kings have split into two factions that battle one another with brutal ferocity, mainly due to the emergence of a radical, heretical Ninna Farakh Lodge called the Lan that has rapidly surged in converts. The Lan adhere to portions of Dire Wolf's philosophy, but are far more connected to humanity than their erstwhile comrades; the totem's ban makes it difficult for the Lan to work within society so they instead use a large cult of human and Wolf-Blooded go-betweens to sink their claws into Vietnam. Espousing a creed that the Predator Kings should adapt to the changing world and shepherd humanity to a harmonious union with the wild and the hunt, the Lan are largely uninterested in pursuing the Forsaken compared to destroying the Fire-Touched and converting or killing the rest of their Tribe. To the Forsaken, it all looks very much like the Predator Kings' penchant for savagery has finally turned inwards while the real Vietnam moves beyond their outmoded ways – but there are those who worry that the Harmonious Kings of the Lan are winning, and fear what may happen once they have done so. Some wonder if the Lan might be converted in turn to the Forsaken, but the Lodge has shown little interest in any Urdaga Creeds.

==New Material==

===New Rites===

'''Vex (Wolf Rite ●)''' 
This petty curse calls upon spirits of misfortune and malevolence to plague whoever has drawn the werewolf's ire. 
'''Symbols:''' Fire, venom, violence, the skill that is to be targeted. 
'''Cost:''' 1 Essence 
'''Action:''' Extended (5 successes; each roll represents 1 minute); resisted by the target's Composure. 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The Essence used to fuel this rite must come from a locus of hatred, pain, despair or decay. Additionally, the ritemaster must have a possession of the target, a nail clipping, a lock of hair or some other bodily substance from the intended victim. The ritemaster selects a single skill that will be cursed; thereafter, the first time the victim uses that skill in the following month, her result becomes a dramatic failure regardless of what she rolls. The ritemaster immediately knows when this happens. A character may only be the subject of a single vex at a time, and cannot be subjected again until the rite's month of duration has passed. 

'''Drain the Well (Pack Rite ●●●)''' 
This rite uses a locus to draw in its Resonance from the surrounding ar ea, draining the Shadow of Essence attuned to its nature. Paradoxically, this ensures the locus surges deep with Essence of that kind; if left untended, it will wash back out again stronger than before.
'''Symbols:''' Water, pain, piercing or draining, the Resonance type. 
'''Action:''' Extended (20 successes; each roll represents 10 minutes) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed at the site of a locus, draining Resonance into it. This has several effects: spirits and Uratha within 100 yards per dot of the rating of the Locus, or within the entire territory (whichever is larger), take the locus's rating as a penalty to all rolls for Influences that match its Resonance when outside its direct area. The Resonance is reduced in general, removing many incidents of the Resonant Condition across the affected region; draining a locus of pain would cause injuries and aches to inflict less pain, humans and animals will recover faster from harm and may simply not notice minor damage. This will have long-term effects on the Shadow and the material world. 
The ritemaster gains a persistent Ban Condition for the duration of the rite's effect, reflecting the Resonance of the locus; this Condition lifts when the rite ends. If the ritemaster ever violates the ban, the effects of the rite immediately end. If ended via ban violation, or if this rite is not performed on the locus again within a week of its duration ending, the locus becomes empowered for one month as if it were the subject of the Wellspring rite.

'''Shadow Signs (Pack Rite ●●●●)''' 
This rite may only be invoked on a territory that the ritemaster's pack has already sanctified with the Hunting Ground rite. It draws upon the secrets, the names and the flows of Essence that thread between the spirits of the territory's Shadow, revealing truths to the Uratha. 
'''Symbols:''' Writing or tattooing, wounds, whispers, the wind. 
'''Action:''' Extended (10 successes; each roll represents 1 minute) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month. 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed in the Shadow, within territory that the ritemaster's pack has placed the Hunting Ground rite upon. This causes that spot to become a nexus of information about the territory's Shadow. Over roughly a day, words and glyphs will carve themselves into the Shadow-stuff of an area roughly ten feet in radius, often oozing blood or ichor; these words spell out the names of powerful spirits in the area (Rank 3 and higher, as well as spirit nobles), indicate significant Shadow phenomena (like barrens, shoals, or an impending emotion-storm), and may also indicate other threats in the Shadow (such as warning of the warping spells that a Mage is using on the Hisil, or of a non-native monstrosity that has somehow breached the Gauntlet and is now marauding the spirits). The words update roughly every day, with old, bleeding warnings squirming aside for eruptions of fresh and oozing names as new, powerful spirits move in or a threat manifests itself. Any Uratha who reads the shadow signs gains a +3 bonus to locate or perceive spirits, entities or phenomena that they have seen the warnings or names of, while the rite lasts. However, picking key information out of the mass of glyphs and sigils is not necessarily straightforward.

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T16:24:40Z

Acrozatarim: /* Civilians */

=Werewolf: the Forsaken - The Eater of Names=
A Werewolf: the Forsaken game set in Hong Kong.

==Hong Kong==

===Werewolf Oddities of Hong Kong===
*Something steals the First Change of the majority of nusuzul. At the moment of the Change, they have their newfound nature torn out of them by an unknown force, leaving them as normal humans suffering a psychotic break – even former Wolf-Blooded have their inheritance stripped from them at this moment.
*The territories of Hong Kong are a complete patchwork between the different factions. There are no solid battle lines between Pure and Forsaken, and the vertical nature of the urban landscape means that even a small scrap of land can be more than enough to patrol for most packs. The Shadow reflection of the city sees a spiritual ecosystem that is just as confused and turbulent.
*Due to the sheer population density and the patchwork nature of the territories, Hong Kong packs have strong traditions about hospitality and allowances for crossing another pack's turf – even between Pure and Forsaken.
*There are no Protectorates in Hong Kong. The closest to any sort of formal structure are the Five Great Packs – the Wen, Hou, Peng, Tang and Liao, formed from amongst the Uratha of the mortal clans of the area in 1899. The Great Packs are probably the largest and most influential of the city, but with respect comes responsibility, and they are expected to provide aid and guidance to other werewolves. These expectations, again, cross factional lines.
*Tribes and allegiances to Pure and Forsaken are important, but Hong Kong also plays host to a number of strange packs allied to neither faction, packs amongst foreign immigrant populations with odd practices and traditions, and a focus on Lodges. The sheer density of the city can make the patchwork of territories confusing and Tribes rarely organise on a wide scale, but Lodge connections matter and underpin much of the social fabric of Hong Kong.
*With so much movement in and out of Hong Kong, its transitional position in the world (geographically, politically and symbolically) and its possession of so many layers and shadows that even the werewolves cannot plumb them all, the city is a hotbed for weirdness and occult conspiracies. Yao guai and jiang shi slither through the darkness, hungry ghosts and watery shades prowl at the fringes, and now the forces of the dreaded Cull are preparing to assault the borders of the territory – something that has both Pure and Forsaken alike on edge.
*Local Uratha lore has it that, in some past age, Hong Kong was the site of a meeting between the Nine Dragons – held to be the eight Firstborn of the Pure and the Forsaken, and a last figure of disputed nature. Some believe it was one of the first Chinese emperors. It was this gathering of beings of incredible power that, it is claimed, is responsible for the strong currents of Essence that pour through the region's Shadow even today.
*The chenghuanshen, the city-spirit of Hong Kong, definitely exists – but its nature is not entirely clear. It may actually be a consciousness split across a number of powerful urban spirits, and seems quite capable of fighting with itself as much as any other spirit nobles of the region. Furthermore, it has a long-running feud with the spirits of the mountains and the peaks.

==The Blossom Society Pack==
History is important to the packs of Hong Kong, although knowledge of the past of the Forsaken is usually rather patchy:
*Most Kowloon Forsaken hark back to the '''Salt Eaters''', a pack that controlled much of the area in the middle of the second millenium.
*In the late 1800s, the third bubonic plague wracked China; as a result the '''Yellow-Feathered Owls''', a pack of Bone Shadows and Hunters in Darkness, controlled what is now Sham Shui Po.
*In 1899, territorial unrest with the five Chinese clans in the area resulted in the creation of the Five Great Packs; the original Cherry Gardens themselves were held by a daughter pack of the Wen, the '''White Jade''' pack.
*After the Japanese occupation, the predecessors of the Blossom Society took over the area. They were not opposed in doing so; the sheer damage done by the occupation had resulted in the deportation or deaths of most of the White Jade and their extended pack.

Of the pack's previous Uratha, the existing pack members may know of the following:
*''''Red Shroud'''' – Bone Shadow, formed pack in aftermath of Japanese occupation – famous for dealing with a terrifying plague of restless ghosts and widely venerated by Uratha across Hong Kong for her accomplishments.
*'''Wen Liang''' – Iron Master, powerful figure amongst the packs in the 60's and 70's, infamous for his involvement in the 1967 riots and his killing of a number of communist ringleaders. A name both respected and feared.
*'''Melissa Tsang''' – Blood Talon, took control of the Cherry Garden Night Market in the 80s by driving out the '''Sung-Ti''', a vicious yao guai and its Fire-Touched Pure followers.

The recent losses the pack has suffered are:
*'''James 'Steeljaw Trap' Liu''' – Hunter in Darkness Cahalith and member of the Lodge of Seven Venoms. Died five years ago fighting beshilu in the typhoon shelter; he sank a floating crane raft infested with Rat Hosts while he was still onboard.
*'''Gwok Mei''' – Bone Shadow Rahu and member of the Lodge of Death. Left two years ago in response to the Lodge calling a pilgrimage against the Cull in northern China. She has not been heard from since.
*'''Mark Callahan-Cheung''' – Iron Master shaman, local landlord and member of the Yau Tsim Mong district council. Died under strange circumstances one month before the game's beginning, which the pack had difficulties investigating due to Mark's public position as a councilman and the police and press interest in the case.

The totem of the pack is the '''Eight Lanterns Minister''', spirit of the Cherry Gardens Night Market. The minister appears in the form of a set of grandiose mandarin ministerial garb, threaded with lines of neon and jangling talismans of commerce, wrapped around a withered but strong frame. Its face is concealed behind a veil, but seems to emanate a gentle glow. Lanterns hang from a frame of lacquered wood that floats behind its shoulders; the colours of the lanterns often indicate the spirit's mood.

The Eight Lanterns Minister has served the pack as totem since the 1980s, its fortunes waxing and waning over that time. It is devious, smart and opportunistic. The Minister is a very lowly spirit noble, with a paltry court of lesser spirits of the market at its beck and call; it in turn is the vassal of the spirit noble of Temple Street Night Market, which has caused some friction with the Wen over the years.

===Werewolves===
*'''Red Lantern Widow, Bone Shadow Elodoth''', formerly wife of an up and coming politician until she killed him during her First Change. She uses his skull as a focus in her rites.
*'''Lucky Rat, Hunter in Darkness Rahu''', whose pest control company gives him an overwatch on Beshilu activity in the area. Possesses some anger issues.
*'''Wang Lee, Bone Shadow Irraka''', the youngest of the pack members and something of a street rat. Son of Wang Jing.
*'''Lao Min, newly-Changed Ithaeur''', straight-A's university student whose First Change was triggered by a manifestation of Death Wolf. Despite appearing as an embodiment of that Firstborn, she's leaning towards Red Wolf's Tribe.

===Wolf-Blooded===
*'''Zhongli Hu''' – 'Auntie' Hu is an elderly fortune-teller and seller of offerings and incense in the night market. She is also a Wolf-Blooded with the Piercing Eyes Tell. Hu was a little girl when Red Shroud ran these streets, claims to have been Wen Liang's mistress, and has certainly lived a storied life.
*'''Ko Lei''' runs the market's security, a sturdy man with a pock-marked face and a quick temper. Lei is a Wolf-Blooded with the Wolf's Meat Tell. He used to be a member of the 14K triad.
*'''Wang Jing''' – She owns and runs the Hive Bar, just outside the night market. She has the Skinner Tell, and has obviously been mentally scarred by some of what she has seen and done. The older pack members would only reference her past activities obliquely and refuse to give details. Some tension between her and her son.
*'''Zhao Bo''' – Widow's sister, who took a very different career path; she is a low-ranking financial auditor in Hong Kong's financial investigative body. Plagued by what she thought were psychiatric problems through her life, it was only since her sister Changed that she discovered the truth – the voices in her head were spirits. She is a Wolf-Blooded with the Waystone Tell.

===Humans===
*The exterminators of '''Yellow Kowloon Pest Control''' are the employees and associates of Arran's character. Working out of an office and storehouse in the territory, they're perhaps the most 'in the know' of all the humans about the supernatural, and they'd probably be hunters if they hadn't been brought under the wing of the pack. The company was briefly used as a front by a Rat Host, which is what drew the pack's attention.
*Several of the market's '''security guards''', Ko Lei's colleagues, are pack members. They know enough to understand that the pack have their back in keeping control of the Night Market, and they like to hang out with pack members to absorb some of the respect and fear that the werewolves are accorded.
*A half-dozen of the stall vendors are, like the security guards, pack members; they form the '''Mutual Activity Committee''' of the market, and the other shopkeepers know they're an 'inner circle' separate from the actual management (who are not pack members).
*'''Zhongli Zhuang''', or 'Uncle' Zhuang, is an old former Sun Yee On triad member and the husband of Auntie Hu. Despite his age, he still possesses a heavy frame; these days he sells occult tat and the like alongside his wife, but he also keeps an eye on the black market dealers in the area for the pack.
*'''Yi Kun''', owner of the Yi Healthy Wu Kwan (martial club), is a martial artist trainer who knows enough about the Uratha to understand their role as guardians of the area; he's had a few unpleasant run-ins over the years.

===Others===
*Michael Jin – a former manager of the Night Market, Michael died in the early 2000s in a horrific murder; a business rival with schemes on the property's future arranged for a construction 'accident' when a large block of concrete fell from scaffolding onto the man. Mister Jin was a client of the pack at the time, who were surprised by the lucidity his ghost retained after death. Michael is odd, fussy and obsessive, the broken remains of a personality clinging on to existence through his ties to the Night Market.

===The Totem - Eight Lanterns Minister (''Usufunsugal'' in the First Tongue)===
'''Rank 2 night market spirit''' 
'''Attributes:''' Power 2 Finesse 5 Resistance 2 
'''Willpower:''' 7 
'''Essence:''' 15 
'''Initiative:''' 7 
'''Defence:''' 2 
'''Speed:''' 10 
'''Size:''' 5 
'''Corpus:''' 7 
'''Influences:''' Wealth 1, Light 1 
'''Numina:''' Awe, Coin Curse*, Sign 
''Coin Curse – New Numina:'' The spirit may use this power on anyone it witnesses cheating in a trade, making a false deal or forcing a grievously unfair exchange, as long as money of some sort is involved. Coin Curse costs 1 Essence to use, and affects a coin, bank note, cheque or even money existing only as an electronic transfer. For as long as the character possesses that money in any way, they are affected by an increasingly unpleasant withering disease and the moderate Sick Tilt persistently; even if treated, it will return. Throwing or giving away the money ends the effect. 
'''Manifestations:''' Twilight Form, Gauntlet Breach, Materialise 
'''Ban:''' While the Cherry Gardens shrine of prosperity is damaged or desecrated, the Eight Lanterns Minister cannot leave the night market; if outside the market when the shrine is damaged, it is immediately called back. 
'''Bane:''' Glass from broken lights. 

==Cherry Gardens Market==
The pack's territory is centred around '''Cherry Gardens Night Market''', a night market that lies on the border between '''Sham Shui Po''' district (poor, working-class, lots of public housing) and '''Yau Tsim Mong''' district (core urban area, very high population density, lots of commercial). Cherry Gardens isn't as large or well-known as Temple Street, but it is still a bustling, busy market through the night hours.

The '''night market''' is the beating heart of the territory, catering to the workers of the two districts – cheap tat, mobile phones, clothes, cooked food, incense and paper offerings, and plenty more besides. The pack also holds:
- The surrounding '''residential blocks''' (shops on ground floors, cramped flats above, several with rooftop slums) up to two streets in each direction. These are mostly known by their block number - Lao Min's family lives in Tower 2, for example.
- To the west, the ground under the '''motorway fly-overs''' and then the '''waterfront'''. As well as some storehouses and parks, there are black market dealers and fortune-tellers in the shadow of the motorway.
- The waterfront is a '''typhoon shelter''', protected by a sea wall and a mixture of industrial and private – floating crane platforms, piles of shipping containers and junk-yards.

Crime in Cherry Gardens Night Market is low – petty theft, shoplifting and pickpocketing are common, but the market security guards have been aligned with the pack for years and have a reputation for brutality when dealing with real threats. The local triad gang, led by a Red Pole of the 14K Triad called 'Emperor' Koi, wants control of the night market but has never been able to extend his influence over it.

===Cherry Gardens characters===
*'''Chen Jin''', Spirit-Urged arsonist. Worker who lived in Tower 2 and was assembling some sort of occult explosive device that would use a summoned fire spirit to create an inferno. Appears to have been influenced by particular Wolf-Blooded, possibly tied to the Sung-Ti. Killed by Lao Min during her First Change.
*'''She Wanli''', manager of Tower 7 and shop owner. Affable, overweight local man who had his guts ripped out by the rampaging Taotie.
*'''Kwo Tien''', young tough. Lives in Cherry Gardens, claims to be part of the 14k Triad. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Taesuk Weyen''', patriarch of the Taesuk family. Lives in Cherry Gardens. Holds grudge against the Kwo family. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Hua''', minor tech criminal. Tattooed and hyperactive, Hua purveys petty illegalities - wiping stolen phones and computers, dealing in stolen data and the like.

===Cherry Gardens locations===
* The '''Blossom Society hall''' is a spacious basement subdivided into several smaller rooms, situated under a small laundry and bath-house on the night market shop-front. Once a triad gambling den, the basement includes a strong locus of prosperity and wealth (and, perhaps, greed) in the form of a shrine; the locus leads directly into the silken court of lanterns in the Shadow from which the Eight Lanterns Minister rules.
* One of the '''rooftop slums''' hangs precariously between towers 2 and 3, where the salvaged metal and wood bridge-way plays host to a minor locus of despair. The previous ithaeur, Mark, kept the insidious energies of the locus in check.

==Spirits and their Ilk==

===Lesser Spirits & Independents===
*The '''Crowdling''', a spirit of crowds that lairs around the Old Olympic MTR station. Carved the City Gift into Lucky Rat after being hunted in a chase that it greatly enjoyed.

===Nobles===
*'''Rotting Heart of Decay''', a lesser Ensih of urban decay and rot that held power over the run-down district of Bedford Rise. Granted boons by its liege, Crimson and White Agony, to let it better control the fief. Destroyed by the Blossom Society in a challenge for power and territory.
*'''Eight Lanterns Minister''', ruler of the Cherry Gardens Night Market.

===Servitors===
*'''Elders of Naga''', strange serpentine spirits of rock and bone. Follow in the wake of Death Wolf.

==The Five Great Packs==
The five pillars of Hong Kong Uratha society, born from agreements forged in 1899 alongside those made between the British colony and the local Chinese Punti clans, are called the Great Packs. Originally, each pack corresponded to the same mortal clan that it took the name of, but in the modern day there is no major link between the Punti clan families and the make-up of the pack in question. Most of the Great Packs are large, powerful and have two tiers amongst their Uratha members. The lower tier of 'nieces' and 'nephews' operate somewhat more like a conventional pack, but the upper tier of 'aunts' and 'uncles' are, oddly, less tightly bound together. The aunts and uncles are mentors, experts, revered elders and the like who focus more on their own matters, loosely connected to the other aunts and uncles but not necessarily very involved in the day-to-day running of the pack's assets. When an aunt or uncle asks for a service, the nephews and nieces are expected to snap to attention, but they are in turn expected not to abuse this authority to any great extent. Each Great Pack has a different system for providing more concrete leadership; the Hou select a single overall leader so that the other upper tier Uratha don't need to be bothered by petty concerns, while the Tang demand regular meetings of their aunts and uncles to ensure co-ordination.

The Great Packs are heavily tied into the occult fabric of Hong Kong, and possess considerable knowledge, influence and stockpiles of materials. A Lodge's leadership usually comes from Great Pack members. Each possesses an incredibly powerful totem spirit, but the nature of that relationship between pack and totem is closely guarded and outsiders suspect whatever agreement was signed in 1899 plays a heavy part.

===The Wen – Yau Tsim Mong===
Forsaken, mostly Hunters in Darkness and Iron Masters; their totem is the Serpent of Dreams and Bile, a spirit of incense, drugs and pollution. Known for their influence in shipping, narcotics, and their deep occult knowledge. The Wen have long been obsessed with hunting down the source of the Scourge, as they call the phenomenon that blights First Changes, and are known to truck with jiang shi, yao guai and other, stranger entities in their search for the truth.

Wen '''Aunts/Uncles''':
* '''Yeung He, 'Lightning Paper Fan'''' - Iron Master Ithaeur. Yeung He is one of the principle uncles of the Wen, a wealthy Hong Kong businessman who serves as the Great Pack's principle face of its occult side.
* '''Ten-Eyes Tsang''' - Storm Lord Ithaeur. Ten-Eyes is a drugs chemist and the principle responsible for the Wen drugs operation. Tsang is said to be a ''samzukwu'' or Three-Legged Crow, a member of the Lodge of Crows.

Wen '''Nieces/Nephews''':
* '''Dantea Wen''' - Hunter in Darkness Elodoth. Dantea is one of the most trusted lower-rankers in the Wen, slated for promotion and thus access to the pack's extensive resources. She is the local representative of the Lodge of the Seven Venoms, and a trained doctor.
* '''"Tightrope" Lei''' - Iron Master Irraka. Named for her habit of garroting prey, not for acrobatics.
*'''"Hapless" Fung''' - Storm Lord Rahu. Possesses incredible luck and is said to be cursed.
*'''"Pup" Sau''' - Iron Master Cahalith. Optimistic and hyperactive.

Wen '''Wolf-Blooded''':
*Inspector Hau Chen - HKPF Inspector and general police-force informant and contact for the Wen and affiliated packs. Tell is unknown.
*Zheng Fang - Full-time trusted gofer for the Wen. Immaculately dressed and presented but rumoured to be a very capable leg-breaker despite her appearance. Tell is rumoured to be very powerful for a Wolf-Blooded, possibly that she can summon spirit-wolves or turn into a spirit herself.

===The Hou – Kwun Tong===
Pure, Ivory Claws; their totem is Crimson and White Agony, a spirit of salt and pain. Known for their incredible ancestral and bloodline records, as well as their heavy involvement in Hong Kong politics and medical services. The Hou are seen as cruel, cold and clinical; few fates are worse than falling into the hands of a Hou torturer. The Hou claim to be the oldest and most legitimate of all the Five Great Packs, as unlike the other four the Hou already existed prior to 1899; Hou stories have it that they formed when the Punti migrated to Hong Kong in the 1200s, taking over the sacred mantle of an even older pack who were appointed by the Nine Dragons.

===The Peng – Hongkong Island===
Pure, mostly Ivory Claws; their totem is the Thousand Roaring Eyes and Mouths, a spirit of water and destruction. Known for their wealth and the role they play as financial agents for Pure across the world, their foreign contacts and also their martial traditions. The Peng claim that Hong Kong is actually the site on which Wolf was slain by its treacherous children. They are known for undertaking lavish, extravagant rituals offering sacrifices to the spirits and the waters in penance, to which werewolves of all stripes are invited. Despite their outwards expressions of wealth and openness, they're also said to be a hotbed of internal scheming due to the influence of rival spirit lords.

===The Tang – Hongkong Island===
Forsaken, mostly Bone Shadows and Storm Lords; their totem is the Pale Mandarin, a spirit of secrets, knowledge and fear. They are known for their information network and the dirt they're said to hold on every figure of note in Hong Kong, their knowledge of death and the Underworld, and their involvement in urban planning and development. Rumour has it that the Tang have successfully used occult geometries to create paths into the Deep Shadow. A few pieces of particularly bitter hearsay that refuse to die have it that the Tang take their marching orders from packs in Beijing.

===The Liao – New Territories===
Forsaken, mostly Blood Talons; their totem is the Torn Banner, a spirit of change and violence. They are known for their fighting prowess, their trade and manufacture of spiritual goods (including fetishes and talens) and their connections to mainland China. The Liao are generally seen as the most traditionalist and conservative of the Five Great Packs, ironic given the nature of their totem and their own history; they were originally mostly Predator Kings, changing allegiance to the Forsaken via bloody infighting shortly after the Japanese occupation.

==Other Packs==

===The Sung-Ti – Mong Kok===
The Sung-Ti are a largely Fire-Touched pack of Pure holding territory to the north-east of the pack – and they still nurse a grudge over the loss of Cherry Gardens to Melissa Tsang in the 80s. Pitching themselves as judges of certain sins, the Sung-Ti reputedly have significant involvement in both the criminal side of Kowloon and its charities.

* ? Ash Talon ? - Fire-Touched crafter, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.
* ? Kanomi ? - Wolf-Blooded capable of overwhelming those who see her into believing she possesses incredible beauty, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.

===The Stone Lions – Various===
The Stone Lions are mostly Hunters in Darkness who oversee the occult maintenance of Boundary Street, once the limit of Hong Kong. The Lions are a 'daughter pack' of the Liao; they are also rumoured to participate in various sinister rituals to maintain their power.

===The Eyeless – Sham Shui Po===
The Eyeless are a strange and esoteric pack, believed to be a reclusive and likely heretical group of Forsaken. They generally avoid outside contact, but it is known that they pluck their own eyes out for some cultic purpose. Rumour links the Eyeless to the Japanese occupation, and those who would mock them call them the 'Nopera-Bo'.

===The Two Claw Society – Sham Shui Po===
The Two Claw Society are a pack of Bone Shadows and Blood Talons known to be particularly vicious in defending their territory, but also respected as being highly honourable. The Two Claws was created to deal with a horrific Wound resulting from a Japanese concentration camp on their territory – a Wound that still exists despite the pack's best efforts.

* Fan Chau, 'Crimson Autumn' - Bone Shadow Rahu. Belligerent member of the Lodge of Voices. Appears to have one of her hands replaced with someone else's through unknown means.

===The Tsen-Kuang – Tsim Sha Tsui===
A Pure pack on the south of the peninsula, known to be largely made up of Fire-Touched. The Tsen-Kuang have their claws firmly dug into the flow of migrants moving through Hong Kong, and are rumoured to cavort with Beshilu and other, even fouler denizens of the waterfronts. They are reputed to venerate an entity that they believe is responsible for stealing the Changes of nusuzul in Hong Kong; the Tsen-Kuang believe it to be a judge that weeds out those who are not worthy.

===Silver Horizon Futures - Various===
SH Futures appears to be a strange fusion of pack and corporation operating in Hong Kong. A subsidiary of the globe-spanning Cheiron, SHF is best known for its work in the bio-sciences and innovative energy generation solutions. The pack certainly includes both werewolves and Wolf-Blooded; the latter appear to hold the administrative and executive positions within the arrangement.

==Other Groups and Entities==

===Civilians===
*'''Dachan Cuifen''', curator of the Taotie exhibit at the museum and university archaeology lecturer.
*'''Alec & Rong''', friends of Lao Min and fellow students at the university.

===14K Triad===

*'''Hom Wie, Hive-Claimed'''. Rumoured to be a Taoist sorcerer and feared by the lower ranks of the Triad for his brutality and twisted appearance. Hom Wie has some sort of link or connection to Wang Jing from the past, sufficiently strong to warn her of a forthcoming Triad war.

===Taotie===
Also known as the 'gluttonous ogres', taotie are very powerful entities of hunger that have been bound into ceramic masks and pottery. The mortal wielder of a taotie gains monstrous physical strength, the ability to cross the Gauntlet, and the ability to take the internal organs of a victim and place them within his or her own body. In return for this power, the taotie demands the sacrifice of the mortal wielder's own internal organs to feed its hunger. Manifesting its powers causes the taotie to drain a vast amount of Essence from the nearby ''Hisil'', often catastrophically for weaker spirits in the vicinity.
*'''Chua Chuo''', Sham Shui Po businessman and Taotie wielder - murdered Mark Callaghan-Cheung and She Wanli over property scheme using the power of the taotie. Killed by the Blossom Society. Apparently found the mask amongst some family belongings passed down to him.

==Beyond Hong Kong==

===Macau – The Zealous Warlord's Domain===
Often referred to as the 'darker sibling' by Hong Kong Uratha, Macau has a sinister reputation amongst werewolves – even despite it being a Forsaken stronghold. Beneath its seemingly placid surface, Macau is a place of nightmares. From 1966 onwards, the notorious Blood Talon warlord 'Silver Claw' Yin fought a sustained and bloody campaign against the Pure, claiming to have been given divine visions by the Moon and instructions from the Lunes. After just ten years, the last Pure were annihilated or driven out of the city. In 1987, however, the Pure attempted to return. In the three decades since, Macau has seen repeated attacks by the Pure, particularly under the leadership of the Fire-Touched sibling Elders Sheu-Fuh and Shunyan, although they have not yet regained a foothold for more than a few months at a time. Its occult landscape is a mess, scarred by brutality, madness and the mostly-unchecked spiritual off-flow of the mass of humanity crammed into the region. Other things have also been drawn in or caught up by the violence; it is said there is an alchemist amongst the Iron Masters of Macau who knows how to render sorcerers down for their power, while both Bone Shadows and Ivory Claws are said to have some means of producing vampires which they use as disposable agents and killers in their shadow war. Both Destroyer Wolf and Red Wolf are said to have taken an active interest in events in Macau since the 60s, but there is a much, much older shrine to Red Wolf in the city that the Forsaken defend fanatically – some rumours allege it is Pangaean in origin. For now, Yin continues to rule her Protectorate with an iron fist.

Characters of Macau:
*'''Adao''' - Iron Master Elodoth. Portuguese smuggler.
*'''Red Mask''' - Iron Master ?. Revered as the high priest of Red Wolf's shrine in Macau.

===Shenzen – The City Without History===
Shenzen is a mirror of Hong Kong's success story – a busy port, major financial centre and huge city butting against its northern border. Shenzen exploded from a small town in the 80s to the urban behemoth of today, and the the Uratha of the province know full well its growth was down to more than just the PRC labelling it a Special Economic Zone. Something has long been awry with the very fabric of reality in Shenzen and someone, or something, caused the expansion of the city by stealing it from a history that never happened, a Shenzen that never was, and overlaying it into this world. The layout of the city possesses innumerable minor pieces of occult geometry, coming together into some sort of vast chronal siphon that forces this reality to match the Other Shenzen. For years, the 'city without history' and the time spirits that flock there served as a major attraction for Uratha seers and secret-seekers of both Pure and Forsaken, with bitter fighting breaking out across its prime territories, but the Cull have moved in in recent years – and established a major Deep Shadow monastery as a bastion. Now this major land route into Hong Kong is threatened, the Cull bringing in more adherents as the months progress and the Uratha of the City of Nine Dragons watching uneasily from over the border. Word has it that the Thousand Steel Teeth are gathering their own war parties, determined to defend their supply lines that run through Hong Kong and Shenzen out into the wider world. The new city of Shenzen may be about to become a battleground for a particularly vicious phase of the war with the Cull.

===Guangdong – Riches Worth Fighting For===
The province of Guangdong may be a large and prosperous region, but for the Forsaken of the area it is perhaps most characterised by its river spirits. Threading down to the Pearl River Delta, these spirits are probably the most organised, widespread and outright hostile court of Guangdong; the feud dates back to the battle of Yamen in 1279. Defeating and subjugating the local river spirits is an ongoing struggle, not at all helped by the Pure's own alliance with the River King. Despite this hostility, there is much for the Forsaken to covet here – the wealth of the human population and the uncommonly high number of wellsprings of Essence. Guangdong has a great abundance of sites that naturally form talens, rich loci of rare Resonances, and unusual qualities to the Shadow that make certain rites – such as those that craft fetishes – easier to work than elsewhere. The Claimed are a particular threat across the province, and the Storm Lords have traditionally been very powerful here; there are several Tribal bastions where the Iminir protect ancient artefacts and relics that are the destination of pilgrims from across the globe. The Storm Lords of Guangdong have a highly organised Tribal structure that crosses throughout the packs and Protectorates of the province, leading up to an elected gong whose task is to tend to the ancient, revered Tribal elder known as the Zongshi – a near-mythical figure amongst the Forsaken, said to alternate between sleeping in a Storm Lord fastness and prowling the Deep Shadow for the most terrifying of prey. Guangdong regularly sees the conflict between Forsaken and Pure flare into open and brutal warfare, but these periods are almost always short – usually a year or two at most before things lapse once again, agreements are made and lines redrawn. The recent arrival of sects of the Cull from the west and north, however, threatens to upset that balance.

===Taiwan – Tyrants of the Earth===
Taiwan's Shadow was once ruled by the spirits of the mountains and the grumbling, shifting earth – but around two centuries ago, the Forsaken of the island undertook a great and mighty binding on the lords of rock and stone to chain them with fetters of symbolism. This caused a great rift amongst the Taiwanese Tribes, with the Bone Shadows breaking off to form their own separate faction, condemning the act as one of hubris that would only serve to harm Shadow and Flesh alike. For two centuries now, the bindings have mostly held – but when they weaken or shift, the furious spirits of the earth vent their rage on the world. Even today, the Bone Shadows remain separate to the other Forsaken and have, as the years turn, formed a distinct identity from Hirfathra Hissu elsewhere as well. The Predator Kings have long sought to unmake the chains that bind the mountain spirits and once formed the bulk of the Pure numbers in Taiwan, but since the Chinese Civil War the other two Pure Tribes have made significant inroads into what was once almost entirely under Forsaken control. Today, Taiwanese Uratha are renowned for their mastery of rites and the binding of spirits, but often considered prideful and arrogant in their disdain for other werewolves who do not have the strength to chain the Shadow to their will. Taiwanese packs commonly include spirits enslaved to the pack's will, and even totems are treated less as respected equals and more as vassals or servants. The Bone Shadows continue to warn that a reckoning will yet come; but as each decade passes without sign of their forecast apocalypse, so does the scorn for the fifth Tribe rise amongst the Taiwanese.

===Philippines – The Spinner Hag's Bastion===
In many ways, Uratha in the Philippines have lives similar to werewolves elsewhere – though the boundaries of territories in the archipelago are often delineated by coastline and travel between islands can be tricky. The rising prosperity and development of the country has left Uratha with many of the same challenges and opportunities as in other nations. The Shadow across the Philippines, however, is in a ruinous state – and has been for millennia. By local lore, the Great Predator fought much of its battle with the Spinner Hag over what became these islands, and in many places the Gauntlet is still torn asunder by the mere echo of Wolf's claws and teeth. Worse, other patches of Gauntlet are thick and distended, shrouded in Azlo webs and said to contain oozing gobbets of the Hag's carcass. The Azlu are numerous and powerful here, and are no mere monstrous beasts – the Host spider-witches of the Philippines think and plan with an alien but clinically precise approach, their schemes spanning centuries. The poor state of the Gauntlet has also resulted in a much higher number of spirits crossing over into the Flesh, bizarre and unique forms of Claimed, and other entities born by the fusion of the two worlds. Repeated rumours bubble up that there are actually still areas of Pangaea itself hidden away, somehow saved from the Great Predator's death-howl. Unsurprisingly, the Hunters in Darkness lead the Forsaken here, and Filipino werewolves are said to be both particularly vigilant – or paranoid, by the less charitable – and particularly talented in the matter of wards and occult protections. The Philippines have long served as a destination for Hunter in Darkness pilgrimages – old and veteran Meninna from other countries, even far-off continents, have been known to 'retire' to this heart of Azlu power, and werewolves seeking lore and insights into the spider Hosts often seek out Filipino brethren for aid.

===Vietnam – The Harmonious Kings===
Early in the 20th Century, the Pure of Vietnam began to tip the scales against their Forsaken counterparts; they took advantage of the disruption and conflict that plagued the country until, after the US-Vietnam war and the fall of the South, the Fire-Touched and Predator Kings had near total domination of the unified country. The Forsaken of today, though, are having a comparatively easy time of it; the Pure are far more focused on warring with each other, and there are a number of powerful spirit nobles that have sided with the Forsaken in the wake of the Pure calling down horrific spirit-horrors from beyond Luna's orbit. The Predator Kings have split into two factions that battle one another with brutal ferocity, mainly due to the emergence of a radical, heretical Ninna Farakh Lodge called the Lan that has rapidly surged in converts. The Lan adhere to portions of Dire Wolf's philosophy, but are far more connected to humanity than their erstwhile comrades; the totem's ban makes it difficult for the Lan to work within society so they instead use a large cult of human and Wolf-Blooded go-betweens to sink their claws into Vietnam. Espousing a creed that the Predator Kings should adapt to the changing world and shepherd humanity to a harmonious union with the wild and the hunt, the Lan are largely uninterested in pursuing the Forsaken compared to destroying the Fire-Touched and converting or killing the rest of their Tribe. To the Forsaken, it all looks very much like the Predator Kings' penchant for savagery has finally turned inwards while the real Vietnam moves beyond their outmoded ways – but there are those who worry that the Harmonious Kings of the Lan are winning, and fear what may happen once they have done so. Some wonder if the Lan might be converted in turn to the Forsaken, but the Lodge has shown little interest in any Urdaga Creeds.

==New Material==

===New Rites===

'''Vex (Wolf Rite ●)''' 
This petty curse calls upon spirits of misfortune and malevolence to plague whoever has drawn the werewolf's ire. 
'''Symbols:''' Fire, venom, violence, the skill that is to be targeted. 
'''Cost:''' 1 Essence 
'''Action:''' Extended (5 successes; each roll represents 1 minute); resisted by the target's Composure. 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The Essence used to fuel this rite must come from a locus of hatred, pain, despair or decay. Additionally, the ritemaster must have a possession of the target, a nail clipping, a lock of hair or some other bodily substance from the intended victim. The ritemaster selects a single skill that will be cursed; thereafter, the first time the victim uses that skill in the following month, her result becomes a dramatic failure regardless of what she rolls. The ritemaster immediately knows when this happens. A character may only be the subject of a single vex at a time, and cannot be subjected again until the rite's month of duration has passed. 

'''Drain the Well (Pack Rite ●●●)''' 
This rite uses a locus to draw in its Resonance from the surrounding ar ea, draining the Shadow of Essence attuned to its nature. Paradoxically, this ensures the locus surges deep with Essence of that kind; if left untended, it will wash back out again stronger than before.
'''Symbols:''' Water, pain, piercing or draining, the Resonance type. 
'''Action:''' Extended (20 successes; each roll represents 10 minutes) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed at the site of a locus, draining Resonance into it. This has several effects: spirits and Uratha within 100 yards per dot of the rating of the Locus, or within the entire territory (whichever is larger), take the locus's rating as a penalty to all rolls for Influences that match its Resonance when outside its direct area. The Resonance is reduced in general, removing many incidents of the Resonant Condition across the affected region; draining a locus of pain would cause injuries and aches to inflict less pain, humans and animals will recover faster from harm and may simply not notice minor damage. This will have long-term effects on the Shadow and the material world. 
The ritemaster gains a persistent Ban Condition for the duration of the rite's effect, reflecting the Resonance of the locus; this Condition lifts when the rite ends. If the ritemaster ever violates the ban, the effects of the rite immediately end. If ended via ban violation, or if this rite is not performed on the locus again within a week of its duration ending, the locus becomes empowered for one month as if it were the subject of the Wellspring rite.

'''Shadow Signs (Pack Rite ●●●●)''' 
This rite may only be invoked on a territory that the ritemaster's pack has already sanctified with the Hunting Ground rite. It draws upon the secrets, the names and the flows of Essence that thread between the spirits of the territory's Shadow, revealing truths to the Uratha. 
'''Symbols:''' Writing or tattooing, wounds, whispers, the wind. 
'''Action:''' Extended (10 successes; each roll represents 1 minute) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month. 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed in the Shadow, within territory that the ritemaster's pack has placed the Hunting Ground rite upon. This causes that spot to become a nexus of information about the territory's Shadow. Over roughly a day, words and glyphs will carve themselves into the Shadow-stuff of an area roughly ten feet in radius, often oozing blood or ichor; these words spell out the names of powerful spirits in the area (Rank 3 and higher, as well as spirit nobles), indicate significant Shadow phenomena (like barrens, shoals, or an impending emotion-storm), and may also indicate other threats in the Shadow (such as warning of the warping spells that a Mage is using on the Hisil, or of a non-native monstrosity that has somehow breached the Gauntlet and is now marauding the spirits). The words update roughly every day, with old, bleeding warnings squirming aside for eruptions of fresh and oozing names as new, powerful spirits move in or a threat manifests itself. Any Uratha who reads the shadow signs gains a +3 bonus to locate or perceive spirits, entities or phenomena that they have seen the warnings or names of, while the rite lasts. However, picking key information out of the mass of glyphs and sigils is not necessarily straightforward.

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T16:24:06Z

Acrozatarim: /* Taotie */

=Werewolf: the Forsaken - The Eater of Names=
A Werewolf: the Forsaken game set in Hong Kong.

==Hong Kong==

===Werewolf Oddities of Hong Kong===
*Something steals the First Change of the majority of nusuzul. At the moment of the Change, they have their newfound nature torn out of them by an unknown force, leaving them as normal humans suffering a psychotic break – even former Wolf-Blooded have their inheritance stripped from them at this moment.
*The territories of Hong Kong are a complete patchwork between the different factions. There are no solid battle lines between Pure and Forsaken, and the vertical nature of the urban landscape means that even a small scrap of land can be more than enough to patrol for most packs. The Shadow reflection of the city sees a spiritual ecosystem that is just as confused and turbulent.
*Due to the sheer population density and the patchwork nature of the territories, Hong Kong packs have strong traditions about hospitality and allowances for crossing another pack's turf – even between Pure and Forsaken.
*There are no Protectorates in Hong Kong. The closest to any sort of formal structure are the Five Great Packs – the Wen, Hou, Peng, Tang and Liao, formed from amongst the Uratha of the mortal clans of the area in 1899. The Great Packs are probably the largest and most influential of the city, but with respect comes responsibility, and they are expected to provide aid and guidance to other werewolves. These expectations, again, cross factional lines.
*Tribes and allegiances to Pure and Forsaken are important, but Hong Kong also plays host to a number of strange packs allied to neither faction, packs amongst foreign immigrant populations with odd practices and traditions, and a focus on Lodges. The sheer density of the city can make the patchwork of territories confusing and Tribes rarely organise on a wide scale, but Lodge connections matter and underpin much of the social fabric of Hong Kong.
*With so much movement in and out of Hong Kong, its transitional position in the world (geographically, politically and symbolically) and its possession of so many layers and shadows that even the werewolves cannot plumb them all, the city is a hotbed for weirdness and occult conspiracies. Yao guai and jiang shi slither through the darkness, hungry ghosts and watery shades prowl at the fringes, and now the forces of the dreaded Cull are preparing to assault the borders of the territory – something that has both Pure and Forsaken alike on edge.
*Local Uratha lore has it that, in some past age, Hong Kong was the site of a meeting between the Nine Dragons – held to be the eight Firstborn of the Pure and the Forsaken, and a last figure of disputed nature. Some believe it was one of the first Chinese emperors. It was this gathering of beings of incredible power that, it is claimed, is responsible for the strong currents of Essence that pour through the region's Shadow even today.
*The chenghuanshen, the city-spirit of Hong Kong, definitely exists – but its nature is not entirely clear. It may actually be a consciousness split across a number of powerful urban spirits, and seems quite capable of fighting with itself as much as any other spirit nobles of the region. Furthermore, it has a long-running feud with the spirits of the mountains and the peaks.

==The Blossom Society Pack==
History is important to the packs of Hong Kong, although knowledge of the past of the Forsaken is usually rather patchy:
*Most Kowloon Forsaken hark back to the '''Salt Eaters''', a pack that controlled much of the area in the middle of the second millenium.
*In the late 1800s, the third bubonic plague wracked China; as a result the '''Yellow-Feathered Owls''', a pack of Bone Shadows and Hunters in Darkness, controlled what is now Sham Shui Po.
*In 1899, territorial unrest with the five Chinese clans in the area resulted in the creation of the Five Great Packs; the original Cherry Gardens themselves were held by a daughter pack of the Wen, the '''White Jade''' pack.
*After the Japanese occupation, the predecessors of the Blossom Society took over the area. They were not opposed in doing so; the sheer damage done by the occupation had resulted in the deportation or deaths of most of the White Jade and their extended pack.

Of the pack's previous Uratha, the existing pack members may know of the following:
*''''Red Shroud'''' – Bone Shadow, formed pack in aftermath of Japanese occupation – famous for dealing with a terrifying plague of restless ghosts and widely venerated by Uratha across Hong Kong for her accomplishments.
*'''Wen Liang''' – Iron Master, powerful figure amongst the packs in the 60's and 70's, infamous for his involvement in the 1967 riots and his killing of a number of communist ringleaders. A name both respected and feared.
*'''Melissa Tsang''' – Blood Talon, took control of the Cherry Garden Night Market in the 80s by driving out the '''Sung-Ti''', a vicious yao guai and its Fire-Touched Pure followers.

The recent losses the pack has suffered are:
*'''James 'Steeljaw Trap' Liu''' – Hunter in Darkness Cahalith and member of the Lodge of Seven Venoms. Died five years ago fighting beshilu in the typhoon shelter; he sank a floating crane raft infested with Rat Hosts while he was still onboard.
*'''Gwok Mei''' – Bone Shadow Rahu and member of the Lodge of Death. Left two years ago in response to the Lodge calling a pilgrimage against the Cull in northern China. She has not been heard from since.
*'''Mark Callahan-Cheung''' – Iron Master shaman, local landlord and member of the Yau Tsim Mong district council. Died under strange circumstances one month before the game's beginning, which the pack had difficulties investigating due to Mark's public position as a councilman and the police and press interest in the case.

The totem of the pack is the '''Eight Lanterns Minister''', spirit of the Cherry Gardens Night Market. The minister appears in the form of a set of grandiose mandarin ministerial garb, threaded with lines of neon and jangling talismans of commerce, wrapped around a withered but strong frame. Its face is concealed behind a veil, but seems to emanate a gentle glow. Lanterns hang from a frame of lacquered wood that floats behind its shoulders; the colours of the lanterns often indicate the spirit's mood.

The Eight Lanterns Minister has served the pack as totem since the 1980s, its fortunes waxing and waning over that time. It is devious, smart and opportunistic. The Minister is a very lowly spirit noble, with a paltry court of lesser spirits of the market at its beck and call; it in turn is the vassal of the spirit noble of Temple Street Night Market, which has caused some friction with the Wen over the years.

===Werewolves===
*'''Red Lantern Widow, Bone Shadow Elodoth''', formerly wife of an up and coming politician until she killed him during her First Change. She uses his skull as a focus in her rites.
*'''Lucky Rat, Hunter in Darkness Rahu''', whose pest control company gives him an overwatch on Beshilu activity in the area. Possesses some anger issues.
*'''Wang Lee, Bone Shadow Irraka''', the youngest of the pack members and something of a street rat. Son of Wang Jing.
*'''Lao Min, newly-Changed Ithaeur''', straight-A's university student whose First Change was triggered by a manifestation of Death Wolf. Despite appearing as an embodiment of that Firstborn, she's leaning towards Red Wolf's Tribe.

===Wolf-Blooded===
*'''Zhongli Hu''' – 'Auntie' Hu is an elderly fortune-teller and seller of offerings and incense in the night market. She is also a Wolf-Blooded with the Piercing Eyes Tell. Hu was a little girl when Red Shroud ran these streets, claims to have been Wen Liang's mistress, and has certainly lived a storied life.
*'''Ko Lei''' runs the market's security, a sturdy man with a pock-marked face and a quick temper. Lei is a Wolf-Blooded with the Wolf's Meat Tell. He used to be a member of the 14K triad.
*'''Wang Jing''' – She owns and runs the Hive Bar, just outside the night market. She has the Skinner Tell, and has obviously been mentally scarred by some of what she has seen and done. The older pack members would only reference her past activities obliquely and refuse to give details. Some tension between her and her son.
*'''Zhao Bo''' – Widow's sister, who took a very different career path; she is a low-ranking financial auditor in Hong Kong's financial investigative body. Plagued by what she thought were psychiatric problems through her life, it was only since her sister Changed that she discovered the truth – the voices in her head were spirits. She is a Wolf-Blooded with the Waystone Tell.

===Humans===
*The exterminators of '''Yellow Kowloon Pest Control''' are the employees and associates of Arran's character. Working out of an office and storehouse in the territory, they're perhaps the most 'in the know' of all the humans about the supernatural, and they'd probably be hunters if they hadn't been brought under the wing of the pack. The company was briefly used as a front by a Rat Host, which is what drew the pack's attention.
*Several of the market's '''security guards''', Ko Lei's colleagues, are pack members. They know enough to understand that the pack have their back in keeping control of the Night Market, and they like to hang out with pack members to absorb some of the respect and fear that the werewolves are accorded.
*A half-dozen of the stall vendors are, like the security guards, pack members; they form the '''Mutual Activity Committee''' of the market, and the other shopkeepers know they're an 'inner circle' separate from the actual management (who are not pack members).
*'''Zhongli Zhuang''', or 'Uncle' Zhuang, is an old former Sun Yee On triad member and the husband of Auntie Hu. Despite his age, he still possesses a heavy frame; these days he sells occult tat and the like alongside his wife, but he also keeps an eye on the black market dealers in the area for the pack.
*'''Yi Kun''', owner of the Yi Healthy Wu Kwan (martial club), is a martial artist trainer who knows enough about the Uratha to understand their role as guardians of the area; he's had a few unpleasant run-ins over the years.

===Others===
*Michael Jin – a former manager of the Night Market, Michael died in the early 2000s in a horrific murder; a business rival with schemes on the property's future arranged for a construction 'accident' when a large block of concrete fell from scaffolding onto the man. Mister Jin was a client of the pack at the time, who were surprised by the lucidity his ghost retained after death. Michael is odd, fussy and obsessive, the broken remains of a personality clinging on to existence through his ties to the Night Market.

===The Totem - Eight Lanterns Minister (''Usufunsugal'' in the First Tongue)===
'''Rank 2 night market spirit''' 
'''Attributes:''' Power 2 Finesse 5 Resistance 2 
'''Willpower:''' 7 
'''Essence:''' 15 
'''Initiative:''' 7 
'''Defence:''' 2 
'''Speed:''' 10 
'''Size:''' 5 
'''Corpus:''' 7 
'''Influences:''' Wealth 1, Light 1 
'''Numina:''' Awe, Coin Curse*, Sign 
''Coin Curse – New Numina:'' The spirit may use this power on anyone it witnesses cheating in a trade, making a false deal or forcing a grievously unfair exchange, as long as money of some sort is involved. Coin Curse costs 1 Essence to use, and affects a coin, bank note, cheque or even money existing only as an electronic transfer. For as long as the character possesses that money in any way, they are affected by an increasingly unpleasant withering disease and the moderate Sick Tilt persistently; even if treated, it will return. Throwing or giving away the money ends the effect. 
'''Manifestations:''' Twilight Form, Gauntlet Breach, Materialise 
'''Ban:''' While the Cherry Gardens shrine of prosperity is damaged or desecrated, the Eight Lanterns Minister cannot leave the night market; if outside the market when the shrine is damaged, it is immediately called back. 
'''Bane:''' Glass from broken lights. 

==Cherry Gardens Market==
The pack's territory is centred around '''Cherry Gardens Night Market''', a night market that lies on the border between '''Sham Shui Po''' district (poor, working-class, lots of public housing) and '''Yau Tsim Mong''' district (core urban area, very high population density, lots of commercial). Cherry Gardens isn't as large or well-known as Temple Street, but it is still a bustling, busy market through the night hours.

The '''night market''' is the beating heart of the territory, catering to the workers of the two districts – cheap tat, mobile phones, clothes, cooked food, incense and paper offerings, and plenty more besides. The pack also holds:
- The surrounding '''residential blocks''' (shops on ground floors, cramped flats above, several with rooftop slums) up to two streets in each direction. These are mostly known by their block number - Lao Min's family lives in Tower 2, for example.
- To the west, the ground under the '''motorway fly-overs''' and then the '''waterfront'''. As well as some storehouses and parks, there are black market dealers and fortune-tellers in the shadow of the motorway.
- The waterfront is a '''typhoon shelter''', protected by a sea wall and a mixture of industrial and private – floating crane platforms, piles of shipping containers and junk-yards.

Crime in Cherry Gardens Night Market is low – petty theft, shoplifting and pickpocketing are common, but the market security guards have been aligned with the pack for years and have a reputation for brutality when dealing with real threats. The local triad gang, led by a Red Pole of the 14K Triad called 'Emperor' Koi, wants control of the night market but has never been able to extend his influence over it.

===Cherry Gardens characters===
*'''Chen Jin''', Spirit-Urged arsonist. Worker who lived in Tower 2 and was assembling some sort of occult explosive device that would use a summoned fire spirit to create an inferno. Appears to have been influenced by particular Wolf-Blooded, possibly tied to the Sung-Ti. Killed by Lao Min during her First Change.
*'''She Wanli''', manager of Tower 7 and shop owner. Affable, overweight local man who had his guts ripped out by the rampaging Taotie.
*'''Kwo Tien''', young tough. Lives in Cherry Gardens, claims to be part of the 14k Triad. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Taesuk Weyen''', patriarch of the Taesuk family. Lives in Cherry Gardens. Holds grudge against the Kwo family. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Hua''', minor tech criminal. Tattooed and hyperactive, Hua purveys petty illegalities - wiping stolen phones and computers, dealing in stolen data and the like.

===Cherry Gardens locations===
* The '''Blossom Society hall''' is a spacious basement subdivided into several smaller rooms, situated under a small laundry and bath-house on the night market shop-front. Once a triad gambling den, the basement includes a strong locus of prosperity and wealth (and, perhaps, greed) in the form of a shrine; the locus leads directly into the silken court of lanterns in the Shadow from which the Eight Lanterns Minister rules.
* One of the '''rooftop slums''' hangs precariously between towers 2 and 3, where the salvaged metal and wood bridge-way plays host to a minor locus of despair. The previous ithaeur, Mark, kept the insidious energies of the locus in check.

==Spirits and their Ilk==

===Lesser Spirits & Independents===
*The '''Crowdling''', a spirit of crowds that lairs around the Old Olympic MTR station. Carved the City Gift into Lucky Rat after being hunted in a chase that it greatly enjoyed.

===Nobles===
*'''Rotting Heart of Decay''', a lesser Ensih of urban decay and rot that held power over the run-down district of Bedford Rise. Granted boons by its liege, Crimson and White Agony, to let it better control the fief. Destroyed by the Blossom Society in a challenge for power and territory.
*'''Eight Lanterns Minister''', ruler of the Cherry Gardens Night Market.

===Servitors===
*'''Elders of Naga''', strange serpentine spirits of rock and bone. Follow in the wake of Death Wolf.

==The Five Great Packs==
The five pillars of Hong Kong Uratha society, born from agreements forged in 1899 alongside those made between the British colony and the local Chinese Punti clans, are called the Great Packs. Originally, each pack corresponded to the same mortal clan that it took the name of, but in the modern day there is no major link between the Punti clan families and the make-up of the pack in question. Most of the Great Packs are large, powerful and have two tiers amongst their Uratha members. The lower tier of 'nieces' and 'nephews' operate somewhat more like a conventional pack, but the upper tier of 'aunts' and 'uncles' are, oddly, less tightly bound together. The aunts and uncles are mentors, experts, revered elders and the like who focus more on their own matters, loosely connected to the other aunts and uncles but not necessarily very involved in the day-to-day running of the pack's assets. When an aunt or uncle asks for a service, the nephews and nieces are expected to snap to attention, but they are in turn expected not to abuse this authority to any great extent. Each Great Pack has a different system for providing more concrete leadership; the Hou select a single overall leader so that the other upper tier Uratha don't need to be bothered by petty concerns, while the Tang demand regular meetings of their aunts and uncles to ensure co-ordination.

The Great Packs are heavily tied into the occult fabric of Hong Kong, and possess considerable knowledge, influence and stockpiles of materials. A Lodge's leadership usually comes from Great Pack members. Each possesses an incredibly powerful totem spirit, but the nature of that relationship between pack and totem is closely guarded and outsiders suspect whatever agreement was signed in 1899 plays a heavy part.

===The Wen – Yau Tsim Mong===
Forsaken, mostly Hunters in Darkness and Iron Masters; their totem is the Serpent of Dreams and Bile, a spirit of incense, drugs and pollution. Known for their influence in shipping, narcotics, and their deep occult knowledge. The Wen have long been obsessed with hunting down the source of the Scourge, as they call the phenomenon that blights First Changes, and are known to truck with jiang shi, yao guai and other, stranger entities in their search for the truth.

Wen '''Aunts/Uncles''':
* '''Yeung He, 'Lightning Paper Fan'''' - Iron Master Ithaeur. Yeung He is one of the principle uncles of the Wen, a wealthy Hong Kong businessman who serves as the Great Pack's principle face of its occult side.
* '''Ten-Eyes Tsang''' - Storm Lord Ithaeur. Ten-Eyes is a drugs chemist and the principle responsible for the Wen drugs operation. Tsang is said to be a ''samzukwu'' or Three-Legged Crow, a member of the Lodge of Crows.

Wen '''Nieces/Nephews''':
* '''Dantea Wen''' - Hunter in Darkness Elodoth. Dantea is one of the most trusted lower-rankers in the Wen, slated for promotion and thus access to the pack's extensive resources. She is the local representative of the Lodge of the Seven Venoms, and a trained doctor.
* '''"Tightrope" Lei''' - Iron Master Irraka. Named for her habit of garroting prey, not for acrobatics.
*'''"Hapless" Fung''' - Storm Lord Rahu. Possesses incredible luck and is said to be cursed.
*'''"Pup" Sau''' - Iron Master Cahalith. Optimistic and hyperactive.

Wen '''Wolf-Blooded''':
*Inspector Hau Chen - HKPF Inspector and general police-force informant and contact for the Wen and affiliated packs. Tell is unknown.
*Zheng Fang - Full-time trusted gofer for the Wen. Immaculately dressed and presented but rumoured to be a very capable leg-breaker despite her appearance. Tell is rumoured to be very powerful for a Wolf-Blooded, possibly that she can summon spirit-wolves or turn into a spirit herself.

===The Hou – Kwun Tong===
Pure, Ivory Claws; their totem is Crimson and White Agony, a spirit of salt and pain. Known for their incredible ancestral and bloodline records, as well as their heavy involvement in Hong Kong politics and medical services. The Hou are seen as cruel, cold and clinical; few fates are worse than falling into the hands of a Hou torturer. The Hou claim to be the oldest and most legitimate of all the Five Great Packs, as unlike the other four the Hou already existed prior to 1899; Hou stories have it that they formed when the Punti migrated to Hong Kong in the 1200s, taking over the sacred mantle of an even older pack who were appointed by the Nine Dragons.

===The Peng – Hongkong Island===
Pure, mostly Ivory Claws; their totem is the Thousand Roaring Eyes and Mouths, a spirit of water and destruction. Known for their wealth and the role they play as financial agents for Pure across the world, their foreign contacts and also their martial traditions. The Peng claim that Hong Kong is actually the site on which Wolf was slain by its treacherous children. They are known for undertaking lavish, extravagant rituals offering sacrifices to the spirits and the waters in penance, to which werewolves of all stripes are invited. Despite their outwards expressions of wealth and openness, they're also said to be a hotbed of internal scheming due to the influence of rival spirit lords.

===The Tang – Hongkong Island===
Forsaken, mostly Bone Shadows and Storm Lords; their totem is the Pale Mandarin, a spirit of secrets, knowledge and fear. They are known for their information network and the dirt they're said to hold on every figure of note in Hong Kong, their knowledge of death and the Underworld, and their involvement in urban planning and development. Rumour has it that the Tang have successfully used occult geometries to create paths into the Deep Shadow. A few pieces of particularly bitter hearsay that refuse to die have it that the Tang take their marching orders from packs in Beijing.

===The Liao – New Territories===
Forsaken, mostly Blood Talons; their totem is the Torn Banner, a spirit of change and violence. They are known for their fighting prowess, their trade and manufacture of spiritual goods (including fetishes and talens) and their connections to mainland China. The Liao are generally seen as the most traditionalist and conservative of the Five Great Packs, ironic given the nature of their totem and their own history; they were originally mostly Predator Kings, changing allegiance to the Forsaken via bloody infighting shortly after the Japanese occupation.

==Other Packs==

===The Sung-Ti – Mong Kok===
The Sung-Ti are a largely Fire-Touched pack of Pure holding territory to the north-east of the pack – and they still nurse a grudge over the loss of Cherry Gardens to Melissa Tsang in the 80s. Pitching themselves as judges of certain sins, the Sung-Ti reputedly have significant involvement in both the criminal side of Kowloon and its charities.

* ? Ash Talon ? - Fire-Touched crafter, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.
* ? Kanomi ? - Wolf-Blooded capable of overwhelming those who see her into believing she possesses incredible beauty, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.

===The Stone Lions – Various===
The Stone Lions are mostly Hunters in Darkness who oversee the occult maintenance of Boundary Street, once the limit of Hong Kong. The Lions are a 'daughter pack' of the Liao; they are also rumoured to participate in various sinister rituals to maintain their power.

===The Eyeless – Sham Shui Po===
The Eyeless are a strange and esoteric pack, believed to be a reclusive and likely heretical group of Forsaken. They generally avoid outside contact, but it is known that they pluck their own eyes out for some cultic purpose. Rumour links the Eyeless to the Japanese occupation, and those who would mock them call them the 'Nopera-Bo'.

===The Two Claw Society – Sham Shui Po===
The Two Claw Society are a pack of Bone Shadows and Blood Talons known to be particularly vicious in defending their territory, but also respected as being highly honourable. The Two Claws was created to deal with a horrific Wound resulting from a Japanese concentration camp on their territory – a Wound that still exists despite the pack's best efforts.

* Fan Chau, 'Crimson Autumn' - Bone Shadow Rahu. Belligerent member of the Lodge of Voices. Appears to have one of her hands replaced with someone else's through unknown means.

===The Tsen-Kuang – Tsim Sha Tsui===
A Pure pack on the south of the peninsula, known to be largely made up of Fire-Touched. The Tsen-Kuang have their claws firmly dug into the flow of migrants moving through Hong Kong, and are rumoured to cavort with Beshilu and other, even fouler denizens of the waterfronts. They are reputed to venerate an entity that they believe is responsible for stealing the Changes of nusuzul in Hong Kong; the Tsen-Kuang believe it to be a judge that weeds out those who are not worthy.

===Silver Horizon Futures - Various===
SH Futures appears to be a strange fusion of pack and corporation operating in Hong Kong. A subsidiary of the globe-spanning Cheiron, SHF is best known for its work in the bio-sciences and innovative energy generation solutions. The pack certainly includes both werewolves and Wolf-Blooded; the latter appear to hold the administrative and executive positions within the arrangement.

==Other Groups and Entities==

===Civilians===
*'''Dachan Cuifen''', curator of the Taotie exhibit at the museum and university archaeology lecturer.

===14K Triad===

*'''Hom Wie, Hive-Claimed'''. Rumoured to be a Taoist sorcerer and feared by the lower ranks of the Triad for his brutality and twisted appearance. Hom Wie has some sort of link or connection to Wang Jing from the past, sufficiently strong to warn her of a forthcoming Triad war.

===Taotie===
Also known as the 'gluttonous ogres', taotie are very powerful entities of hunger that have been bound into ceramic masks and pottery. The mortal wielder of a taotie gains monstrous physical strength, the ability to cross the Gauntlet, and the ability to take the internal organs of a victim and place them within his or her own body. In return for this power, the taotie demands the sacrifice of the mortal wielder's own internal organs to feed its hunger. Manifesting its powers causes the taotie to drain a vast amount of Essence from the nearby ''Hisil'', often catastrophically for weaker spirits in the vicinity.
*'''Chua Chuo''', Sham Shui Po businessman and Taotie wielder - murdered Mark Callaghan-Cheung and She Wanli over property scheme using the power of the taotie. Killed by the Blossom Society. Apparently found the mask amongst some family belongings passed down to him.

==Beyond Hong Kong==

===Macau – The Zealous Warlord's Domain===
Often referred to as the 'darker sibling' by Hong Kong Uratha, Macau has a sinister reputation amongst werewolves – even despite it being a Forsaken stronghold. Beneath its seemingly placid surface, Macau is a place of nightmares. From 1966 onwards, the notorious Blood Talon warlord 'Silver Claw' Yin fought a sustained and bloody campaign against the Pure, claiming to have been given divine visions by the Moon and instructions from the Lunes. After just ten years, the last Pure were annihilated or driven out of the city. In 1987, however, the Pure attempted to return. In the three decades since, Macau has seen repeated attacks by the Pure, particularly under the leadership of the Fire-Touched sibling Elders Sheu-Fuh and Shunyan, although they have not yet regained a foothold for more than a few months at a time. Its occult landscape is a mess, scarred by brutality, madness and the mostly-unchecked spiritual off-flow of the mass of humanity crammed into the region. Other things have also been drawn in or caught up by the violence; it is said there is an alchemist amongst the Iron Masters of Macau who knows how to render sorcerers down for their power, while both Bone Shadows and Ivory Claws are said to have some means of producing vampires which they use as disposable agents and killers in their shadow war. Both Destroyer Wolf and Red Wolf are said to have taken an active interest in events in Macau since the 60s, but there is a much, much older shrine to Red Wolf in the city that the Forsaken defend fanatically – some rumours allege it is Pangaean in origin. For now, Yin continues to rule her Protectorate with an iron fist.

Characters of Macau:
*'''Adao''' - Iron Master Elodoth. Portuguese smuggler.
*'''Red Mask''' - Iron Master ?. Revered as the high priest of Red Wolf's shrine in Macau.

===Shenzen – The City Without History===
Shenzen is a mirror of Hong Kong's success story – a busy port, major financial centre and huge city butting against its northern border. Shenzen exploded from a small town in the 80s to the urban behemoth of today, and the the Uratha of the province know full well its growth was down to more than just the PRC labelling it a Special Economic Zone. Something has long been awry with the very fabric of reality in Shenzen and someone, or something, caused the expansion of the city by stealing it from a history that never happened, a Shenzen that never was, and overlaying it into this world. The layout of the city possesses innumerable minor pieces of occult geometry, coming together into some sort of vast chronal siphon that forces this reality to match the Other Shenzen. For years, the 'city without history' and the time spirits that flock there served as a major attraction for Uratha seers and secret-seekers of both Pure and Forsaken, with bitter fighting breaking out across its prime territories, but the Cull have moved in in recent years – and established a major Deep Shadow monastery as a bastion. Now this major land route into Hong Kong is threatened, the Cull bringing in more adherents as the months progress and the Uratha of the City of Nine Dragons watching uneasily from over the border. Word has it that the Thousand Steel Teeth are gathering their own war parties, determined to defend their supply lines that run through Hong Kong and Shenzen out into the wider world. The new city of Shenzen may be about to become a battleground for a particularly vicious phase of the war with the Cull.

===Guangdong – Riches Worth Fighting For===
The province of Guangdong may be a large and prosperous region, but for the Forsaken of the area it is perhaps most characterised by its river spirits. Threading down to the Pearl River Delta, these spirits are probably the most organised, widespread and outright hostile court of Guangdong; the feud dates back to the battle of Yamen in 1279. Defeating and subjugating the local river spirits is an ongoing struggle, not at all helped by the Pure's own alliance with the River King. Despite this hostility, there is much for the Forsaken to covet here – the wealth of the human population and the uncommonly high number of wellsprings of Essence. Guangdong has a great abundance of sites that naturally form talens, rich loci of rare Resonances, and unusual qualities to the Shadow that make certain rites – such as those that craft fetishes – easier to work than elsewhere. The Claimed are a particular threat across the province, and the Storm Lords have traditionally been very powerful here; there are several Tribal bastions where the Iminir protect ancient artefacts and relics that are the destination of pilgrims from across the globe. The Storm Lords of Guangdong have a highly organised Tribal structure that crosses throughout the packs and Protectorates of the province, leading up to an elected gong whose task is to tend to the ancient, revered Tribal elder known as the Zongshi – a near-mythical figure amongst the Forsaken, said to alternate between sleeping in a Storm Lord fastness and prowling the Deep Shadow for the most terrifying of prey. Guangdong regularly sees the conflict between Forsaken and Pure flare into open and brutal warfare, but these periods are almost always short – usually a year or two at most before things lapse once again, agreements are made and lines redrawn. The recent arrival of sects of the Cull from the west and north, however, threatens to upset that balance.

===Taiwan – Tyrants of the Earth===
Taiwan's Shadow was once ruled by the spirits of the mountains and the grumbling, shifting earth – but around two centuries ago, the Forsaken of the island undertook a great and mighty binding on the lords of rock and stone to chain them with fetters of symbolism. This caused a great rift amongst the Taiwanese Tribes, with the Bone Shadows breaking off to form their own separate faction, condemning the act as one of hubris that would only serve to harm Shadow and Flesh alike. For two centuries now, the bindings have mostly held – but when they weaken or shift, the furious spirits of the earth vent their rage on the world. Even today, the Bone Shadows remain separate to the other Forsaken and have, as the years turn, formed a distinct identity from Hirfathra Hissu elsewhere as well. The Predator Kings have long sought to unmake the chains that bind the mountain spirits and once formed the bulk of the Pure numbers in Taiwan, but since the Chinese Civil War the other two Pure Tribes have made significant inroads into what was once almost entirely under Forsaken control. Today, Taiwanese Uratha are renowned for their mastery of rites and the binding of spirits, but often considered prideful and arrogant in their disdain for other werewolves who do not have the strength to chain the Shadow to their will. Taiwanese packs commonly include spirits enslaved to the pack's will, and even totems are treated less as respected equals and more as vassals or servants. The Bone Shadows continue to warn that a reckoning will yet come; but as each decade passes without sign of their forecast apocalypse, so does the scorn for the fifth Tribe rise amongst the Taiwanese.

===Philippines – The Spinner Hag's Bastion===
In many ways, Uratha in the Philippines have lives similar to werewolves elsewhere – though the boundaries of territories in the archipelago are often delineated by coastline and travel between islands can be tricky. The rising prosperity and development of the country has left Uratha with many of the same challenges and opportunities as in other nations. The Shadow across the Philippines, however, is in a ruinous state – and has been for millennia. By local lore, the Great Predator fought much of its battle with the Spinner Hag over what became these islands, and in many places the Gauntlet is still torn asunder by the mere echo of Wolf's claws and teeth. Worse, other patches of Gauntlet are thick and distended, shrouded in Azlo webs and said to contain oozing gobbets of the Hag's carcass. The Azlu are numerous and powerful here, and are no mere monstrous beasts – the Host spider-witches of the Philippines think and plan with an alien but clinically precise approach, their schemes spanning centuries. The poor state of the Gauntlet has also resulted in a much higher number of spirits crossing over into the Flesh, bizarre and unique forms of Claimed, and other entities born by the fusion of the two worlds. Repeated rumours bubble up that there are actually still areas of Pangaea itself hidden away, somehow saved from the Great Predator's death-howl. Unsurprisingly, the Hunters in Darkness lead the Forsaken here, and Filipino werewolves are said to be both particularly vigilant – or paranoid, by the less charitable – and particularly talented in the matter of wards and occult protections. The Philippines have long served as a destination for Hunter in Darkness pilgrimages – old and veteran Meninna from other countries, even far-off continents, have been known to 'retire' to this heart of Azlu power, and werewolves seeking lore and insights into the spider Hosts often seek out Filipino brethren for aid.

===Vietnam – The Harmonious Kings===
Early in the 20th Century, the Pure of Vietnam began to tip the scales against their Forsaken counterparts; they took advantage of the disruption and conflict that plagued the country until, after the US-Vietnam war and the fall of the South, the Fire-Touched and Predator Kings had near total domination of the unified country. The Forsaken of today, though, are having a comparatively easy time of it; the Pure are far more focused on warring with each other, and there are a number of powerful spirit nobles that have sided with the Forsaken in the wake of the Pure calling down horrific spirit-horrors from beyond Luna's orbit. The Predator Kings have split into two factions that battle one another with brutal ferocity, mainly due to the emergence of a radical, heretical Ninna Farakh Lodge called the Lan that has rapidly surged in converts. The Lan adhere to portions of Dire Wolf's philosophy, but are far more connected to humanity than their erstwhile comrades; the totem's ban makes it difficult for the Lan to work within society so they instead use a large cult of human and Wolf-Blooded go-betweens to sink their claws into Vietnam. Espousing a creed that the Predator Kings should adapt to the changing world and shepherd humanity to a harmonious union with the wild and the hunt, the Lan are largely uninterested in pursuing the Forsaken compared to destroying the Fire-Touched and converting or killing the rest of their Tribe. To the Forsaken, it all looks very much like the Predator Kings' penchant for savagery has finally turned inwards while the real Vietnam moves beyond their outmoded ways – but there are those who worry that the Harmonious Kings of the Lan are winning, and fear what may happen once they have done so. Some wonder if the Lan might be converted in turn to the Forsaken, but the Lodge has shown little interest in any Urdaga Creeds.

==New Material==

===New Rites===

'''Vex (Wolf Rite ●)''' 
This petty curse calls upon spirits of misfortune and malevolence to plague whoever has drawn the werewolf's ire. 
'''Symbols:''' Fire, venom, violence, the skill that is to be targeted. 
'''Cost:''' 1 Essence 
'''Action:''' Extended (5 successes; each roll represents 1 minute); resisted by the target's Composure. 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The Essence used to fuel this rite must come from a locus of hatred, pain, despair or decay. Additionally, the ritemaster must have a possession of the target, a nail clipping, a lock of hair or some other bodily substance from the intended victim. The ritemaster selects a single skill that will be cursed; thereafter, the first time the victim uses that skill in the following month, her result becomes a dramatic failure regardless of what she rolls. The ritemaster immediately knows when this happens. A character may only be the subject of a single vex at a time, and cannot be subjected again until the rite's month of duration has passed. 

'''Drain the Well (Pack Rite ●●●)''' 
This rite uses a locus to draw in its Resonance from the surrounding ar ea, draining the Shadow of Essence attuned to its nature. Paradoxically, this ensures the locus surges deep with Essence of that kind; if left untended, it will wash back out again stronger than before.
'''Symbols:''' Water, pain, piercing or draining, the Resonance type. 
'''Action:''' Extended (20 successes; each roll represents 10 minutes) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed at the site of a locus, draining Resonance into it. This has several effects: spirits and Uratha within 100 yards per dot of the rating of the Locus, or within the entire territory (whichever is larger), take the locus's rating as a penalty to all rolls for Influences that match its Resonance when outside its direct area. The Resonance is reduced in general, removing many incidents of the Resonant Condition across the affected region; draining a locus of pain would cause injuries and aches to inflict less pain, humans and animals will recover faster from harm and may simply not notice minor damage. This will have long-term effects on the Shadow and the material world. 
The ritemaster gains a persistent Ban Condition for the duration of the rite's effect, reflecting the Resonance of the locus; this Condition lifts when the rite ends. If the ritemaster ever violates the ban, the effects of the rite immediately end. If ended via ban violation, or if this rite is not performed on the locus again within a week of its duration ending, the locus becomes empowered for one month as if it were the subject of the Wellspring rite.

'''Shadow Signs (Pack Rite ●●●●)''' 
This rite may only be invoked on a territory that the ritemaster's pack has already sanctified with the Hunting Ground rite. It draws upon the secrets, the names and the flows of Essence that thread between the spirits of the territory's Shadow, revealing truths to the Uratha. 
'''Symbols:''' Writing or tattooing, wounds, whispers, the wind. 
'''Action:''' Extended (10 successes; each roll represents 1 minute) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month. 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed in the Shadow, within territory that the ritemaster's pack has placed the Hunting Ground rite upon. This causes that spot to become a nexus of information about the territory's Shadow. Over roughly a day, words and glyphs will carve themselves into the Shadow-stuff of an area roughly ten feet in radius, often oozing blood or ichor; these words spell out the names of powerful spirits in the area (Rank 3 and higher, as well as spirit nobles), indicate significant Shadow phenomena (like barrens, shoals, or an impending emotion-storm), and may also indicate other threats in the Shadow (such as warning of the warping spells that a Mage is using on the Hisil, or of a non-native monstrosity that has somehow breached the Gauntlet and is now marauding the spirits). The words update roughly every day, with old, bleeding warnings squirming aside for eruptions of fresh and oozing names as new, powerful spirits move in or a threat manifests itself. Any Uratha who reads the shadow signs gains a +3 bonus to locate or perceive spirits, entities or phenomena that they have seen the warnings or names of, while the rite lasts. However, picking key information out of the mass of glyphs and sigils is not necessarily straightforward.

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T16:23:19Z

Acrozatarim: /* Taotie */

=Werewolf: the Forsaken - The Eater of Names=
A Werewolf: the Forsaken game set in Hong Kong.

==Hong Kong==

===Werewolf Oddities of Hong Kong===
*Something steals the First Change of the majority of nusuzul. At the moment of the Change, they have their newfound nature torn out of them by an unknown force, leaving them as normal humans suffering a psychotic break – even former Wolf-Blooded have their inheritance stripped from them at this moment.
*The territories of Hong Kong are a complete patchwork between the different factions. There are no solid battle lines between Pure and Forsaken, and the vertical nature of the urban landscape means that even a small scrap of land can be more than enough to patrol for most packs. The Shadow reflection of the city sees a spiritual ecosystem that is just as confused and turbulent.
*Due to the sheer population density and the patchwork nature of the territories, Hong Kong packs have strong traditions about hospitality and allowances for crossing another pack's turf – even between Pure and Forsaken.
*There are no Protectorates in Hong Kong. The closest to any sort of formal structure are the Five Great Packs – the Wen, Hou, Peng, Tang and Liao, formed from amongst the Uratha of the mortal clans of the area in 1899. The Great Packs are probably the largest and most influential of the city, but with respect comes responsibility, and they are expected to provide aid and guidance to other werewolves. These expectations, again, cross factional lines.
*Tribes and allegiances to Pure and Forsaken are important, but Hong Kong also plays host to a number of strange packs allied to neither faction, packs amongst foreign immigrant populations with odd practices and traditions, and a focus on Lodges. The sheer density of the city can make the patchwork of territories confusing and Tribes rarely organise on a wide scale, but Lodge connections matter and underpin much of the social fabric of Hong Kong.
*With so much movement in and out of Hong Kong, its transitional position in the world (geographically, politically and symbolically) and its possession of so many layers and shadows that even the werewolves cannot plumb them all, the city is a hotbed for weirdness and occult conspiracies. Yao guai and jiang shi slither through the darkness, hungry ghosts and watery shades prowl at the fringes, and now the forces of the dreaded Cull are preparing to assault the borders of the territory – something that has both Pure and Forsaken alike on edge.
*Local Uratha lore has it that, in some past age, Hong Kong was the site of a meeting between the Nine Dragons – held to be the eight Firstborn of the Pure and the Forsaken, and a last figure of disputed nature. Some believe it was one of the first Chinese emperors. It was this gathering of beings of incredible power that, it is claimed, is responsible for the strong currents of Essence that pour through the region's Shadow even today.
*The chenghuanshen, the city-spirit of Hong Kong, definitely exists – but its nature is not entirely clear. It may actually be a consciousness split across a number of powerful urban spirits, and seems quite capable of fighting with itself as much as any other spirit nobles of the region. Furthermore, it has a long-running feud with the spirits of the mountains and the peaks.

==The Blossom Society Pack==
History is important to the packs of Hong Kong, although knowledge of the past of the Forsaken is usually rather patchy:
*Most Kowloon Forsaken hark back to the '''Salt Eaters''', a pack that controlled much of the area in the middle of the second millenium.
*In the late 1800s, the third bubonic plague wracked China; as a result the '''Yellow-Feathered Owls''', a pack of Bone Shadows and Hunters in Darkness, controlled what is now Sham Shui Po.
*In 1899, territorial unrest with the five Chinese clans in the area resulted in the creation of the Five Great Packs; the original Cherry Gardens themselves were held by a daughter pack of the Wen, the '''White Jade''' pack.
*After the Japanese occupation, the predecessors of the Blossom Society took over the area. They were not opposed in doing so; the sheer damage done by the occupation had resulted in the deportation or deaths of most of the White Jade and their extended pack.

Of the pack's previous Uratha, the existing pack members may know of the following:
*''''Red Shroud'''' – Bone Shadow, formed pack in aftermath of Japanese occupation – famous for dealing with a terrifying plague of restless ghosts and widely venerated by Uratha across Hong Kong for her accomplishments.
*'''Wen Liang''' – Iron Master, powerful figure amongst the packs in the 60's and 70's, infamous for his involvement in the 1967 riots and his killing of a number of communist ringleaders. A name both respected and feared.
*'''Melissa Tsang''' – Blood Talon, took control of the Cherry Garden Night Market in the 80s by driving out the '''Sung-Ti''', a vicious yao guai and its Fire-Touched Pure followers.

The recent losses the pack has suffered are:
*'''James 'Steeljaw Trap' Liu''' – Hunter in Darkness Cahalith and member of the Lodge of Seven Venoms. Died five years ago fighting beshilu in the typhoon shelter; he sank a floating crane raft infested with Rat Hosts while he was still onboard.
*'''Gwok Mei''' – Bone Shadow Rahu and member of the Lodge of Death. Left two years ago in response to the Lodge calling a pilgrimage against the Cull in northern China. She has not been heard from since.
*'''Mark Callahan-Cheung''' – Iron Master shaman, local landlord and member of the Yau Tsim Mong district council. Died under strange circumstances one month before the game's beginning, which the pack had difficulties investigating due to Mark's public position as a councilman and the police and press interest in the case.

The totem of the pack is the '''Eight Lanterns Minister''', spirit of the Cherry Gardens Night Market. The minister appears in the form of a set of grandiose mandarin ministerial garb, threaded with lines of neon and jangling talismans of commerce, wrapped around a withered but strong frame. Its face is concealed behind a veil, but seems to emanate a gentle glow. Lanterns hang from a frame of lacquered wood that floats behind its shoulders; the colours of the lanterns often indicate the spirit's mood.

The Eight Lanterns Minister has served the pack as totem since the 1980s, its fortunes waxing and waning over that time. It is devious, smart and opportunistic. The Minister is a very lowly spirit noble, with a paltry court of lesser spirits of the market at its beck and call; it in turn is the vassal of the spirit noble of Temple Street Night Market, which has caused some friction with the Wen over the years.

===Werewolves===
*'''Red Lantern Widow, Bone Shadow Elodoth''', formerly wife of an up and coming politician until she killed him during her First Change. She uses his skull as a focus in her rites.
*'''Lucky Rat, Hunter in Darkness Rahu''', whose pest control company gives him an overwatch on Beshilu activity in the area. Possesses some anger issues.
*'''Wang Lee, Bone Shadow Irraka''', the youngest of the pack members and something of a street rat. Son of Wang Jing.
*'''Lao Min, newly-Changed Ithaeur''', straight-A's university student whose First Change was triggered by a manifestation of Death Wolf. Despite appearing as an embodiment of that Firstborn, she's leaning towards Red Wolf's Tribe.

===Wolf-Blooded===
*'''Zhongli Hu''' – 'Auntie' Hu is an elderly fortune-teller and seller of offerings and incense in the night market. She is also a Wolf-Blooded with the Piercing Eyes Tell. Hu was a little girl when Red Shroud ran these streets, claims to have been Wen Liang's mistress, and has certainly lived a storied life.
*'''Ko Lei''' runs the market's security, a sturdy man with a pock-marked face and a quick temper. Lei is a Wolf-Blooded with the Wolf's Meat Tell. He used to be a member of the 14K triad.
*'''Wang Jing''' – She owns and runs the Hive Bar, just outside the night market. She has the Skinner Tell, and has obviously been mentally scarred by some of what she has seen and done. The older pack members would only reference her past activities obliquely and refuse to give details. Some tension between her and her son.
*'''Zhao Bo''' – Widow's sister, who took a very different career path; she is a low-ranking financial auditor in Hong Kong's financial investigative body. Plagued by what she thought were psychiatric problems through her life, it was only since her sister Changed that she discovered the truth – the voices in her head were spirits. She is a Wolf-Blooded with the Waystone Tell.

===Humans===
*The exterminators of '''Yellow Kowloon Pest Control''' are the employees and associates of Arran's character. Working out of an office and storehouse in the territory, they're perhaps the most 'in the know' of all the humans about the supernatural, and they'd probably be hunters if they hadn't been brought under the wing of the pack. The company was briefly used as a front by a Rat Host, which is what drew the pack's attention.
*Several of the market's '''security guards''', Ko Lei's colleagues, are pack members. They know enough to understand that the pack have their back in keeping control of the Night Market, and they like to hang out with pack members to absorb some of the respect and fear that the werewolves are accorded.
*A half-dozen of the stall vendors are, like the security guards, pack members; they form the '''Mutual Activity Committee''' of the market, and the other shopkeepers know they're an 'inner circle' separate from the actual management (who are not pack members).
*'''Zhongli Zhuang''', or 'Uncle' Zhuang, is an old former Sun Yee On triad member and the husband of Auntie Hu. Despite his age, he still possesses a heavy frame; these days he sells occult tat and the like alongside his wife, but he also keeps an eye on the black market dealers in the area for the pack.
*'''Yi Kun''', owner of the Yi Healthy Wu Kwan (martial club), is a martial artist trainer who knows enough about the Uratha to understand their role as guardians of the area; he's had a few unpleasant run-ins over the years.

===Others===
*Michael Jin – a former manager of the Night Market, Michael died in the early 2000s in a horrific murder; a business rival with schemes on the property's future arranged for a construction 'accident' when a large block of concrete fell from scaffolding onto the man. Mister Jin was a client of the pack at the time, who were surprised by the lucidity his ghost retained after death. Michael is odd, fussy and obsessive, the broken remains of a personality clinging on to existence through his ties to the Night Market.

===The Totem - Eight Lanterns Minister (''Usufunsugal'' in the First Tongue)===
'''Rank 2 night market spirit''' 
'''Attributes:''' Power 2 Finesse 5 Resistance 2 
'''Willpower:''' 7 
'''Essence:''' 15 
'''Initiative:''' 7 
'''Defence:''' 2 
'''Speed:''' 10 
'''Size:''' 5 
'''Corpus:''' 7 
'''Influences:''' Wealth 1, Light 1 
'''Numina:''' Awe, Coin Curse*, Sign 
''Coin Curse – New Numina:'' The spirit may use this power on anyone it witnesses cheating in a trade, making a false deal or forcing a grievously unfair exchange, as long as money of some sort is involved. Coin Curse costs 1 Essence to use, and affects a coin, bank note, cheque or even money existing only as an electronic transfer. For as long as the character possesses that money in any way, they are affected by an increasingly unpleasant withering disease and the moderate Sick Tilt persistently; even if treated, it will return. Throwing or giving away the money ends the effect. 
'''Manifestations:''' Twilight Form, Gauntlet Breach, Materialise 
'''Ban:''' While the Cherry Gardens shrine of prosperity is damaged or desecrated, the Eight Lanterns Minister cannot leave the night market; if outside the market when the shrine is damaged, it is immediately called back. 
'''Bane:''' Glass from broken lights. 

==Cherry Gardens Market==
The pack's territory is centred around '''Cherry Gardens Night Market''', a night market that lies on the border between '''Sham Shui Po''' district (poor, working-class, lots of public housing) and '''Yau Tsim Mong''' district (core urban area, very high population density, lots of commercial). Cherry Gardens isn't as large or well-known as Temple Street, but it is still a bustling, busy market through the night hours.

The '''night market''' is the beating heart of the territory, catering to the workers of the two districts – cheap tat, mobile phones, clothes, cooked food, incense and paper offerings, and plenty more besides. The pack also holds:
- The surrounding '''residential blocks''' (shops on ground floors, cramped flats above, several with rooftop slums) up to two streets in each direction. These are mostly known by their block number - Lao Min's family lives in Tower 2, for example.
- To the west, the ground under the '''motorway fly-overs''' and then the '''waterfront'''. As well as some storehouses and parks, there are black market dealers and fortune-tellers in the shadow of the motorway.
- The waterfront is a '''typhoon shelter''', protected by a sea wall and a mixture of industrial and private – floating crane platforms, piles of shipping containers and junk-yards.

Crime in Cherry Gardens Night Market is low – petty theft, shoplifting and pickpocketing are common, but the market security guards have been aligned with the pack for years and have a reputation for brutality when dealing with real threats. The local triad gang, led by a Red Pole of the 14K Triad called 'Emperor' Koi, wants control of the night market but has never been able to extend his influence over it.

===Cherry Gardens characters===
*'''Chen Jin''', Spirit-Urged arsonist. Worker who lived in Tower 2 and was assembling some sort of occult explosive device that would use a summoned fire spirit to create an inferno. Appears to have been influenced by particular Wolf-Blooded, possibly tied to the Sung-Ti. Killed by Lao Min during her First Change.
*'''She Wanli''', manager of Tower 7 and shop owner. Affable, overweight local man who had his guts ripped out by the rampaging Taotie.
*'''Kwo Tien''', young tough. Lives in Cherry Gardens, claims to be part of the 14k Triad. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Taesuk Weyen''', patriarch of the Taesuk family. Lives in Cherry Gardens. Holds grudge against the Kwo family. Possibly Rage-Urged.
*'''Hua''', minor tech criminal. Tattooed and hyperactive, Hua purveys petty illegalities - wiping stolen phones and computers, dealing in stolen data and the like.

===Cherry Gardens locations===
* The '''Blossom Society hall''' is a spacious basement subdivided into several smaller rooms, situated under a small laundry and bath-house on the night market shop-front. Once a triad gambling den, the basement includes a strong locus of prosperity and wealth (and, perhaps, greed) in the form of a shrine; the locus leads directly into the silken court of lanterns in the Shadow from which the Eight Lanterns Minister rules.
* One of the '''rooftop slums''' hangs precariously between towers 2 and 3, where the salvaged metal and wood bridge-way plays host to a minor locus of despair. The previous ithaeur, Mark, kept the insidious energies of the locus in check.

==Spirits and their Ilk==

===Lesser Spirits & Independents===
*The '''Crowdling''', a spirit of crowds that lairs around the Old Olympic MTR station. Carved the City Gift into Lucky Rat after being hunted in a chase that it greatly enjoyed.

===Nobles===
*'''Rotting Heart of Decay''', a lesser Ensih of urban decay and rot that held power over the run-down district of Bedford Rise. Granted boons by its liege, Crimson and White Agony, to let it better control the fief. Destroyed by the Blossom Society in a challenge for power and territory.
*'''Eight Lanterns Minister''', ruler of the Cherry Gardens Night Market.

===Servitors===
*'''Elders of Naga''', strange serpentine spirits of rock and bone. Follow in the wake of Death Wolf.

==The Five Great Packs==
The five pillars of Hong Kong Uratha society, born from agreements forged in 1899 alongside those made between the British colony and the local Chinese Punti clans, are called the Great Packs. Originally, each pack corresponded to the same mortal clan that it took the name of, but in the modern day there is no major link between the Punti clan families and the make-up of the pack in question. Most of the Great Packs are large, powerful and have two tiers amongst their Uratha members. The lower tier of 'nieces' and 'nephews' operate somewhat more like a conventional pack, but the upper tier of 'aunts' and 'uncles' are, oddly, less tightly bound together. The aunts and uncles are mentors, experts, revered elders and the like who focus more on their own matters, loosely connected to the other aunts and uncles but not necessarily very involved in the day-to-day running of the pack's assets. When an aunt or uncle asks for a service, the nephews and nieces are expected to snap to attention, but they are in turn expected not to abuse this authority to any great extent. Each Great Pack has a different system for providing more concrete leadership; the Hou select a single overall leader so that the other upper tier Uratha don't need to be bothered by petty concerns, while the Tang demand regular meetings of their aunts and uncles to ensure co-ordination.

The Great Packs are heavily tied into the occult fabric of Hong Kong, and possess considerable knowledge, influence and stockpiles of materials. A Lodge's leadership usually comes from Great Pack members. Each possesses an incredibly powerful totem spirit, but the nature of that relationship between pack and totem is closely guarded and outsiders suspect whatever agreement was signed in 1899 plays a heavy part.

===The Wen – Yau Tsim Mong===
Forsaken, mostly Hunters in Darkness and Iron Masters; their totem is the Serpent of Dreams and Bile, a spirit of incense, drugs and pollution. Known for their influence in shipping, narcotics, and their deep occult knowledge. The Wen have long been obsessed with hunting down the source of the Scourge, as they call the phenomenon that blights First Changes, and are known to truck with jiang shi, yao guai and other, stranger entities in their search for the truth.

Wen '''Aunts/Uncles''':
* '''Yeung He, 'Lightning Paper Fan'''' - Iron Master Ithaeur. Yeung He is one of the principle uncles of the Wen, a wealthy Hong Kong businessman who serves as the Great Pack's principle face of its occult side.
* '''Ten-Eyes Tsang''' - Storm Lord Ithaeur. Ten-Eyes is a drugs chemist and the principle responsible for the Wen drugs operation. Tsang is said to be a ''samzukwu'' or Three-Legged Crow, a member of the Lodge of Crows.

Wen '''Nieces/Nephews''':
* '''Dantea Wen''' - Hunter in Darkness Elodoth. Dantea is one of the most trusted lower-rankers in the Wen, slated for promotion and thus access to the pack's extensive resources. She is the local representative of the Lodge of the Seven Venoms, and a trained doctor.
* '''"Tightrope" Lei''' - Iron Master Irraka. Named for her habit of garroting prey, not for acrobatics.
*'''"Hapless" Fung''' - Storm Lord Rahu. Possesses incredible luck and is said to be cursed.
*'''"Pup" Sau''' - Iron Master Cahalith. Optimistic and hyperactive.

Wen '''Wolf-Blooded''':
*Inspector Hau Chen - HKPF Inspector and general police-force informant and contact for the Wen and affiliated packs. Tell is unknown.
*Zheng Fang - Full-time trusted gofer for the Wen. Immaculately dressed and presented but rumoured to be a very capable leg-breaker despite her appearance. Tell is rumoured to be very powerful for a Wolf-Blooded, possibly that she can summon spirit-wolves or turn into a spirit herself.

===The Hou – Kwun Tong===
Pure, Ivory Claws; their totem is Crimson and White Agony, a spirit of salt and pain. Known for their incredible ancestral and bloodline records, as well as their heavy involvement in Hong Kong politics and medical services. The Hou are seen as cruel, cold and clinical; few fates are worse than falling into the hands of a Hou torturer. The Hou claim to be the oldest and most legitimate of all the Five Great Packs, as unlike the other four the Hou already existed prior to 1899; Hou stories have it that they formed when the Punti migrated to Hong Kong in the 1200s, taking over the sacred mantle of an even older pack who were appointed by the Nine Dragons.

===The Peng – Hongkong Island===
Pure, mostly Ivory Claws; their totem is the Thousand Roaring Eyes and Mouths, a spirit of water and destruction. Known for their wealth and the role they play as financial agents for Pure across the world, their foreign contacts and also their martial traditions. The Peng claim that Hong Kong is actually the site on which Wolf was slain by its treacherous children. They are known for undertaking lavish, extravagant rituals offering sacrifices to the spirits and the waters in penance, to which werewolves of all stripes are invited. Despite their outwards expressions of wealth and openness, they're also said to be a hotbed of internal scheming due to the influence of rival spirit lords.

===The Tang – Hongkong Island===
Forsaken, mostly Bone Shadows and Storm Lords; their totem is the Pale Mandarin, a spirit of secrets, knowledge and fear. They are known for their information network and the dirt they're said to hold on every figure of note in Hong Kong, their knowledge of death and the Underworld, and their involvement in urban planning and development. Rumour has it that the Tang have successfully used occult geometries to create paths into the Deep Shadow. A few pieces of particularly bitter hearsay that refuse to die have it that the Tang take their marching orders from packs in Beijing.

===The Liao – New Territories===
Forsaken, mostly Blood Talons; their totem is the Torn Banner, a spirit of change and violence. They are known for their fighting prowess, their trade and manufacture of spiritual goods (including fetishes and talens) and their connections to mainland China. The Liao are generally seen as the most traditionalist and conservative of the Five Great Packs, ironic given the nature of their totem and their own history; they were originally mostly Predator Kings, changing allegiance to the Forsaken via bloody infighting shortly after the Japanese occupation.

==Other Packs==

===The Sung-Ti – Mong Kok===
The Sung-Ti are a largely Fire-Touched pack of Pure holding territory to the north-east of the pack – and they still nurse a grudge over the loss of Cherry Gardens to Melissa Tsang in the 80s. Pitching themselves as judges of certain sins, the Sung-Ti reputedly have significant involvement in both the criminal side of Kowloon and its charities.

* ? Ash Talon ? - Fire-Touched crafter, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.
* ? Kanomi ? - Wolf-Blooded capable of overwhelming those who see her into believing she possesses incredible beauty, assumed to be a member of the Sung-Ti by the Blossom Society.

===The Stone Lions – Various===
The Stone Lions are mostly Hunters in Darkness who oversee the occult maintenance of Boundary Street, once the limit of Hong Kong. The Lions are a 'daughter pack' of the Liao; they are also rumoured to participate in various sinister rituals to maintain their power.

===The Eyeless – Sham Shui Po===
The Eyeless are a strange and esoteric pack, believed to be a reclusive and likely heretical group of Forsaken. They generally avoid outside contact, but it is known that they pluck their own eyes out for some cultic purpose. Rumour links the Eyeless to the Japanese occupation, and those who would mock them call them the 'Nopera-Bo'.

===The Two Claw Society – Sham Shui Po===
The Two Claw Society are a pack of Bone Shadows and Blood Talons known to be particularly vicious in defending their territory, but also respected as being highly honourable. The Two Claws was created to deal with a horrific Wound resulting from a Japanese concentration camp on their territory – a Wound that still exists despite the pack's best efforts.

* Fan Chau, 'Crimson Autumn' - Bone Shadow Rahu. Belligerent member of the Lodge of Voices. Appears to have one of her hands replaced with someone else's through unknown means.

===The Tsen-Kuang – Tsim Sha Tsui===
A Pure pack on the south of the peninsula, known to be largely made up of Fire-Touched. The Tsen-Kuang have their claws firmly dug into the flow of migrants moving through Hong Kong, and are rumoured to cavort with Beshilu and other, even fouler denizens of the waterfronts. They are reputed to venerate an entity that they believe is responsible for stealing the Changes of nusuzul in Hong Kong; the Tsen-Kuang believe it to be a judge that weeds out those who are not worthy.

===Silver Horizon Futures - Various===
SH Futures appears to be a strange fusion of pack and corporation operating in Hong Kong. A subsidiary of the globe-spanning Cheiron, SHF is best known for its work in the bio-sciences and innovative energy generation solutions. The pack certainly includes both werewolves and Wolf-Blooded; the latter appear to hold the administrative and executive positions within the arrangement.

==Other Groups and Entities==

===Civilians===
*'''Dachan Cuifen''', curator of the Taotie exhibit at the museum and university archaeology lecturer.

===14K Triad===

*'''Hom Wie, Hive-Claimed'''. Rumoured to be a Taoist sorcerer and feared by the lower ranks of the Triad for his brutality and twisted appearance. Hom Wie has some sort of link or connection to Wang Jing from the past, sufficiently strong to warn her of a forthcoming Triad war.

===Taotie===
Also known as the 'gluttonous ogres', taotie are very powerful entities of hunger that have been bound into ceramic masks and pottery. The mortal wielder of a taotie gains monstrous physical strength, the ability to cross the Gauntlet, and the ability to take the internal organs of a victim and place them within his or her own body. In return for this power, the taotie demands the sacrifice of the mortal wielder's own internal organs to feed its hunger. Manifesting its powers causes the taotie to drain a vast amount of Essence from the nearby ''Hisil'', often catastrophically for weaker spirits in the vicinity.
*'''Chua Chuo''', local businessman - murdered Mark Callaghan-Cheung and She Wanli over property scheme using the power of the taotie. Killed by the Blossom Society.

==Beyond Hong Kong==

===Macau – The Zealous Warlord's Domain===
Often referred to as the 'darker sibling' by Hong Kong Uratha, Macau has a sinister reputation amongst werewolves – even despite it being a Forsaken stronghold. Beneath its seemingly placid surface, Macau is a place of nightmares. From 1966 onwards, the notorious Blood Talon warlord 'Silver Claw' Yin fought a sustained and bloody campaign against the Pure, claiming to have been given divine visions by the Moon and instructions from the Lunes. After just ten years, the last Pure were annihilated or driven out of the city. In 1987, however, the Pure attempted to return. In the three decades since, Macau has seen repeated attacks by the Pure, particularly under the leadership of the Fire-Touched sibling Elders Sheu-Fuh and Shunyan, although they have not yet regained a foothold for more than a few months at a time. Its occult landscape is a mess, scarred by brutality, madness and the mostly-unchecked spiritual off-flow of the mass of humanity crammed into the region. Other things have also been drawn in or caught up by the violence; it is said there is an alchemist amongst the Iron Masters of Macau who knows how to render sorcerers down for their power, while both Bone Shadows and Ivory Claws are said to have some means of producing vampires which they use as disposable agents and killers in their shadow war. Both Destroyer Wolf and Red Wolf are said to have taken an active interest in events in Macau since the 60s, but there is a much, much older shrine to Red Wolf in the city that the Forsaken defend fanatically – some rumours allege it is Pangaean in origin. For now, Yin continues to rule her Protectorate with an iron fist.

Characters of Macau:
*'''Adao''' - Iron Master Elodoth. Portuguese smuggler.
*'''Red Mask''' - Iron Master ?. Revered as the high priest of Red Wolf's shrine in Macau.

===Shenzen – The City Without History===
Shenzen is a mirror of Hong Kong's success story – a busy port, major financial centre and huge city butting against its northern border. Shenzen exploded from a small town in the 80s to the urban behemoth of today, and the the Uratha of the province know full well its growth was down to more than just the PRC labelling it a Special Economic Zone. Something has long been awry with the very fabric of reality in Shenzen and someone, or something, caused the expansion of the city by stealing it from a history that never happened, a Shenzen that never was, and overlaying it into this world. The layout of the city possesses innumerable minor pieces of occult geometry, coming together into some sort of vast chronal siphon that forces this reality to match the Other Shenzen. For years, the 'city without history' and the time spirits that flock there served as a major attraction for Uratha seers and secret-seekers of both Pure and Forsaken, with bitter fighting breaking out across its prime territories, but the Cull have moved in in recent years – and established a major Deep Shadow monastery as a bastion. Now this major land route into Hong Kong is threatened, the Cull bringing in more adherents as the months progress and the Uratha of the City of Nine Dragons watching uneasily from over the border. Word has it that the Thousand Steel Teeth are gathering their own war parties, determined to defend their supply lines that run through Hong Kong and Shenzen out into the wider world. The new city of Shenzen may be about to become a battleground for a particularly vicious phase of the war with the Cull.

===Guangdong – Riches Worth Fighting For===
The province of Guangdong may be a large and prosperous region, but for the Forsaken of the area it is perhaps most characterised by its river spirits. Threading down to the Pearl River Delta, these spirits are probably the most organised, widespread and outright hostile court of Guangdong; the feud dates back to the battle of Yamen in 1279. Defeating and subjugating the local river spirits is an ongoing struggle, not at all helped by the Pure's own alliance with the River King. Despite this hostility, there is much for the Forsaken to covet here – the wealth of the human population and the uncommonly high number of wellsprings of Essence. Guangdong has a great abundance of sites that naturally form talens, rich loci of rare Resonances, and unusual qualities to the Shadow that make certain rites – such as those that craft fetishes – easier to work than elsewhere. The Claimed are a particular threat across the province, and the Storm Lords have traditionally been very powerful here; there are several Tribal bastions where the Iminir protect ancient artefacts and relics that are the destination of pilgrims from across the globe. The Storm Lords of Guangdong have a highly organised Tribal structure that crosses throughout the packs and Protectorates of the province, leading up to an elected gong whose task is to tend to the ancient, revered Tribal elder known as the Zongshi – a near-mythical figure amongst the Forsaken, said to alternate between sleeping in a Storm Lord fastness and prowling the Deep Shadow for the most terrifying of prey. Guangdong regularly sees the conflict between Forsaken and Pure flare into open and brutal warfare, but these periods are almost always short – usually a year or two at most before things lapse once again, agreements are made and lines redrawn. The recent arrival of sects of the Cull from the west and north, however, threatens to upset that balance.

===Taiwan – Tyrants of the Earth===
Taiwan's Shadow was once ruled by the spirits of the mountains and the grumbling, shifting earth – but around two centuries ago, the Forsaken of the island undertook a great and mighty binding on the lords of rock and stone to chain them with fetters of symbolism. This caused a great rift amongst the Taiwanese Tribes, with the Bone Shadows breaking off to form their own separate faction, condemning the act as one of hubris that would only serve to harm Shadow and Flesh alike. For two centuries now, the bindings have mostly held – but when they weaken or shift, the furious spirits of the earth vent their rage on the world. Even today, the Bone Shadows remain separate to the other Forsaken and have, as the years turn, formed a distinct identity from Hirfathra Hissu elsewhere as well. The Predator Kings have long sought to unmake the chains that bind the mountain spirits and once formed the bulk of the Pure numbers in Taiwan, but since the Chinese Civil War the other two Pure Tribes have made significant inroads into what was once almost entirely under Forsaken control. Today, Taiwanese Uratha are renowned for their mastery of rites and the binding of spirits, but often considered prideful and arrogant in their disdain for other werewolves who do not have the strength to chain the Shadow to their will. Taiwanese packs commonly include spirits enslaved to the pack's will, and even totems are treated less as respected equals and more as vassals or servants. The Bone Shadows continue to warn that a reckoning will yet come; but as each decade passes without sign of their forecast apocalypse, so does the scorn for the fifth Tribe rise amongst the Taiwanese.

===Philippines – The Spinner Hag's Bastion===
In many ways, Uratha in the Philippines have lives similar to werewolves elsewhere – though the boundaries of territories in the archipelago are often delineated by coastline and travel between islands can be tricky. The rising prosperity and development of the country has left Uratha with many of the same challenges and opportunities as in other nations. The Shadow across the Philippines, however, is in a ruinous state – and has been for millennia. By local lore, the Great Predator fought much of its battle with the Spinner Hag over what became these islands, and in many places the Gauntlet is still torn asunder by the mere echo of Wolf's claws and teeth. Worse, other patches of Gauntlet are thick and distended, shrouded in Azlo webs and said to contain oozing gobbets of the Hag's carcass. The Azlu are numerous and powerful here, and are no mere monstrous beasts – the Host spider-witches of the Philippines think and plan with an alien but clinically precise approach, their schemes spanning centuries. The poor state of the Gauntlet has also resulted in a much higher number of spirits crossing over into the Flesh, bizarre and unique forms of Claimed, and other entities born by the fusion of the two worlds. Repeated rumours bubble up that there are actually still areas of Pangaea itself hidden away, somehow saved from the Great Predator's death-howl. Unsurprisingly, the Hunters in Darkness lead the Forsaken here, and Filipino werewolves are said to be both particularly vigilant – or paranoid, by the less charitable – and particularly talented in the matter of wards and occult protections. The Philippines have long served as a destination for Hunter in Darkness pilgrimages – old and veteran Meninna from other countries, even far-off continents, have been known to 'retire' to this heart of Azlu power, and werewolves seeking lore and insights into the spider Hosts often seek out Filipino brethren for aid.

===Vietnam – The Harmonious Kings===
Early in the 20th Century, the Pure of Vietnam began to tip the scales against their Forsaken counterparts; they took advantage of the disruption and conflict that plagued the country until, after the US-Vietnam war and the fall of the South, the Fire-Touched and Predator Kings had near total domination of the unified country. The Forsaken of today, though, are having a comparatively easy time of it; the Pure are far more focused on warring with each other, and there are a number of powerful spirit nobles that have sided with the Forsaken in the wake of the Pure calling down horrific spirit-horrors from beyond Luna's orbit. The Predator Kings have split into two factions that battle one another with brutal ferocity, mainly due to the emergence of a radical, heretical Ninna Farakh Lodge called the Lan that has rapidly surged in converts. The Lan adhere to portions of Dire Wolf's philosophy, but are far more connected to humanity than their erstwhile comrades; the totem's ban makes it difficult for the Lan to work within society so they instead use a large cult of human and Wolf-Blooded go-betweens to sink their claws into Vietnam. Espousing a creed that the Predator Kings should adapt to the changing world and shepherd humanity to a harmonious union with the wild and the hunt, the Lan are largely uninterested in pursuing the Forsaken compared to destroying the Fire-Touched and converting or killing the rest of their Tribe. To the Forsaken, it all looks very much like the Predator Kings' penchant for savagery has finally turned inwards while the real Vietnam moves beyond their outmoded ways – but there are those who worry that the Harmonious Kings of the Lan are winning, and fear what may happen once they have done so. Some wonder if the Lan might be converted in turn to the Forsaken, but the Lodge has shown little interest in any Urdaga Creeds.

==New Material==

===New Rites===

'''Vex (Wolf Rite ●)''' 
This petty curse calls upon spirits of misfortune and malevolence to plague whoever has drawn the werewolf's ire. 
'''Symbols:''' Fire, venom, violence, the skill that is to be targeted. 
'''Cost:''' 1 Essence 
'''Action:''' Extended (5 successes; each roll represents 1 minute); resisted by the target's Composure. 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The Essence used to fuel this rite must come from a locus of hatred, pain, despair or decay. Additionally, the ritemaster must have a possession of the target, a nail clipping, a lock of hair or some other bodily substance from the intended victim. The ritemaster selects a single skill that will be cursed; thereafter, the first time the victim uses that skill in the following month, her result becomes a dramatic failure regardless of what she rolls. The ritemaster immediately knows when this happens. A character may only be the subject of a single vex at a time, and cannot be subjected again until the rite's month of duration has passed. 

'''Drain the Well (Pack Rite ●●●)''' 
This rite uses a locus to draw in its Resonance from the surrounding ar ea, draining the Shadow of Essence attuned to its nature. Paradoxically, this ensures the locus surges deep with Essence of that kind; if left untended, it will wash back out again stronger than before.
'''Symbols:''' Water, pain, piercing or draining, the Resonance type. 
'''Action:''' Extended (20 successes; each roll represents 10 minutes) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed at the site of a locus, draining Resonance into it. This has several effects: spirits and Uratha within 100 yards per dot of the rating of the Locus, or within the entire territory (whichever is larger), take the locus's rating as a penalty to all rolls for Influences that match its Resonance when outside its direct area. The Resonance is reduced in general, removing many incidents of the Resonant Condition across the affected region; draining a locus of pain would cause injuries and aches to inflict less pain, humans and animals will recover faster from harm and may simply not notice minor damage. This will have long-term effects on the Shadow and the material world. 
The ritemaster gains a persistent Ban Condition for the duration of the rite's effect, reflecting the Resonance of the locus; this Condition lifts when the rite ends. If the ritemaster ever violates the ban, the effects of the rite immediately end. If ended via ban violation, or if this rite is not performed on the locus again within a week of its duration ending, the locus becomes empowered for one month as if it were the subject of the Wellspring rite.

'''Shadow Signs (Pack Rite ●●●●)''' 
This rite may only be invoked on a territory that the ritemaster's pack has already sanctified with the Hunting Ground rite. It draws upon the secrets, the names and the flows of Essence that thread between the spirits of the territory's Shadow, revealing truths to the Uratha. 
'''Symbols:''' Writing or tattooing, wounds, whispers, the wind. 
'''Action:''' Extended (10 successes; each roll represents 1 minute) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month. 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed in the Shadow, within territory that the ritemaster's pack has placed the Hunting Ground rite upon. This causes that spot to become a nexus of information about the territory's Shadow. Over roughly a day, words and glyphs will carve themselves into the Shadow-stuff of an area roughly ten feet in radius, often oozing blood or ichor; these words spell out the names of powerful spirits in the area (Rank 3 and higher, as well as spirit nobles), indicate significant Shadow phenomena (like barrens, shoals, or an impending emotion-storm), and may also indicate other threats in the Shadow (such as warning of the warping spells that a Mage is using on the Hisil, or of a non-native monstrosity that has somehow breached the Gauntlet and is now marauding the spirits). The words update roughly every day, with old, bleeding warnings squirming aside for eruptions of fresh and oozing names as new, powerful spirits move in or a threat manifests itself. Any Uratha who reads the shadow signs gains a +3 bonus to locate or perceive spirits, entities or phenomena that they have seen the warnings or names of, while the rite lasts. However, picking key information out of the mass of glyphs and sigils is not necessarily straightforward.

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T13:00:31Z

Acrozatarim: /* New Material */

=Werewolf: the Forsaken - The Eater of Names=
A Werewolf: the Forsaken game set in Hong Kong.

==Hong Kong==

===Werewolf Oddities of Hong Kong===
*Something steals the First Change of the majority of nusuzul. At the moment of the Change, they have their newfound nature torn out of them by an unknown force, leaving them as normal humans suffering a psychotic break – even former Wolf-Blooded have their inheritance stripped from them at this moment.
*The territories of Hong Kong are a complete patchwork between the different factions. There are no solid battle lines between Pure and Forsaken, and the vertical nature of the urban landscape means that even a small scrap of land can be more than enough to patrol for most packs. The Shadow reflection of the city sees a spiritual ecosystem that is just as confused and turbulent.
*Due to the sheer population density and the patchwork nature of the territories, Hong Kong packs have strong traditions about hospitality and allowances for crossing another pack's turf – even between Pure and Forsaken.
*There are no Protectorates in Hong Kong. The closest to any sort of formal structure are the Five Great Packs – the Wen, Hou, Peng, Tang and Liao, formed from amongst the Uratha of the mortal clans of the area in 1899. The Great Packs are probably the largest and most influential of the city, but with respect comes responsibility, and they are expected to provide aid and guidance to other werewolves. These expectations, again, cross factional lines.
*Tribes and allegiances to Pure and Forsaken are important, but Hong Kong also plays host to a number of strange packs allied to neither faction, packs amongst foreign immigrant populations with odd practices and traditions, and a focus on Lodges. The sheer density of the city can make the patchwork of territories confusing and Tribes rarely organise on a wide scale, but Lodge connections matter and underpin much of the social fabric of Hong Kong.
*With so much movement in and out of Hong Kong, its transitional position in the world (geographically, politically and symbolically) and its possession of so many layers and shadows that even the werewolves cannot plumb them all, the city is a hotbed for weirdness and occult conspiracies. Yao guai and jiang shi slither through the darkness, hungry ghosts and watery shades prowl at the fringes, and now the forces of the dreaded Cull are preparing to assault the borders of the territory – something that has both Pure and Forsaken alike on edge.
*Local Uratha lore has it that, in some past age, Hong Kong was the site of a meeting between the Nine Dragons – held to be the eight Firstborn of the Pure and the Forsaken, and a last figure of disputed nature. Some believe it was one of the first Chinese emperors. It was this gathering of beings of incredible power that, it is claimed, is responsible for the strong currents of Essence that pour through the region's Shadow even today.
*The chenghuanshen, the city-spirit of Hong Kong, definitely exists – but its nature is not entirely clear. It may actually be a consciousness split across a number of powerful urban spirits, and seems quite capable of fighting with itself as much as any other spirit nobles of the region. Furthermore, it has a long-running feud with the spirits of the mountains and the peaks.

==The Blossom Society Pack==
History is important to the packs of Hong Kong, although knowledge of the past of the Forsaken is usually rather patchy:
*Most Kowloon Forsaken hark back to the '''Salt Eaters''', a pack that controlled much of the area in the middle of the second millenium.
*In the late 1800s, the third bubonic plague wracked China; as a result the '''Yellow-Feathered Owls''', a pack of Bone Shadows and Hunters in Darkness, controlled what is now Sham Shui Po.
*In 1899, territorial unrest with the five Chinese clans in the area resulted in the creation of the Five Great Packs; the original Cherry Gardens themselves were held by a daughter pack of the Wen, the '''White Jade''' pack.
*After the Japanese occupation, the predecessors of the Blossom Society took over the area. They were not opposed in doing so; the sheer damage done by the occupation had resulted in the deportation or deaths of most of the White Jade and their extended pack.

Of the pack's previous Uratha, the existing pack members may know of the following:
*''''Red Shroud'''' – Bone Shadow, formed pack in aftermath of Japanese occupation – famous for dealing with a terrifying plague of restless ghosts and widely venerated by Uratha across Hong Kong for her accomplishments.
*'''Wen Liang''' – Iron Master, powerful figure amongst the packs in the 60's and 70's, infamous for his involvement in the 1967 riots and his killing of a number of communist ringleaders. A name both respected and feared.
*'''Melissa Tsang''' – Blood Talon, took control of the Cherry Garden Night Market in the 80s by driving out the '''Sung-Ti''', a vicious yao guai and its Fire-Touched Pure followers.

The recent losses the pack has suffered are:
*'''James 'Steeljaw Trap' Liu''' – Hunter in Darkness Cahalith and member of the Lodge of Seven Venoms. Died five years ago fighting beshilu in the typhoon shelter; he sank a floating crane raft infested with Rat Hosts while he was still onboard.
*'''Gwok Mei''' – Bone Shadow Rahu and member of the Lodge of Death. Left two years ago in response to the Lodge calling a pilgrimage against the Cull in northern China. She has not been heard from since.
*'''Mark Callahan-Cheung''' – Iron Master shaman, local landlord and member of the Yau Tsim Mong district council. Died under strange circumstances one month before the game's beginning, which the pack had difficulties investigating due to Mark's public position as a councilman and the police and press interest in the case.

The totem of the pack is the '''Eight Lanterns Minister''', spirit of the Cherry Gardens Night Market. The minister appears in the form of a set of grandiose mandarin ministerial garb, threaded with lines of neon and jangling talismans of commerce, wrapped around a withered but strong frame. Its face is concealed behind a veil, but seems to emanate a gentle glow. Lanterns hang from a frame of lacquered wood that floats behind its shoulders; the colours of the lanterns often indicate the spirit's mood.

The Eight Lanterns Minister has served the pack as totem since the 1980s, its fortunes waxing and waning over that time. It is devious, smart and opportunistic. The Minister is a very lowly spirit noble, with a paltry court of lesser spirits of the market at its beck and call; it in turn is the vassal of the spirit noble of Temple Street Night Market, which has caused some friction with the Wen over the years.

===Werewolves===
*'''Red Lantern Widow, Bone Shadow Elodoth''', formerly wife of an up and coming politician until she killed him during her First Change. She uses his skull as a focus in her rites.
*'''Lucky Rat, Hunter in Darkness Rahu''', whose pest control company gives him an overwatch on Beshilu activity in the area. Possesses some anger issues.
*'''Wang Lee, Bone Shadow Irraka''', the youngest of the pack members and something of a street rat. Son of Wang Jing.
*'''Lao Min, newly-Changed Ithaeur''', straight-A's university student whose First Change was triggered by a manifestation of Death Wolf. Despite appearing as an embodiment of that Firstborn, she's leaning towards Red Wolf's Tribe.

===Wolf-Blooded===
*'''Zhongli Hu''' – 'Auntie' Hu is an elderly fortune-teller and seller of offerings and incense in the night market. She is also a Wolf-Blooded with the Piercing Eyes Tell. Hu was a little girl when Red Shroud ran these streets, claims to have been Wen Liang's mistress, and has certainly lived a storied life.
*'''Ko Lei''' runs the market's security, a sturdy man with a pock-marked face and a quick temper. Lei is a Wolf-Blooded with the Wolf's Meat Tell. He used to be a member of the 14K triad.
*'''Wang Jing''' – She owns and runs the Hive Bar, just outside the night market. She has the Skinner Tell, and has obviously been mentally scarred by some of what she has seen and done. The older pack members would only reference her past activities obliquely and refuse to give details. Some tension between her and her son.
*'''Zhao Bo''' – Widow's sister, who took a very different career path; she is a low-ranking financial auditor in Hong Kong's financial investigative body. Plagued by what she thought were psychiatric problems through her life, it was only since her sister Changed that she discovered the truth – the voices in her head were spirits. She is a Wolf-Blooded with the Waystone Tell.

===Humans===
*The exterminators of '''Yellow Kowloon Pest Control''' are the employees and associates of Arran's character. Working out of an office and storehouse in the territory, they're perhaps the most 'in the know' of all the humans about the supernatural, and they'd probably be hunters if they hadn't been brought under the wing of the pack. The company was briefly used as a front by a Rat Host, which is what drew the pack's attention.
*Several of the market's '''security guards''', Ko Lei's colleagues, are pack members. They know enough to understand that the pack have their back in keeping control of the Night Market, and they like to hang out with pack members to absorb some of the respect and fear that the werewolves are accorded.
*A half-dozen of the stall vendors are, like the security guards, pack members; they form the '''Mutual Activity Committee''' of the market, and the other shopkeepers know they're an 'inner circle' separate from the actual management (who are not pack members).
*'''Zhongli Zhuang''', or 'Uncle' Zhuang, is an old former Sun Yee On triad member and the husband of Auntie Hu. Despite his age, he still possesses a heavy frame; these days he sells occult tat and the like alongside his wife, but he also keeps an eye on the black market dealers in the area for the pack.
*'''Yi Kun''', owner of the Yi Healthy Wu Kwan (martial club), is a martial artist trainer who knows enough about the Uratha to understand their role as guardians of the area; he's had a few unpleasant run-ins over the years.

===Others===
*Michael Jin – a former manager of the Night Market, Michael died in the early 2000s in a horrific murder; a business rival with schemes on the property's future arranged for a construction 'accident' when a large block of concrete fell from scaffolding onto the man. Mister Jin was a client of the pack at the time, who were surprised by the lucidity his ghost retained after death. Michael is odd, fussy and obsessive, the broken remains of a personality clinging on to existence through his ties to the Night Market.

===The Totem - Eight Lanterns Minister (''Usufunsugal'' in the First Tongue)===
'''Rank 2 night market spirit''' 
'''Attributes:''' Power 2 Finesse 5 Resistance 2 
'''Willpower:''' 7 
'''Essence:''' 15 
'''Initiative:''' 7 
'''Defence:''' 2 
'''Speed:''' 10 
'''Size:''' 5 
'''Corpus:''' 7 
'''Influences:''' Wealth 1, Light 1 
'''Numina:''' Awe, Coin Curse*, Sign 
''Coin Curse – New Numina:'' The spirit may use this power on anyone it witnesses cheating in a trade, making a false deal or forcing a grievously unfair exchange, as long as money of some sort is involved. Coin Curse costs 1 Essence to use, and affects a coin, bank note, cheque or even money existing only as an electronic transfer. For as long as the character possesses that money in any way, they are affected by an increasingly unpleasant withering disease and the moderate Sick Tilt persistently; even if treated, it will return. Throwing or giving away the money ends the effect. 
'''Manifestations:''' Twilight Form, Gauntlet Breach, Materialise 
'''Ban:''' While the Cherry Gardens shrine of prosperity is damaged or desecrated, the Eight Lanterns Minister cannot leave the night market; if outside the market when the shrine is damaged, it is immediately called back. 
'''Bane:''' Glass from broken lights. 

==Cherry Gardens Market==

==Spirits and their Ilk==

===Lesser Spirits & Independents===
*The '''Crowdling''', a spirit of crowds that lairs around the Old Olympic MTR station. Carved the City Gift into Lucky Rat after being hunted in a chase that it greatly enjoyed.

===Nobles===
*'''Rotting Heart of Decay''', a lesser Ensih of urban decay and rot that held power over the run-down district of Bedford Rise. Granted boons by its liege, Crimson and White Agony, to let it better control the fief. Destroyed by the Blossom Society in a challenge for power and territory.
*'''Eight Lanterns Minister''', ruler of the Cherry Gardens Night Market.

===Servitors===
*'''Elders of Naga''', strange serpentine spirits of rock and bone. Follow in the wake of Death Wolf.

==The Five Great Packs==
The five pillars of Hong Kong Uratha society, born from agreements forged in 1899 alongside those made between the British colony and the local Chinese Punti clans, are called the Great Packs. Originally, each pack corresponded to the same mortal clan that it took the name of, but in the modern day there is no major link between the Punti clan families and the make-up of the pack in question. Most of the Great Packs are large, powerful and have two tiers amongst their Uratha members. The lower tier of 'nieces' and 'nephews' operate somewhat more like a conventional pack, but the upper tier of 'aunts' and 'uncles' are, oddly, less tightly bound together. The aunts and uncles are mentors, experts, revered elders and the like who focus more on their own matters, loosely connected to the other aunts and uncles but not necessarily very involved in the day-to-day running of the pack's assets. When an aunt or uncle asks for a service, the nephews and nieces are expected to snap to attention, but they are in turn expected not to abuse this authority to any great extent. Each Great Pack has a different system for providing more concrete leadership; the Hou select a single overall leader so that the other upper tier Uratha don't need to be bothered by petty concerns, while the Tang demand regular meetings of their aunts and uncles to ensure co-ordination.

The Great Packs are heavily tied into the occult fabric of Hong Kong, and possess considerable knowledge, influence and stockpiles of materials. A Lodge's leadership usually comes from Great Pack members. Each possesses an incredibly powerful totem spirit, but the nature of that relationship between pack and totem is closely guarded and outsiders suspect whatever agreement was signed in 1899 plays a heavy part.

The Five Great Packs are:
*'''The Wen – Yau Tsim Mong'''. Forsaken, mostly Hunters in Darkness and Iron Masters; their totem is the Serpent of Dreams and Bile, a spirit of incense, drugs and pollution. Known for their influence in shipping, narcotics, and their deep occult knowledge. The Wen have long been obsessed with hunting down the source of the Scourge, as they call the phenomenon that blights First Changes, and are known to truck with jiang shi, yao guai and other, stranger entities in their search for the truth.
*'''The Hou – Kwun Tong'''. Pure, Ivory Claws; their totem is Crimson and White Agony, a spirit of salt and pain. Known for their incredible ancestral and bloodline records, as well as their heavy involvement in Hong Kong politics and medical services. The Hou are seen as cruel, cold and clinical; few fates are worse than falling into the hands of a Hou torturer. The Hou claim to be the oldest and most legitimate of all the Five Great Packs, as unlike the other four the Hou already existed prior to 1899; Hou stories have it that they formed when the Punti migrated to Hong Kong in the 1200s, taking over the sacred mantle of an even older pack who were appointed by the Nine Dragons.
*'''The Peng – Hongkong Island'''. Pure, mostly Ivory Claws; their totem is the Thousand Roaring Eyes and Mouths, a spirit of water and destruction. Known for their wealth and the role they play as financial agents for Pure across the world, their foreign contacts and also their martial traditions. The Peng claim that Hong Kong is actually the site on which Wolf was slain by its treacherous children. They are known for undertaking lavish, extravagant rituals offering sacrifices to the spirits and the waters in penance, to which werewolves of all stripes are invited. Despite their outwards expressions of wealth and openness, they're also said to be a hotbed of internal scheming due to the influence of rival spirit lords.
*'''The Tang – Hongkong Island'''. Forsaken, mostly Bone Shadows and Storm Lords; their totem is the Pale Mandarin, a spirit of secrets, knowledge and fear. They are known for their information network and the dirt they're said to hold on every figure of note in Hong Kong, their knowledge of death and the Underworld, and their involvement in urban planning and development. Rumour has it that the Tang have successfully used occult geometries to create paths into the Deep Shadow. A few pieces of particularly bitter hearsay that refuse to die have it that the Tang take their marching orders from packs in Beijing.
*'''The Liao – New Territories'''. Forsaken, mostly Blood Talons; their totem is the Torn Banner, a spirit of change and violence. They are known for their fighting prowess, their trade and manufacture of spiritual goods (including fetishes and talens) and their connections to mainland China. The Liao are generally seen as the most traditionalist and conservative of the Five Great Packs, ironic given the nature of their totem and their own history; they were originally mostly Predator Kings, changing allegiance to the Forsaken via bloody infighting shortly after the Japanese occupation.

==Other Packs==
*'''The Sung-Ti – Mong Kok'''. The Sung-Ti are a largely Fire-Touched pack of Pure holding territory to the north-east of the pack – and they still nurse a grudge over the loss of Cherry Gardens to Melissa Tsang in the 80s. Pitching themselves as judges of certain sins, the Sung-Ti reputedly have significant involvement in both the criminal side of Kowloon and its charities.
*'''The Stone Lions – Various'''. The Stone Lions are mostly Hunters in Darkness who oversee the occult maintenance of Boundary Street, once the limit of Hong Kong. The Lions are a 'daughter pack' of the Liao; they are also rumoured to participate in various sinister rituals to maintain their power.
*'''The Eyeless – Sham Shui Po'''. The Eyeless are a strange and esoteric pack, believed to be a reclusive and likely heretical group of Forsaken. They generally avoid outside contact, but it is known that they pluck their own eyes out for some cultic purpose. Rumour links the Eyeless to the Japanese occupation, and those who would mock them call them the 'Nopera-Bo'.
*'''The Two Claw Society – Sham Shui Po'''. The Two Claw Society are a pack of Bone Shadows and Blood Talons known to be particularly vicious in defending their territory, but also respected as being highly honourable. The Two Claws was created to deal with a horrific Wound resulting from a Japanese concentration camp on their territory – a Wound that still exists despite the pack's best efforts.
*'''The Tsen-Kuang – Tsim Sha Tsui'''. A Pure pack on the south of the peninsula, known to be largely made up of Fire-Touched. The Tsen-Kuang have their claws firmly dug into the flow of migrants moving through Hong Kong, and are rumoured to cavort with Beshilu and other, even fouler denizens of the waterfronts. They are reputed to venerate an entity that they believe is responsible for stealing the Changes of nusuzul in Hong Kong; the Tsen-Kuang believe it to be a judge that weeds out those who are not worthy.

==Other Groups and Entities==

===14K Triad===

*'''Hom Wie, Hive-Claimed'''. Rumoured to be a Taoist sorcerer and feared by the lower ranks of the Triad for his brutality and twisted appearance. Hom Wie has some sort of link or connection to Wang Jing from the past, sufficiently strong to warn her of a forthcoming Triad war.

===Taotie===
Also known as the 'gluttonous ogres', taotie are very powerful entities of hunger that have been bound into ceramic masks and pottery. The mortal wielder of a taotie gains monstrous physical strength, the ability to cross the Gauntlet, and the ability to take the internal organs of a victim and place them within his or her own body. In return for this power, the taotie demands the sacrifice of the mortal wielder's own internal organs to feed its hunger. Manifesting its powers causes the taotie to drain a vast amount of Essence from the nearby ''Hisil'', often catastrophically for weaker spirits in the vicinity.

==Beyond Hong Kong==

===Macau – The Zealous Warlord's Domain===
Often referred to as the 'darker sibling' by Hong Kong Uratha, Macau has a sinister reputation amongst werewolves – even despite it being a Forsaken stronghold. Beneath its seemingly placid surface, Macau is a place of nightmares. From 1966 onwards, the notorious Blood Talon warlord 'Silver Claw' Yin fought a sustained and bloody campaign against the Pure, claiming to have been given divine visions by the Moon and instructions from the Lunes. After just ten years, the last Pure were annihilated or driven out of the city. In 1987, however, the Pure attempted to return. In the three decades since, Macau has seen repeated attacks by the Pure, particularly under the leadership of the Fire-Touched sibling Elders Sheu-Fuh and Shunyan, although they have not yet regained a foothold for more than a few months at a time. Its occult landscape is a mess, scarred by brutality, madness and the mostly-unchecked spiritual off-flow of the mass of humanity crammed into the region. Other things have also been drawn in or caught up by the violence; it is said there is an alchemist amongst the Iron Masters of Macau who knows how to render sorcerers down for their power, while both Bone Shadows and Ivory Claws are said to have some means of producing vampires which they use as disposable agents and killers in their shadow war. Both Destroyer Wolf and Red Wolf are said to have taken an active interest in events in Macau since the 60s, but there is a much, much older shrine to Red Wolf in the city that the Forsaken defend fanatically – some rumours allege it is Pangaean in origin. For now, Yin continues to rule her Protectorate with an iron fist.

===Shenzen – The City Without History===
Shenzen is a mirror of Hong Kong's success story – a busy port, major financial centre and huge city butting against its northern border. Shenzen exploded from a small town in the 80s to the urban behemoth of today, and the the Uratha of the province know full well its growth was down to more than just the PRC labelling it a Special Economic Zone. Something has long been awry with the very fabric of reality in Shenzen and someone, or something, caused the expansion of the city by stealing it from a history that never happened, a Shenzen that never was, and overlaying it into this world. The layout of the city possesses innumerable minor pieces of occult geometry, coming together into some sort of vast chronal siphon that forces this reality to match the Other Shenzen. For years, the 'city without history' and the time spirits that flock there served as a major attraction for Uratha seers and secret-seekers of both Pure and Forsaken, with bitter fighting breaking out across its prime territories, but the Cull have moved in in recent years – and established a major Deep Shadow monastery as a bastion. Now this major land route into Hong Kong is threatened, the Cull bringing in more adherents as the months progress and the Uratha of the City of Nine Dragons watching uneasily from over the border. Word has it that the Thousand Steel Teeth are gathering their own war parties, determined to defend their supply lines that run through Hong Kong and Shenzen out into the wider world. The new city of Shenzen may be about to become a battleground for a particularly vicious phase of the war with the Cull.

===Guangdong – Riches Worth Fighting For===
The province of Guangdong may be a large and prosperous region, but for the Forsaken of the area it is perhaps most characterised by its river spirits. Threading down to the Pearl River Delta, these spirits are probably the most organised, widespread and outright hostile court of Guangdong; the feud dates back to the battle of Yamen in 1279. Defeating and subjugating the local river spirits is an ongoing struggle, not at all helped by the Pure's own alliance with the River King. Despite this hostility, there is much for the Forsaken to covet here – the wealth of the human population and the uncommonly high number of wellsprings of Essence. Guangdong has a great abundance of sites that naturally form talens, rich loci of rare Resonances, and unusual qualities to the Shadow that make certain rites – such as those that craft fetishes – easier to work than elsewhere. The Claimed are a particular threat across the province, and the Storm Lords have traditionally been very powerful here; there are several Tribal bastions where the Iminir protect ancient artefacts and relics that are the destination of pilgrims from across the globe. The Storm Lords of Guangdong have a highly organised Tribal structure that crosses throughout the packs and Protectorates of the province, leading up to an elected gong whose task is to tend to the ancient, revered Tribal elder known as the Zongshi – a near-mythical figure amongst the Forsaken, said to alternate between sleeping in a Storm Lord fastness and prowling the Deep Shadow for the most terrifying of prey. Guangdong regularly sees the conflict between Forsaken and Pure flare into open and brutal warfare, but these periods are almost always short – usually a year or two at most before things lapse once again, agreements are made and lines redrawn. The recent arrival of sects of the Cull from the west and north, however, threatens to upset that balance.

===Taiwan – Tyrants of the Earth===
Taiwan's Shadow was once ruled by the spirits of the mountains and the grumbling, shifting earth – but around two centuries ago, the Forsaken of the island undertook a great and mighty binding on the lords of rock and stone to chain them with fetters of symbolism. This caused a great rift amongst the Taiwanese Tribes, with the Bone Shadows breaking off to form their own separate faction, condemning the act as one of hubris that would only serve to harm Shadow and Flesh alike. For two centuries now, the bindings have mostly held – but when they weaken or shift, the furious spirits of the earth vent their rage on the world. Even today, the Bone Shadows remain separate to the other Forsaken and have, as the years turn, formed a distinct identity from Hirfathra Hissu elsewhere as well. The Predator Kings have long sought to unmake the chains that bind the mountain spirits and once formed the bulk of the Pure numbers in Taiwan, but since the Chinese Civil War the other two Pure Tribes have made significant inroads into what was once almost entirely under Forsaken control. Today, Taiwanese Uratha are renowned for their mastery of rites and the binding of spirits, but often considered prideful and arrogant in their disdain for other werewolves who do not have the strength to chain the Shadow to their will. Taiwanese packs commonly include spirits enslaved to the pack's will, and even totems are treated less as respected equals and more as vassals or servants. The Bone Shadows continue to warn that a reckoning will yet come; but as each decade passes without sign of their forecast apocalypse, so does the scorn for the fifth Tribe rise amongst the Taiwanese.

===Philippines – The Spinner Hag's Bastion===
In many ways, Uratha in the Philippines have lives similar to werewolves elsewhere – though the boundaries of territories in the archipelago are often delineated by coastline and travel between islands can be tricky. The rising prosperity and development of the country has left Uratha with many of the same challenges and opportunities as in other nations. The Shadow across the Philippines, however, is in a ruinous state – and has been for millennia. By local lore, the Great Predator fought much of its battle with the Spinner Hag over what became these islands, and in many places the Gauntlet is still torn asunder by the mere echo of Wolf's claws and teeth. Worse, other patches of Gauntlet are thick and distended, shrouded in Azlo webs and said to contain oozing gobbets of the Hag's carcass. The Azlu are numerous and powerful here, and are no mere monstrous beasts – the Host spider-witches of the Philippines think and plan with an alien but clinically precise approach, their schemes spanning centuries. The poor state of the Gauntlet has also resulted in a much higher number of spirits crossing over into the Flesh, bizarre and unique forms of Claimed, and other entities born by the fusion of the two worlds. Repeated rumours bubble up that there are actually still areas of Pangaea itself hidden away, somehow saved from the Great Predator's death-howl. Unsurprisingly, the Hunters in Darkness lead the Forsaken here, and Filipino werewolves are said to be both particularly vigilant – or paranoid, by the less charitable – and particularly talented in the matter of wards and occult protections. The Philippines have long served as a destination for Hunter in Darkness pilgrimages – old and veteran Meninna from other countries, even far-off continents, have been known to 'retire' to this heart of Azlu power, and werewolves seeking lore and insights into the spider Hosts often seek out Filipino brethren for aid.

===Vietnam – The Harmonious Kings===
Early in the 20th Century, the Pure of Vietnam began to tip the scales against their Forsaken counterparts; they took advantage of the disruption and conflict that plagued the country until, after the US-Vietnam war and the fall of the South, the Fire-Touched and Predator Kings had near total domination of the unified country. The Forsaken of today, though, are having a comparatively easy time of it; the Pure are far more focused on warring with each other, and there are a number of powerful spirit nobles that have sided with the Forsaken in the wake of the Pure calling down horrific spirit-horrors from beyond Luna's orbit. The Predator Kings have split into two factions that battle one another with brutal ferocity, mainly due to the emergence of a radical, heretical Ninna Farakh Lodge called the Lan that has rapidly surged in converts. The Lan adhere to portions of Dire Wolf's philosophy, but are far more connected to humanity than their erstwhile comrades; the totem's ban makes it difficult for the Lan to work within society so they instead use a large cult of human and Wolf-Blooded go-betweens to sink their claws into Vietnam. Espousing a creed that the Predator Kings should adapt to the changing world and shepherd humanity to a harmonious union with the wild and the hunt, the Lan are largely uninterested in pursuing the Forsaken compared to destroying the Fire-Touched and converting or killing the rest of their Tribe. To the Forsaken, it all looks very much like the Predator Kings' penchant for savagery has finally turned inwards while the real Vietnam moves beyond their outmoded ways – but there are those who worry that the Harmonious Kings of the Lan are winning, and fear what may happen once they have done so. Some wonder if the Lan might be converted in turn to the Forsaken, but the Lodge has shown little interest in any Urdaga Creeds.

==New Material==

===New Rites===

'''Vex (Wolf Rite ●)''' 
This petty curse calls upon spirits of misfortune and malevolence to plague whoever has drawn the werewolf's ire. 
'''Symbols:''' Fire, venom, violence, the skill that is to be targeted. 
'''Cost:''' 1 Essence 
'''Action:''' Extended (5 successes; each roll represents 1 minute); resisted by the target's Composure. 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The Essence used to fuel this rite must come from a locus of hatred, pain, despair or decay. Additionally, the ritemaster must have a possession of the target, a nail clipping, a lock of hair or some other bodily substance from the intended victim. The ritemaster selects a single skill that will be cursed; thereafter, the first time the victim uses that skill in the following month, her result becomes a dramatic failure regardless of what she rolls. The ritemaster immediately knows when this happens. A character may only be the subject of a single vex at a time, and cannot be subjected again until the rite's month of duration has passed. 

'''Drain the Well (Pack Rite ●●●)''' 
This rite uses a locus to draw in its Resonance from the surrounding ar ea, draining the Shadow of Essence attuned to its nature. Paradoxically, this ensures the locus surges deep with Essence of that kind; if left untended, it will wash back out again stronger than before.
'''Symbols:''' Water, pain, piercing or draining, the Resonance type. 
'''Action:''' Extended (20 successes; each roll represents 10 minutes) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed at the site of a locus, draining Resonance into it. This has several effects: spirits and Uratha within 100 yards per dot of the rating of the Locus, or within the entire territory (whichever is larger), take the locus's rating as a penalty to all rolls for Influences that match its Resonance when outside its direct area. The Resonance is reduced in general, removing many incidents of the Resonant Condition across the affected region; draining a locus of pain would cause injuries and aches to inflict less pain, humans and animals will recover faster from harm and may simply not notice minor damage. This will have long-term effects on the Shadow and the material world. 
The ritemaster gains a persistent Ban Condition for the duration of the rite's effect, reflecting the Resonance of the locus; this Condition lifts when the rite ends. If the ritemaster ever violates the ban, the effects of the rite immediately end. If ended via ban violation, or if this rite is not performed on the locus again within a week of its duration ending, the locus becomes empowered for one month as if it were the subject of the Wellspring rite.

'''Shadow Signs (Pack Rite ●●●●)''' 
This rite may only be invoked on a territory that the ritemaster's pack has already sanctified with the Hunting Ground rite. It draws upon the secrets, the names and the flows of Essence that thread between the spirits of the territory's Shadow, revealing truths to the Uratha. 
'''Symbols:''' Writing or tattooing, wounds, whispers, the wind. 
'''Action:''' Extended (10 successes; each roll represents 1 minute) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month. 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed in the Shadow, within territory that the ritemaster's pack has placed the Hunting Ground rite upon. This causes that spot to become a nexus of information about the territory's Shadow. Over roughly a day, words and glyphs will carve themselves into the Shadow-stuff of an area roughly ten feet in radius, often oozing blood or ichor; these words spell out the names of powerful spirits in the area (Rank 3 and higher, as well as spirit nobles), indicate significant Shadow phenomena (like barrens, shoals, or an impending emotion-storm), and may also indicate other threats in the Shadow (such as warning of the warping spells that a Mage is using on the Hisil, or of a non-native monstrosity that has somehow breached the Gauntlet and is now marauding the spirits). The words update roughly every day, with old, bleeding warnings squirming aside for eruptions of fresh and oozing names as new, powerful spirits move in or a threat manifests itself. Any Uratha who reads the shadow signs gains a +3 bonus to locate or perceive spirits, entities or phenomena that they have seen the warnings or names of, while the rite lasts. However, picking key information out of the mass of glyphs and sigils is not necessarily straightforward.

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T13:00:12Z

Acrozatarim: /* Other Groups and Entities */

=Werewolf: the Forsaken - The Eater of Names=
A Werewolf: the Forsaken game set in Hong Kong.

==Hong Kong==

===Werewolf Oddities of Hong Kong===
*Something steals the First Change of the majority of nusuzul. At the moment of the Change, they have their newfound nature torn out of them by an unknown force, leaving them as normal humans suffering a psychotic break – even former Wolf-Blooded have their inheritance stripped from them at this moment.
*The territories of Hong Kong are a complete patchwork between the different factions. There are no solid battle lines between Pure and Forsaken, and the vertical nature of the urban landscape means that even a small scrap of land can be more than enough to patrol for most packs. The Shadow reflection of the city sees a spiritual ecosystem that is just as confused and turbulent.
*Due to the sheer population density and the patchwork nature of the territories, Hong Kong packs have strong traditions about hospitality and allowances for crossing another pack's turf – even between Pure and Forsaken.
*There are no Protectorates in Hong Kong. The closest to any sort of formal structure are the Five Great Packs – the Wen, Hou, Peng, Tang and Liao, formed from amongst the Uratha of the mortal clans of the area in 1899. The Great Packs are probably the largest and most influential of the city, but with respect comes responsibility, and they are expected to provide aid and guidance to other werewolves. These expectations, again, cross factional lines.
*Tribes and allegiances to Pure and Forsaken are important, but Hong Kong also plays host to a number of strange packs allied to neither faction, packs amongst foreign immigrant populations with odd practices and traditions, and a focus on Lodges. The sheer density of the city can make the patchwork of territories confusing and Tribes rarely organise on a wide scale, but Lodge connections matter and underpin much of the social fabric of Hong Kong.
*With so much movement in and out of Hong Kong, its transitional position in the world (geographically, politically and symbolically) and its possession of so many layers and shadows that even the werewolves cannot plumb them all, the city is a hotbed for weirdness and occult conspiracies. Yao guai and jiang shi slither through the darkness, hungry ghosts and watery shades prowl at the fringes, and now the forces of the dreaded Cull are preparing to assault the borders of the territory – something that has both Pure and Forsaken alike on edge.
*Local Uratha lore has it that, in some past age, Hong Kong was the site of a meeting between the Nine Dragons – held to be the eight Firstborn of the Pure and the Forsaken, and a last figure of disputed nature. Some believe it was one of the first Chinese emperors. It was this gathering of beings of incredible power that, it is claimed, is responsible for the strong currents of Essence that pour through the region's Shadow even today.
*The chenghuanshen, the city-spirit of Hong Kong, definitely exists – but its nature is not entirely clear. It may actually be a consciousness split across a number of powerful urban spirits, and seems quite capable of fighting with itself as much as any other spirit nobles of the region. Furthermore, it has a long-running feud with the spirits of the mountains and the peaks.

==The Blossom Society Pack==
History is important to the packs of Hong Kong, although knowledge of the past of the Forsaken is usually rather patchy:
*Most Kowloon Forsaken hark back to the '''Salt Eaters''', a pack that controlled much of the area in the middle of the second millenium.
*In the late 1800s, the third bubonic plague wracked China; as a result the '''Yellow-Feathered Owls''', a pack of Bone Shadows and Hunters in Darkness, controlled what is now Sham Shui Po.
*In 1899, territorial unrest with the five Chinese clans in the area resulted in the creation of the Five Great Packs; the original Cherry Gardens themselves were held by a daughter pack of the Wen, the '''White Jade''' pack.
*After the Japanese occupation, the predecessors of the Blossom Society took over the area. They were not opposed in doing so; the sheer damage done by the occupation had resulted in the deportation or deaths of most of the White Jade and their extended pack.

Of the pack's previous Uratha, the existing pack members may know of the following:
*''''Red Shroud'''' – Bone Shadow, formed pack in aftermath of Japanese occupation – famous for dealing with a terrifying plague of restless ghosts and widely venerated by Uratha across Hong Kong for her accomplishments.
*'''Wen Liang''' – Iron Master, powerful figure amongst the packs in the 60's and 70's, infamous for his involvement in the 1967 riots and his killing of a number of communist ringleaders. A name both respected and feared.
*'''Melissa Tsang''' – Blood Talon, took control of the Cherry Garden Night Market in the 80s by driving out the '''Sung-Ti''', a vicious yao guai and its Fire-Touched Pure followers.

The recent losses the pack has suffered are:
*'''James 'Steeljaw Trap' Liu''' – Hunter in Darkness Cahalith and member of the Lodge of Seven Venoms. Died five years ago fighting beshilu in the typhoon shelter; he sank a floating crane raft infested with Rat Hosts while he was still onboard.
*'''Gwok Mei''' – Bone Shadow Rahu and member of the Lodge of Death. Left two years ago in response to the Lodge calling a pilgrimage against the Cull in northern China. She has not been heard from since.
*'''Mark Callahan-Cheung''' – Iron Master shaman, local landlord and member of the Yau Tsim Mong district council. Died under strange circumstances one month before the game's beginning, which the pack had difficulties investigating due to Mark's public position as a councilman and the police and press interest in the case.

The totem of the pack is the '''Eight Lanterns Minister''', spirit of the Cherry Gardens Night Market. The minister appears in the form of a set of grandiose mandarin ministerial garb, threaded with lines of neon and jangling talismans of commerce, wrapped around a withered but strong frame. Its face is concealed behind a veil, but seems to emanate a gentle glow. Lanterns hang from a frame of lacquered wood that floats behind its shoulders; the colours of the lanterns often indicate the spirit's mood.

The Eight Lanterns Minister has served the pack as totem since the 1980s, its fortunes waxing and waning over that time. It is devious, smart and opportunistic. The Minister is a very lowly spirit noble, with a paltry court of lesser spirits of the market at its beck and call; it in turn is the vassal of the spirit noble of Temple Street Night Market, which has caused some friction with the Wen over the years.

===Werewolves===
*'''Red Lantern Widow, Bone Shadow Elodoth''', formerly wife of an up and coming politician until she killed him during her First Change. She uses his skull as a focus in her rites.
*'''Lucky Rat, Hunter in Darkness Rahu''', whose pest control company gives him an overwatch on Beshilu activity in the area. Possesses some anger issues.
*'''Wang Lee, Bone Shadow Irraka''', the youngest of the pack members and something of a street rat. Son of Wang Jing.
*'''Lao Min, newly-Changed Ithaeur''', straight-A's university student whose First Change was triggered by a manifestation of Death Wolf. Despite appearing as an embodiment of that Firstborn, she's leaning towards Red Wolf's Tribe.

===Wolf-Blooded===
*'''Zhongli Hu''' – 'Auntie' Hu is an elderly fortune-teller and seller of offerings and incense in the night market. She is also a Wolf-Blooded with the Piercing Eyes Tell. Hu was a little girl when Red Shroud ran these streets, claims to have been Wen Liang's mistress, and has certainly lived a storied life.
*'''Ko Lei''' runs the market's security, a sturdy man with a pock-marked face and a quick temper. Lei is a Wolf-Blooded with the Wolf's Meat Tell. He used to be a member of the 14K triad.
*'''Wang Jing''' – She owns and runs the Hive Bar, just outside the night market. She has the Skinner Tell, and has obviously been mentally scarred by some of what she has seen and done. The older pack members would only reference her past activities obliquely and refuse to give details. Some tension between her and her son.
*'''Zhao Bo''' – Widow's sister, who took a very different career path; she is a low-ranking financial auditor in Hong Kong's financial investigative body. Plagued by what she thought were psychiatric problems through her life, it was only since her sister Changed that she discovered the truth – the voices in her head were spirits. She is a Wolf-Blooded with the Waystone Tell.

===Humans===
*The exterminators of '''Yellow Kowloon Pest Control''' are the employees and associates of Arran's character. Working out of an office and storehouse in the territory, they're perhaps the most 'in the know' of all the humans about the supernatural, and they'd probably be hunters if they hadn't been brought under the wing of the pack. The company was briefly used as a front by a Rat Host, which is what drew the pack's attention.
*Several of the market's '''security guards''', Ko Lei's colleagues, are pack members. They know enough to understand that the pack have their back in keeping control of the Night Market, and they like to hang out with pack members to absorb some of the respect and fear that the werewolves are accorded.
*A half-dozen of the stall vendors are, like the security guards, pack members; they form the '''Mutual Activity Committee''' of the market, and the other shopkeepers know they're an 'inner circle' separate from the actual management (who are not pack members).
*'''Zhongli Zhuang''', or 'Uncle' Zhuang, is an old former Sun Yee On triad member and the husband of Auntie Hu. Despite his age, he still possesses a heavy frame; these days he sells occult tat and the like alongside his wife, but he also keeps an eye on the black market dealers in the area for the pack.
*'''Yi Kun''', owner of the Yi Healthy Wu Kwan (martial club), is a martial artist trainer who knows enough about the Uratha to understand their role as guardians of the area; he's had a few unpleasant run-ins over the years.

===Others===
*Michael Jin – a former manager of the Night Market, Michael died in the early 2000s in a horrific murder; a business rival with schemes on the property's future arranged for a construction 'accident' when a large block of concrete fell from scaffolding onto the man. Mister Jin was a client of the pack at the time, who were surprised by the lucidity his ghost retained after death. Michael is odd, fussy and obsessive, the broken remains of a personality clinging on to existence through his ties to the Night Market.

===The Totem - Eight Lanterns Minister (''Usufunsugal'' in the First Tongue)===
'''Rank 2 night market spirit''' 
'''Attributes:''' Power 2 Finesse 5 Resistance 2 
'''Willpower:''' 7 
'''Essence:''' 15 
'''Initiative:''' 7 
'''Defence:''' 2 
'''Speed:''' 10 
'''Size:''' 5 
'''Corpus:''' 7 
'''Influences:''' Wealth 1, Light 1 
'''Numina:''' Awe, Coin Curse*, Sign 
''Coin Curse – New Numina:'' The spirit may use this power on anyone it witnesses cheating in a trade, making a false deal or forcing a grievously unfair exchange, as long as money of some sort is involved. Coin Curse costs 1 Essence to use, and affects a coin, bank note, cheque or even money existing only as an electronic transfer. For as long as the character possesses that money in any way, they are affected by an increasingly unpleasant withering disease and the moderate Sick Tilt persistently; even if treated, it will return. Throwing or giving away the money ends the effect. 
'''Manifestations:''' Twilight Form, Gauntlet Breach, Materialise 
'''Ban:''' While the Cherry Gardens shrine of prosperity is damaged or desecrated, the Eight Lanterns Minister cannot leave the night market; if outside the market when the shrine is damaged, it is immediately called back. 
'''Bane:''' Glass from broken lights. 

==Cherry Gardens Market==

==Spirits and their Ilk==

===Lesser Spirits & Independents===
*The '''Crowdling''', a spirit of crowds that lairs around the Old Olympic MTR station. Carved the City Gift into Lucky Rat after being hunted in a chase that it greatly enjoyed.

===Nobles===
*'''Rotting Heart of Decay''', a lesser Ensih of urban decay and rot that held power over the run-down district of Bedford Rise. Granted boons by its liege, Crimson and White Agony, to let it better control the fief. Destroyed by the Blossom Society in a challenge for power and territory.
*'''Eight Lanterns Minister''', ruler of the Cherry Gardens Night Market.

===Servitors===
*'''Elders of Naga''', strange serpentine spirits of rock and bone. Follow in the wake of Death Wolf.

==The Five Great Packs==
The five pillars of Hong Kong Uratha society, born from agreements forged in 1899 alongside those made between the British colony and the local Chinese Punti clans, are called the Great Packs. Originally, each pack corresponded to the same mortal clan that it took the name of, but in the modern day there is no major link between the Punti clan families and the make-up of the pack in question. Most of the Great Packs are large, powerful and have two tiers amongst their Uratha members. The lower tier of 'nieces' and 'nephews' operate somewhat more like a conventional pack, but the upper tier of 'aunts' and 'uncles' are, oddly, less tightly bound together. The aunts and uncles are mentors, experts, revered elders and the like who focus more on their own matters, loosely connected to the other aunts and uncles but not necessarily very involved in the day-to-day running of the pack's assets. When an aunt or uncle asks for a service, the nephews and nieces are expected to snap to attention, but they are in turn expected not to abuse this authority to any great extent. Each Great Pack has a different system for providing more concrete leadership; the Hou select a single overall leader so that the other upper tier Uratha don't need to be bothered by petty concerns, while the Tang demand regular meetings of their aunts and uncles to ensure co-ordination.

The Great Packs are heavily tied into the occult fabric of Hong Kong, and possess considerable knowledge, influence and stockpiles of materials. A Lodge's leadership usually comes from Great Pack members. Each possesses an incredibly powerful totem spirit, but the nature of that relationship between pack and totem is closely guarded and outsiders suspect whatever agreement was signed in 1899 plays a heavy part.

The Five Great Packs are:
*'''The Wen – Yau Tsim Mong'''. Forsaken, mostly Hunters in Darkness and Iron Masters; their totem is the Serpent of Dreams and Bile, a spirit of incense, drugs and pollution. Known for their influence in shipping, narcotics, and their deep occult knowledge. The Wen have long been obsessed with hunting down the source of the Scourge, as they call the phenomenon that blights First Changes, and are known to truck with jiang shi, yao guai and other, stranger entities in their search for the truth.
*'''The Hou – Kwun Tong'''. Pure, Ivory Claws; their totem is Crimson and White Agony, a spirit of salt and pain. Known for their incredible ancestral and bloodline records, as well as their heavy involvement in Hong Kong politics and medical services. The Hou are seen as cruel, cold and clinical; few fates are worse than falling into the hands of a Hou torturer. The Hou claim to be the oldest and most legitimate of all the Five Great Packs, as unlike the other four the Hou already existed prior to 1899; Hou stories have it that they formed when the Punti migrated to Hong Kong in the 1200s, taking over the sacred mantle of an even older pack who were appointed by the Nine Dragons.
*'''The Peng – Hongkong Island'''. Pure, mostly Ivory Claws; their totem is the Thousand Roaring Eyes and Mouths, a spirit of water and destruction. Known for their wealth and the role they play as financial agents for Pure across the world, their foreign contacts and also their martial traditions. The Peng claim that Hong Kong is actually the site on which Wolf was slain by its treacherous children. They are known for undertaking lavish, extravagant rituals offering sacrifices to the spirits and the waters in penance, to which werewolves of all stripes are invited. Despite their outwards expressions of wealth and openness, they're also said to be a hotbed of internal scheming due to the influence of rival spirit lords.
*'''The Tang – Hongkong Island'''. Forsaken, mostly Bone Shadows and Storm Lords; their totem is the Pale Mandarin, a spirit of secrets, knowledge and fear. They are known for their information network and the dirt they're said to hold on every figure of note in Hong Kong, their knowledge of death and the Underworld, and their involvement in urban planning and development. Rumour has it that the Tang have successfully used occult geometries to create paths into the Deep Shadow. A few pieces of particularly bitter hearsay that refuse to die have it that the Tang take their marching orders from packs in Beijing.
*'''The Liao – New Territories'''. Forsaken, mostly Blood Talons; their totem is the Torn Banner, a spirit of change and violence. They are known for their fighting prowess, their trade and manufacture of spiritual goods (including fetishes and talens) and their connections to mainland China. The Liao are generally seen as the most traditionalist and conservative of the Five Great Packs, ironic given the nature of their totem and their own history; they were originally mostly Predator Kings, changing allegiance to the Forsaken via bloody infighting shortly after the Japanese occupation.

==Other Packs==
*'''The Sung-Ti – Mong Kok'''. The Sung-Ti are a largely Fire-Touched pack of Pure holding territory to the north-east of the pack – and they still nurse a grudge over the loss of Cherry Gardens to Melissa Tsang in the 80s. Pitching themselves as judges of certain sins, the Sung-Ti reputedly have significant involvement in both the criminal side of Kowloon and its charities.
*'''The Stone Lions – Various'''. The Stone Lions are mostly Hunters in Darkness who oversee the occult maintenance of Boundary Street, once the limit of Hong Kong. The Lions are a 'daughter pack' of the Liao; they are also rumoured to participate in various sinister rituals to maintain their power.
*'''The Eyeless – Sham Shui Po'''. The Eyeless are a strange and esoteric pack, believed to be a reclusive and likely heretical group of Forsaken. They generally avoid outside contact, but it is known that they pluck their own eyes out for some cultic purpose. Rumour links the Eyeless to the Japanese occupation, and those who would mock them call them the 'Nopera-Bo'.
*'''The Two Claw Society – Sham Shui Po'''. The Two Claw Society are a pack of Bone Shadows and Blood Talons known to be particularly vicious in defending their territory, but also respected as being highly honourable. The Two Claws was created to deal with a horrific Wound resulting from a Japanese concentration camp on their territory – a Wound that still exists despite the pack's best efforts.
*'''The Tsen-Kuang – Tsim Sha Tsui'''. A Pure pack on the south of the peninsula, known to be largely made up of Fire-Touched. The Tsen-Kuang have their claws firmly dug into the flow of migrants moving through Hong Kong, and are rumoured to cavort with Beshilu and other, even fouler denizens of the waterfronts. They are reputed to venerate an entity that they believe is responsible for stealing the Changes of nusuzul in Hong Kong; the Tsen-Kuang believe it to be a judge that weeds out those who are not worthy.

==Other Groups and Entities==

===14K Triad===

*'''Hom Wie, Hive-Claimed'''. Rumoured to be a Taoist sorcerer and feared by the lower ranks of the Triad for his brutality and twisted appearance. Hom Wie has some sort of link or connection to Wang Jing from the past, sufficiently strong to warn her of a forthcoming Triad war.

===Taotie===
Also known as the 'gluttonous ogres', taotie are very powerful entities of hunger that have been bound into ceramic masks and pottery. The mortal wielder of a taotie gains monstrous physical strength, the ability to cross the Gauntlet, and the ability to take the internal organs of a victim and place them within his or her own body. In return for this power, the taotie demands the sacrifice of the mortal wielder's own internal organs to feed its hunger. Manifesting its powers causes the taotie to drain a vast amount of Essence from the nearby ''Hisil'', often catastrophically for weaker spirits in the vicinity.

==Beyond Hong Kong==

===Macau – The Zealous Warlord's Domain===
Often referred to as the 'darker sibling' by Hong Kong Uratha, Macau has a sinister reputation amongst werewolves – even despite it being a Forsaken stronghold. Beneath its seemingly placid surface, Macau is a place of nightmares. From 1966 onwards, the notorious Blood Talon warlord 'Silver Claw' Yin fought a sustained and bloody campaign against the Pure, claiming to have been given divine visions by the Moon and instructions from the Lunes. After just ten years, the last Pure were annihilated or driven out of the city. In 1987, however, the Pure attempted to return. In the three decades since, Macau has seen repeated attacks by the Pure, particularly under the leadership of the Fire-Touched sibling Elders Sheu-Fuh and Shunyan, although they have not yet regained a foothold for more than a few months at a time. Its occult landscape is a mess, scarred by brutality, madness and the mostly-unchecked spiritual off-flow of the mass of humanity crammed into the region. Other things have also been drawn in or caught up by the violence; it is said there is an alchemist amongst the Iron Masters of Macau who knows how to render sorcerers down for their power, while both Bone Shadows and Ivory Claws are said to have some means of producing vampires which they use as disposable agents and killers in their shadow war. Both Destroyer Wolf and Red Wolf are said to have taken an active interest in events in Macau since the 60s, but there is a much, much older shrine to Red Wolf in the city that the Forsaken defend fanatically – some rumours allege it is Pangaean in origin. For now, Yin continues to rule her Protectorate with an iron fist.

===Shenzen – The City Without History===
Shenzen is a mirror of Hong Kong's success story – a busy port, major financial centre and huge city butting against its northern border. Shenzen exploded from a small town in the 80s to the urban behemoth of today, and the the Uratha of the province know full well its growth was down to more than just the PRC labelling it a Special Economic Zone. Something has long been awry with the very fabric of reality in Shenzen and someone, or something, caused the expansion of the city by stealing it from a history that never happened, a Shenzen that never was, and overlaying it into this world. The layout of the city possesses innumerable minor pieces of occult geometry, coming together into some sort of vast chronal siphon that forces this reality to match the Other Shenzen. For years, the 'city without history' and the time spirits that flock there served as a major attraction for Uratha seers and secret-seekers of both Pure and Forsaken, with bitter fighting breaking out across its prime territories, but the Cull have moved in in recent years – and established a major Deep Shadow monastery as a bastion. Now this major land route into Hong Kong is threatened, the Cull bringing in more adherents as the months progress and the Uratha of the City of Nine Dragons watching uneasily from over the border. Word has it that the Thousand Steel Teeth are gathering their own war parties, determined to defend their supply lines that run through Hong Kong and Shenzen out into the wider world. The new city of Shenzen may be about to become a battleground for a particularly vicious phase of the war with the Cull.

===Guangdong – Riches Worth Fighting For===
The province of Guangdong may be a large and prosperous region, but for the Forsaken of the area it is perhaps most characterised by its river spirits. Threading down to the Pearl River Delta, these spirits are probably the most organised, widespread and outright hostile court of Guangdong; the feud dates back to the battle of Yamen in 1279. Defeating and subjugating the local river spirits is an ongoing struggle, not at all helped by the Pure's own alliance with the River King. Despite this hostility, there is much for the Forsaken to covet here – the wealth of the human population and the uncommonly high number of wellsprings of Essence. Guangdong has a great abundance of sites that naturally form talens, rich loci of rare Resonances, and unusual qualities to the Shadow that make certain rites – such as those that craft fetishes – easier to work than elsewhere. The Claimed are a particular threat across the province, and the Storm Lords have traditionally been very powerful here; there are several Tribal bastions where the Iminir protect ancient artefacts and relics that are the destination of pilgrims from across the globe. The Storm Lords of Guangdong have a highly organised Tribal structure that crosses throughout the packs and Protectorates of the province, leading up to an elected gong whose task is to tend to the ancient, revered Tribal elder known as the Zongshi – a near-mythical figure amongst the Forsaken, said to alternate between sleeping in a Storm Lord fastness and prowling the Deep Shadow for the most terrifying of prey. Guangdong regularly sees the conflict between Forsaken and Pure flare into open and brutal warfare, but these periods are almost always short – usually a year or two at most before things lapse once again, agreements are made and lines redrawn. The recent arrival of sects of the Cull from the west and north, however, threatens to upset that balance.

===Taiwan – Tyrants of the Earth===
Taiwan's Shadow was once ruled by the spirits of the mountains and the grumbling, shifting earth – but around two centuries ago, the Forsaken of the island undertook a great and mighty binding on the lords of rock and stone to chain them with fetters of symbolism. This caused a great rift amongst the Taiwanese Tribes, with the Bone Shadows breaking off to form their own separate faction, condemning the act as one of hubris that would only serve to harm Shadow and Flesh alike. For two centuries now, the bindings have mostly held – but when they weaken or shift, the furious spirits of the earth vent their rage on the world. Even today, the Bone Shadows remain separate to the other Forsaken and have, as the years turn, formed a distinct identity from Hirfathra Hissu elsewhere as well. The Predator Kings have long sought to unmake the chains that bind the mountain spirits and once formed the bulk of the Pure numbers in Taiwan, but since the Chinese Civil War the other two Pure Tribes have made significant inroads into what was once almost entirely under Forsaken control. Today, Taiwanese Uratha are renowned for their mastery of rites and the binding of spirits, but often considered prideful and arrogant in their disdain for other werewolves who do not have the strength to chain the Shadow to their will. Taiwanese packs commonly include spirits enslaved to the pack's will, and even totems are treated less as respected equals and more as vassals or servants. The Bone Shadows continue to warn that a reckoning will yet come; but as each decade passes without sign of their forecast apocalypse, so does the scorn for the fifth Tribe rise amongst the Taiwanese.

===Philippines – The Spinner Hag's Bastion===
In many ways, Uratha in the Philippines have lives similar to werewolves elsewhere – though the boundaries of territories in the archipelago are often delineated by coastline and travel between islands can be tricky. The rising prosperity and development of the country has left Uratha with many of the same challenges and opportunities as in other nations. The Shadow across the Philippines, however, is in a ruinous state – and has been for millennia. By local lore, the Great Predator fought much of its battle with the Spinner Hag over what became these islands, and in many places the Gauntlet is still torn asunder by the mere echo of Wolf's claws and teeth. Worse, other patches of Gauntlet are thick and distended, shrouded in Azlo webs and said to contain oozing gobbets of the Hag's carcass. The Azlu are numerous and powerful here, and are no mere monstrous beasts – the Host spider-witches of the Philippines think and plan with an alien but clinically precise approach, their schemes spanning centuries. The poor state of the Gauntlet has also resulted in a much higher number of spirits crossing over into the Flesh, bizarre and unique forms of Claimed, and other entities born by the fusion of the two worlds. Repeated rumours bubble up that there are actually still areas of Pangaea itself hidden away, somehow saved from the Great Predator's death-howl. Unsurprisingly, the Hunters in Darkness lead the Forsaken here, and Filipino werewolves are said to be both particularly vigilant – or paranoid, by the less charitable – and particularly talented in the matter of wards and occult protections. The Philippines have long served as a destination for Hunter in Darkness pilgrimages – old and veteran Meninna from other countries, even far-off continents, have been known to 'retire' to this heart of Azlu power, and werewolves seeking lore and insights into the spider Hosts often seek out Filipino brethren for aid.

===Vietnam – The Harmonious Kings===
Early in the 20th Century, the Pure of Vietnam began to tip the scales against their Forsaken counterparts; they took advantage of the disruption and conflict that plagued the country until, after the US-Vietnam war and the fall of the South, the Fire-Touched and Predator Kings had near total domination of the unified country. The Forsaken of today, though, are having a comparatively easy time of it; the Pure are far more focused on warring with each other, and there are a number of powerful spirit nobles that have sided with the Forsaken in the wake of the Pure calling down horrific spirit-horrors from beyond Luna's orbit. The Predator Kings have split into two factions that battle one another with brutal ferocity, mainly due to the emergence of a radical, heretical Ninna Farakh Lodge called the Lan that has rapidly surged in converts. The Lan adhere to portions of Dire Wolf's philosophy, but are far more connected to humanity than their erstwhile comrades; the totem's ban makes it difficult for the Lan to work within society so they instead use a large cult of human and Wolf-Blooded go-betweens to sink their claws into Vietnam. Espousing a creed that the Predator Kings should adapt to the changing world and shepherd humanity to a harmonious union with the wild and the hunt, the Lan are largely uninterested in pursuing the Forsaken compared to destroying the Fire-Touched and converting or killing the rest of their Tribe. To the Forsaken, it all looks very much like the Predator Kings' penchant for savagery has finally turned inwards while the real Vietnam moves beyond their outmoded ways – but there are those who worry that the Harmonious Kings of the Lan are winning, and fear what may happen once they have done so. Some wonder if the Lan might be converted in turn to the Forsaken, but the Lodge has shown little interest in any Urdaga Creeds.

==New Material==

===New Rite===

'''Vex (Wolf Rite ●)''' 
This petty curse calls upon spirits of misfortune and malevolence to plague whoever has drawn the werewolf's ire. 
'''Symbols:''' Fire, venom, violence, the skill that is to be targeted. 
'''Cost:''' 1 Essence 
'''Action:''' Extended (5 successes; each roll represents 1 minute); resisted by the target's Composure. 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The Essence used to fuel this rite must come from a locus of hatred, pain, despair or decay. Additionally, the ritemaster must have a possession of the target, a nail clipping, a lock of hair or some other bodily substance from the intended victim. The ritemaster selects a single skill that will be cursed; thereafter, the first time the victim uses that skill in the following month, her result becomes a dramatic failure regardless of what she rolls. The ritemaster immediately knows when this happens. A character may only be the subject of a single vex at a time, and cannot be subjected again until the rite's month of duration has passed. 

'''Drain the Well (Pack Rite ●●●)''' 
This rite uses a locus to draw in its Resonance from the surrounding ar ea, draining the Shadow of Essence attuned to its nature. Paradoxically, this ensures the locus surges deep with Essence of that kind; if left untended, it will wash back out again stronger than before.
'''Symbols:''' Water, pain, piercing or draining, the Resonance type. 
'''Action:''' Extended (20 successes; each roll represents 10 minutes) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed at the site of a locus, draining Resonance into it. This has several effects: spirits and Uratha within 100 yards per dot of the rating of the Locus, or within the entire territory (whichever is larger), take the locus's rating as a penalty to all rolls for Influences that match its Resonance when outside its direct area. The Resonance is reduced in general, removing many incidents of the Resonant Condition across the affected region; draining a locus of pain would cause injuries and aches to inflict less pain, humans and animals will recover faster from harm and may simply not notice minor damage. This will have long-term effects on the Shadow and the material world. 
The ritemaster gains a persistent Ban Condition for the duration of the rite's effect, reflecting the Resonance of the locus; this Condition lifts when the rite ends. If the ritemaster ever violates the ban, the effects of the rite immediately end. If ended via ban violation, or if this rite is not performed on the locus again within a week of its duration ending, the locus becomes empowered for one month as if it were the subject of the Wellspring rite.

'''Shadow Signs (Pack Rite ●●●●)''' 
This rite may only be invoked on a territory that the ritemaster's pack has already sanctified with the Hunting Ground rite. It draws upon the secrets, the names and the flows of Essence that thread between the spirits of the territory's Shadow, revealing truths to the Uratha. 
'''Symbols:''' Writing or tattooing, wounds, whispers, the wind. 
'''Action:''' Extended (10 successes; each roll represents 1 minute) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month. 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed in the Shadow, within territory that the ritemaster's pack has placed the Hunting Ground rite upon. This causes that spot to become a nexus of information about the territory's Shadow. Over roughly a day, words and glyphs will carve themselves into the Shadow-stuff of an area roughly ten feet in radius, often oozing blood or ichor; these words spell out the names of powerful spirits in the area (Rank 3 and higher, as well as spirit nobles), indicate significant Shadow phenomena (like barrens, shoals, or an impending emotion-storm), and may also indicate other threats in the Shadow (such as warning of the warping spells that a Mage is using on the Hisil, or of a non-native monstrosity that has somehow breached the Gauntlet and is now marauding the spirits). The words update roughly every day, with old, bleeding warnings squirming aside for eruptions of fresh and oozing names as new, powerful spirits move in or a threat manifests itself. Any Uratha who reads the shadow signs gains a +3 bonus to locate or perceive spirits, entities or phenomena that they have seen the warnings or names of, while the rite lasts. However, picking key information out of the mass of glyphs and sigils is not necessarily straightforward.

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T12:55:04Z

Acrozatarim:

=Werewolf: the Forsaken - The Eater of Names=
A Werewolf: the Forsaken game set in Hong Kong.

==Hong Kong==

===Werewolf Oddities of Hong Kong===
*Something steals the First Change of the majority of nusuzul. At the moment of the Change, they have their newfound nature torn out of them by an unknown force, leaving them as normal humans suffering a psychotic break – even former Wolf-Blooded have their inheritance stripped from them at this moment.
*The territories of Hong Kong are a complete patchwork between the different factions. There are no solid battle lines between Pure and Forsaken, and the vertical nature of the urban landscape means that even a small scrap of land can be more than enough to patrol for most packs. The Shadow reflection of the city sees a spiritual ecosystem that is just as confused and turbulent.
*Due to the sheer population density and the patchwork nature of the territories, Hong Kong packs have strong traditions about hospitality and allowances for crossing another pack's turf – even between Pure and Forsaken.
*There are no Protectorates in Hong Kong. The closest to any sort of formal structure are the Five Great Packs – the Wen, Hou, Peng, Tang and Liao, formed from amongst the Uratha of the mortal clans of the area in 1899. The Great Packs are probably the largest and most influential of the city, but with respect comes responsibility, and they are expected to provide aid and guidance to other werewolves. These expectations, again, cross factional lines.
*Tribes and allegiances to Pure and Forsaken are important, but Hong Kong also plays host to a number of strange packs allied to neither faction, packs amongst foreign immigrant populations with odd practices and traditions, and a focus on Lodges. The sheer density of the city can make the patchwork of territories confusing and Tribes rarely organise on a wide scale, but Lodge connections matter and underpin much of the social fabric of Hong Kong.
*With so much movement in and out of Hong Kong, its transitional position in the world (geographically, politically and symbolically) and its possession of so many layers and shadows that even the werewolves cannot plumb them all, the city is a hotbed for weirdness and occult conspiracies. Yao guai and jiang shi slither through the darkness, hungry ghosts and watery shades prowl at the fringes, and now the forces of the dreaded Cull are preparing to assault the borders of the territory – something that has both Pure and Forsaken alike on edge.
*Local Uratha lore has it that, in some past age, Hong Kong was the site of a meeting between the Nine Dragons – held to be the eight Firstborn of the Pure and the Forsaken, and a last figure of disputed nature. Some believe it was one of the first Chinese emperors. It was this gathering of beings of incredible power that, it is claimed, is responsible for the strong currents of Essence that pour through the region's Shadow even today.
*The chenghuanshen, the city-spirit of Hong Kong, definitely exists – but its nature is not entirely clear. It may actually be a consciousness split across a number of powerful urban spirits, and seems quite capable of fighting with itself as much as any other spirit nobles of the region. Furthermore, it has a long-running feud with the spirits of the mountains and the peaks.

==The Blossom Society Pack==
History is important to the packs of Hong Kong, although knowledge of the past of the Forsaken is usually rather patchy:
*Most Kowloon Forsaken hark back to the '''Salt Eaters''', a pack that controlled much of the area in the middle of the second millenium.
*In the late 1800s, the third bubonic plague wracked China; as a result the '''Yellow-Feathered Owls''', a pack of Bone Shadows and Hunters in Darkness, controlled what is now Sham Shui Po.
*In 1899, territorial unrest with the five Chinese clans in the area resulted in the creation of the Five Great Packs; the original Cherry Gardens themselves were held by a daughter pack of the Wen, the '''White Jade''' pack.
*After the Japanese occupation, the predecessors of the Blossom Society took over the area. They were not opposed in doing so; the sheer damage done by the occupation had resulted in the deportation or deaths of most of the White Jade and their extended pack.

Of the pack's previous Uratha, the existing pack members may know of the following:
*''''Red Shroud'''' – Bone Shadow, formed pack in aftermath of Japanese occupation – famous for dealing with a terrifying plague of restless ghosts and widely venerated by Uratha across Hong Kong for her accomplishments.
*'''Wen Liang''' – Iron Master, powerful figure amongst the packs in the 60's and 70's, infamous for his involvement in the 1967 riots and his killing of a number of communist ringleaders. A name both respected and feared.
*'''Melissa Tsang''' – Blood Talon, took control of the Cherry Garden Night Market in the 80s by driving out the '''Sung-Ti''', a vicious yao guai and its Fire-Touched Pure followers.

The recent losses the pack has suffered are:
*'''James 'Steeljaw Trap' Liu''' – Hunter in Darkness Cahalith and member of the Lodge of Seven Venoms. Died five years ago fighting beshilu in the typhoon shelter; he sank a floating crane raft infested with Rat Hosts while he was still onboard.
*'''Gwok Mei''' – Bone Shadow Rahu and member of the Lodge of Death. Left two years ago in response to the Lodge calling a pilgrimage against the Cull in northern China. She has not been heard from since.
*'''Mark Callahan-Cheung''' – Iron Master shaman, local landlord and member of the Yau Tsim Mong district council. Died under strange circumstances one month before the game's beginning, which the pack had difficulties investigating due to Mark's public position as a councilman and the police and press interest in the case.

The totem of the pack is the '''Eight Lanterns Minister''', spirit of the Cherry Gardens Night Market. The minister appears in the form of a set of grandiose mandarin ministerial garb, threaded with lines of neon and jangling talismans of commerce, wrapped around a withered but strong frame. Its face is concealed behind a veil, but seems to emanate a gentle glow. Lanterns hang from a frame of lacquered wood that floats behind its shoulders; the colours of the lanterns often indicate the spirit's mood.

The Eight Lanterns Minister has served the pack as totem since the 1980s, its fortunes waxing and waning over that time. It is devious, smart and opportunistic. The Minister is a very lowly spirit noble, with a paltry court of lesser spirits of the market at its beck and call; it in turn is the vassal of the spirit noble of Temple Street Night Market, which has caused some friction with the Wen over the years.

===Werewolves===
*'''Red Lantern Widow, Bone Shadow Elodoth''', formerly wife of an up and coming politician until she killed him during her First Change. She uses his skull as a focus in her rites.
*'''Lucky Rat, Hunter in Darkness Rahu''', whose pest control company gives him an overwatch on Beshilu activity in the area. Possesses some anger issues.
*'''Wang Lee, Bone Shadow Irraka''', the youngest of the pack members and something of a street rat. Son of Wang Jing.
*'''Lao Min, newly-Changed Ithaeur''', straight-A's university student whose First Change was triggered by a manifestation of Death Wolf. Despite appearing as an embodiment of that Firstborn, she's leaning towards Red Wolf's Tribe.

===Wolf-Blooded===
*'''Zhongli Hu''' – 'Auntie' Hu is an elderly fortune-teller and seller of offerings and incense in the night market. She is also a Wolf-Blooded with the Piercing Eyes Tell. Hu was a little girl when Red Shroud ran these streets, claims to have been Wen Liang's mistress, and has certainly lived a storied life.
*'''Ko Lei''' runs the market's security, a sturdy man with a pock-marked face and a quick temper. Lei is a Wolf-Blooded with the Wolf's Meat Tell. He used to be a member of the 14K triad.
*'''Wang Jing''' – She owns and runs the Hive Bar, just outside the night market. She has the Skinner Tell, and has obviously been mentally scarred by some of what she has seen and done. The older pack members would only reference her past activities obliquely and refuse to give details. Some tension between her and her son.
*'''Zhao Bo''' – Widow's sister, who took a very different career path; she is a low-ranking financial auditor in Hong Kong's financial investigative body. Plagued by what she thought were psychiatric problems through her life, it was only since her sister Changed that she discovered the truth – the voices in her head were spirits. She is a Wolf-Blooded with the Waystone Tell.

===Humans===
*The exterminators of '''Yellow Kowloon Pest Control''' are the employees and associates of Arran's character. Working out of an office and storehouse in the territory, they're perhaps the most 'in the know' of all the humans about the supernatural, and they'd probably be hunters if they hadn't been brought under the wing of the pack. The company was briefly used as a front by a Rat Host, which is what drew the pack's attention.
*Several of the market's '''security guards''', Ko Lei's colleagues, are pack members. They know enough to understand that the pack have their back in keeping control of the Night Market, and they like to hang out with pack members to absorb some of the respect and fear that the werewolves are accorded.
*A half-dozen of the stall vendors are, like the security guards, pack members; they form the '''Mutual Activity Committee''' of the market, and the other shopkeepers know they're an 'inner circle' separate from the actual management (who are not pack members).
*'''Zhongli Zhuang''', or 'Uncle' Zhuang, is an old former Sun Yee On triad member and the husband of Auntie Hu. Despite his age, he still possesses a heavy frame; these days he sells occult tat and the like alongside his wife, but he also keeps an eye on the black market dealers in the area for the pack.
*'''Yi Kun''', owner of the Yi Healthy Wu Kwan (martial club), is a martial artist trainer who knows enough about the Uratha to understand their role as guardians of the area; he's had a few unpleasant run-ins over the years.

===Others===
*Michael Jin – a former manager of the Night Market, Michael died in the early 2000s in a horrific murder; a business rival with schemes on the property's future arranged for a construction 'accident' when a large block of concrete fell from scaffolding onto the man. Mister Jin was a client of the pack at the time, who were surprised by the lucidity his ghost retained after death. Michael is odd, fussy and obsessive, the broken remains of a personality clinging on to existence through his ties to the Night Market.

===The Totem - Eight Lanterns Minister (''Usufunsugal'' in the First Tongue)===
'''Rank 2 night market spirit''' 
'''Attributes:''' Power 2 Finesse 5 Resistance 2 
'''Willpower:''' 7 
'''Essence:''' 15 
'''Initiative:''' 7 
'''Defence:''' 2 
'''Speed:''' 10 
'''Size:''' 5 
'''Corpus:''' 7 
'''Influences:''' Wealth 1, Light 1 
'''Numina:''' Awe, Coin Curse*, Sign 
''Coin Curse – New Numina:'' The spirit may use this power on anyone it witnesses cheating in a trade, making a false deal or forcing a grievously unfair exchange, as long as money of some sort is involved. Coin Curse costs 1 Essence to use, and affects a coin, bank note, cheque or even money existing only as an electronic transfer. For as long as the character possesses that money in any way, they are affected by an increasingly unpleasant withering disease and the moderate Sick Tilt persistently; even if treated, it will return. Throwing or giving away the money ends the effect. 
'''Manifestations:''' Twilight Form, Gauntlet Breach, Materialise 
'''Ban:''' While the Cherry Gardens shrine of prosperity is damaged or desecrated, the Eight Lanterns Minister cannot leave the night market; if outside the market when the shrine is damaged, it is immediately called back. 
'''Bane:''' Glass from broken lights. 

==Cherry Gardens Market==

==Spirits and their Ilk==

===Lesser Spirits & Independents===
*The '''Crowdling''', a spirit of crowds that lairs around the Old Olympic MTR station. Carved the City Gift into Lucky Rat after being hunted in a chase that it greatly enjoyed.

===Nobles===
*'''Rotting Heart of Decay''', a lesser Ensih of urban decay and rot that held power over the run-down district of Bedford Rise. Granted boons by its liege, Crimson and White Agony, to let it better control the fief. Destroyed by the Blossom Society in a challenge for power and territory.
*'''Eight Lanterns Minister''', ruler of the Cherry Gardens Night Market.

===Servitors===
*'''Elders of Naga''', strange serpentine spirits of rock and bone. Follow in the wake of Death Wolf.

==The Five Great Packs==
The five pillars of Hong Kong Uratha society, born from agreements forged in 1899 alongside those made between the British colony and the local Chinese Punti clans, are called the Great Packs. Originally, each pack corresponded to the same mortal clan that it took the name of, but in the modern day there is no major link between the Punti clan families and the make-up of the pack in question. Most of the Great Packs are large, powerful and have two tiers amongst their Uratha members. The lower tier of 'nieces' and 'nephews' operate somewhat more like a conventional pack, but the upper tier of 'aunts' and 'uncles' are, oddly, less tightly bound together. The aunts and uncles are mentors, experts, revered elders and the like who focus more on their own matters, loosely connected to the other aunts and uncles but not necessarily very involved in the day-to-day running of the pack's assets. When an aunt or uncle asks for a service, the nephews and nieces are expected to snap to attention, but they are in turn expected not to abuse this authority to any great extent. Each Great Pack has a different system for providing more concrete leadership; the Hou select a single overall leader so that the other upper tier Uratha don't need to be bothered by petty concerns, while the Tang demand regular meetings of their aunts and uncles to ensure co-ordination.

The Great Packs are heavily tied into the occult fabric of Hong Kong, and possess considerable knowledge, influence and stockpiles of materials. A Lodge's leadership usually comes from Great Pack members. Each possesses an incredibly powerful totem spirit, but the nature of that relationship between pack and totem is closely guarded and outsiders suspect whatever agreement was signed in 1899 plays a heavy part.

The Five Great Packs are:
*'''The Wen – Yau Tsim Mong'''. Forsaken, mostly Hunters in Darkness and Iron Masters; their totem is the Serpent of Dreams and Bile, a spirit of incense, drugs and pollution. Known for their influence in shipping, narcotics, and their deep occult knowledge. The Wen have long been obsessed with hunting down the source of the Scourge, as they call the phenomenon that blights First Changes, and are known to truck with jiang shi, yao guai and other, stranger entities in their search for the truth.
*'''The Hou – Kwun Tong'''. Pure, Ivory Claws; their totem is Crimson and White Agony, a spirit of salt and pain. Known for their incredible ancestral and bloodline records, as well as their heavy involvement in Hong Kong politics and medical services. The Hou are seen as cruel, cold and clinical; few fates are worse than falling into the hands of a Hou torturer. The Hou claim to be the oldest and most legitimate of all the Five Great Packs, as unlike the other four the Hou already existed prior to 1899; Hou stories have it that they formed when the Punti migrated to Hong Kong in the 1200s, taking over the sacred mantle of an even older pack who were appointed by the Nine Dragons.
*'''The Peng – Hongkong Island'''. Pure, mostly Ivory Claws; their totem is the Thousand Roaring Eyes and Mouths, a spirit of water and destruction. Known for their wealth and the role they play as financial agents for Pure across the world, their foreign contacts and also their martial traditions. The Peng claim that Hong Kong is actually the site on which Wolf was slain by its treacherous children. They are known for undertaking lavish, extravagant rituals offering sacrifices to the spirits and the waters in penance, to which werewolves of all stripes are invited. Despite their outwards expressions of wealth and openness, they're also said to be a hotbed of internal scheming due to the influence of rival spirit lords.
*'''The Tang – Hongkong Island'''. Forsaken, mostly Bone Shadows and Storm Lords; their totem is the Pale Mandarin, a spirit of secrets, knowledge and fear. They are known for their information network and the dirt they're said to hold on every figure of note in Hong Kong, their knowledge of death and the Underworld, and their involvement in urban planning and development. Rumour has it that the Tang have successfully used occult geometries to create paths into the Deep Shadow. A few pieces of particularly bitter hearsay that refuse to die have it that the Tang take their marching orders from packs in Beijing.
*'''The Liao – New Territories'''. Forsaken, mostly Blood Talons; their totem is the Torn Banner, a spirit of change and violence. They are known for their fighting prowess, their trade and manufacture of spiritual goods (including fetishes and talens) and their connections to mainland China. The Liao are generally seen as the most traditionalist and conservative of the Five Great Packs, ironic given the nature of their totem and their own history; they were originally mostly Predator Kings, changing allegiance to the Forsaken via bloody infighting shortly after the Japanese occupation.

==Other Packs==
*'''The Sung-Ti – Mong Kok'''. The Sung-Ti are a largely Fire-Touched pack of Pure holding territory to the north-east of the pack – and they still nurse a grudge over the loss of Cherry Gardens to Melissa Tsang in the 80s. Pitching themselves as judges of certain sins, the Sung-Ti reputedly have significant involvement in both the criminal side of Kowloon and its charities.
*'''The Stone Lions – Various'''. The Stone Lions are mostly Hunters in Darkness who oversee the occult maintenance of Boundary Street, once the limit of Hong Kong. The Lions are a 'daughter pack' of the Liao; they are also rumoured to participate in various sinister rituals to maintain their power.
*'''The Eyeless – Sham Shui Po'''. The Eyeless are a strange and esoteric pack, believed to be a reclusive and likely heretical group of Forsaken. They generally avoid outside contact, but it is known that they pluck their own eyes out for some cultic purpose. Rumour links the Eyeless to the Japanese occupation, and those who would mock them call them the 'Nopera-Bo'.
*'''The Two Claw Society – Sham Shui Po'''. The Two Claw Society are a pack of Bone Shadows and Blood Talons known to be particularly vicious in defending their territory, but also respected as being highly honourable. The Two Claws was created to deal with a horrific Wound resulting from a Japanese concentration camp on their territory – a Wound that still exists despite the pack's best efforts.
*'''The Tsen-Kuang – Tsim Sha Tsui'''. A Pure pack on the south of the peninsula, known to be largely made up of Fire-Touched. The Tsen-Kuang have their claws firmly dug into the flow of migrants moving through Hong Kong, and are rumoured to cavort with Beshilu and other, even fouler denizens of the waterfronts. They are reputed to venerate an entity that they believe is responsible for stealing the Changes of nusuzul in Hong Kong; the Tsen-Kuang believe it to be a judge that weeds out those who are not worthy.

==Other Groups and Entities==

==Beyond Hong Kong==

===Macau – The Zealous Warlord's Domain===
Often referred to as the 'darker sibling' by Hong Kong Uratha, Macau has a sinister reputation amongst werewolves – even despite it being a Forsaken stronghold. Beneath its seemingly placid surface, Macau is a place of nightmares. From 1966 onwards, the notorious Blood Talon warlord 'Silver Claw' Yin fought a sustained and bloody campaign against the Pure, claiming to have been given divine visions by the Moon and instructions from the Lunes. After just ten years, the last Pure were annihilated or driven out of the city. In 1987, however, the Pure attempted to return. In the three decades since, Macau has seen repeated attacks by the Pure, particularly under the leadership of the Fire-Touched sibling Elders Sheu-Fuh and Shunyan, although they have not yet regained a foothold for more than a few months at a time. Its occult landscape is a mess, scarred by brutality, madness and the mostly-unchecked spiritual off-flow of the mass of humanity crammed into the region. Other things have also been drawn in or caught up by the violence; it is said there is an alchemist amongst the Iron Masters of Macau who knows how to render sorcerers down for their power, while both Bone Shadows and Ivory Claws are said to have some means of producing vampires which they use as disposable agents and killers in their shadow war. Both Destroyer Wolf and Red Wolf are said to have taken an active interest in events in Macau since the 60s, but there is a much, much older shrine to Red Wolf in the city that the Forsaken defend fanatically – some rumours allege it is Pangaean in origin. For now, Yin continues to rule her Protectorate with an iron fist.

===Shenzen – The City Without History===
Shenzen is a mirror of Hong Kong's success story – a busy port, major financial centre and huge city butting against its northern border. Shenzen exploded from a small town in the 80s to the urban behemoth of today, and the the Uratha of the province know full well its growth was down to more than just the PRC labelling it a Special Economic Zone. Something has long been awry with the very fabric of reality in Shenzen and someone, or something, caused the expansion of the city by stealing it from a history that never happened, a Shenzen that never was, and overlaying it into this world. The layout of the city possesses innumerable minor pieces of occult geometry, coming together into some sort of vast chronal siphon that forces this reality to match the Other Shenzen. For years, the 'city without history' and the time spirits that flock there served as a major attraction for Uratha seers and secret-seekers of both Pure and Forsaken, with bitter fighting breaking out across its prime territories, but the Cull have moved in in recent years – and established a major Deep Shadow monastery as a bastion. Now this major land route into Hong Kong is threatened, the Cull bringing in more adherents as the months progress and the Uratha of the City of Nine Dragons watching uneasily from over the border. Word has it that the Thousand Steel Teeth are gathering their own war parties, determined to defend their supply lines that run through Hong Kong and Shenzen out into the wider world. The new city of Shenzen may be about to become a battleground for a particularly vicious phase of the war with the Cull.

===Guangdong – Riches Worth Fighting For===
The province of Guangdong may be a large and prosperous region, but for the Forsaken of the area it is perhaps most characterised by its river spirits. Threading down to the Pearl River Delta, these spirits are probably the most organised, widespread and outright hostile court of Guangdong; the feud dates back to the battle of Yamen in 1279. Defeating and subjugating the local river spirits is an ongoing struggle, not at all helped by the Pure's own alliance with the River King. Despite this hostility, there is much for the Forsaken to covet here – the wealth of the human population and the uncommonly high number of wellsprings of Essence. Guangdong has a great abundance of sites that naturally form talens, rich loci of rare Resonances, and unusual qualities to the Shadow that make certain rites – such as those that craft fetishes – easier to work than elsewhere. The Claimed are a particular threat across the province, and the Storm Lords have traditionally been very powerful here; there are several Tribal bastions where the Iminir protect ancient artefacts and relics that are the destination of pilgrims from across the globe. The Storm Lords of Guangdong have a highly organised Tribal structure that crosses throughout the packs and Protectorates of the province, leading up to an elected gong whose task is to tend to the ancient, revered Tribal elder known as the Zongshi – a near-mythical figure amongst the Forsaken, said to alternate between sleeping in a Storm Lord fastness and prowling the Deep Shadow for the most terrifying of prey. Guangdong regularly sees the conflict between Forsaken and Pure flare into open and brutal warfare, but these periods are almost always short – usually a year or two at most before things lapse once again, agreements are made and lines redrawn. The recent arrival of sects of the Cull from the west and north, however, threatens to upset that balance.

===Taiwan – Tyrants of the Earth===
Taiwan's Shadow was once ruled by the spirits of the mountains and the grumbling, shifting earth – but around two centuries ago, the Forsaken of the island undertook a great and mighty binding on the lords of rock and stone to chain them with fetters of symbolism. This caused a great rift amongst the Taiwanese Tribes, with the Bone Shadows breaking off to form their own separate faction, condemning the act as one of hubris that would only serve to harm Shadow and Flesh alike. For two centuries now, the bindings have mostly held – but when they weaken or shift, the furious spirits of the earth vent their rage on the world. Even today, the Bone Shadows remain separate to the other Forsaken and have, as the years turn, formed a distinct identity from Hirfathra Hissu elsewhere as well. The Predator Kings have long sought to unmake the chains that bind the mountain spirits and once formed the bulk of the Pure numbers in Taiwan, but since the Chinese Civil War the other two Pure Tribes have made significant inroads into what was once almost entirely under Forsaken control. Today, Taiwanese Uratha are renowned for their mastery of rites and the binding of spirits, but often considered prideful and arrogant in their disdain for other werewolves who do not have the strength to chain the Shadow to their will. Taiwanese packs commonly include spirits enslaved to the pack's will, and even totems are treated less as respected equals and more as vassals or servants. The Bone Shadows continue to warn that a reckoning will yet come; but as each decade passes without sign of their forecast apocalypse, so does the scorn for the fifth Tribe rise amongst the Taiwanese.

===Philippines – The Spinner Hag's Bastion===
In many ways, Uratha in the Philippines have lives similar to werewolves elsewhere – though the boundaries of territories in the archipelago are often delineated by coastline and travel between islands can be tricky. The rising prosperity and development of the country has left Uratha with many of the same challenges and opportunities as in other nations. The Shadow across the Philippines, however, is in a ruinous state – and has been for millennia. By local lore, the Great Predator fought much of its battle with the Spinner Hag over what became these islands, and in many places the Gauntlet is still torn asunder by the mere echo of Wolf's claws and teeth. Worse, other patches of Gauntlet are thick and distended, shrouded in Azlo webs and said to contain oozing gobbets of the Hag's carcass. The Azlu are numerous and powerful here, and are no mere monstrous beasts – the Host spider-witches of the Philippines think and plan with an alien but clinically precise approach, their schemes spanning centuries. The poor state of the Gauntlet has also resulted in a much higher number of spirits crossing over into the Flesh, bizarre and unique forms of Claimed, and other entities born by the fusion of the two worlds. Repeated rumours bubble up that there are actually still areas of Pangaea itself hidden away, somehow saved from the Great Predator's death-howl. Unsurprisingly, the Hunters in Darkness lead the Forsaken here, and Filipino werewolves are said to be both particularly vigilant – or paranoid, by the less charitable – and particularly talented in the matter of wards and occult protections. The Philippines have long served as a destination for Hunter in Darkness pilgrimages – old and veteran Meninna from other countries, even far-off continents, have been known to 'retire' to this heart of Azlu power, and werewolves seeking lore and insights into the spider Hosts often seek out Filipino brethren for aid.

===Vietnam – The Harmonious Kings===
Early in the 20th Century, the Pure of Vietnam began to tip the scales against their Forsaken counterparts; they took advantage of the disruption and conflict that plagued the country until, after the US-Vietnam war and the fall of the South, the Fire-Touched and Predator Kings had near total domination of the unified country. The Forsaken of today, though, are having a comparatively easy time of it; the Pure are far more focused on warring with each other, and there are a number of powerful spirit nobles that have sided with the Forsaken in the wake of the Pure calling down horrific spirit-horrors from beyond Luna's orbit. The Predator Kings have split into two factions that battle one another with brutal ferocity, mainly due to the emergence of a radical, heretical Ninna Farakh Lodge called the Lan that has rapidly surged in converts. The Lan adhere to portions of Dire Wolf's philosophy, but are far more connected to humanity than their erstwhile comrades; the totem's ban makes it difficult for the Lan to work within society so they instead use a large cult of human and Wolf-Blooded go-betweens to sink their claws into Vietnam. Espousing a creed that the Predator Kings should adapt to the changing world and shepherd humanity to a harmonious union with the wild and the hunt, the Lan are largely uninterested in pursuing the Forsaken compared to destroying the Fire-Touched and converting or killing the rest of their Tribe. To the Forsaken, it all looks very much like the Predator Kings' penchant for savagery has finally turned inwards while the real Vietnam moves beyond their outmoded ways – but there are those who worry that the Harmonious Kings of the Lan are winning, and fear what may happen once they have done so. Some wonder if the Lan might be converted in turn to the Forsaken, but the Lodge has shown little interest in any Urdaga Creeds.

==New Material==

===New Rite===

'''Vex (Wolf Rite ●)''' 
This petty curse calls upon spirits of misfortune and malevolence to plague whoever has drawn the werewolf's ire. 
'''Symbols:''' Fire, venom, violence, the skill that is to be targeted. 
'''Cost:''' 1 Essence 
'''Action:''' Extended (5 successes; each roll represents 1 minute); resisted by the target's Composure. 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The Essence used to fuel this rite must come from a locus of hatred, pain, despair or decay. Additionally, the ritemaster must have a possession of the target, a nail clipping, a lock of hair or some other bodily substance from the intended victim. The ritemaster selects a single skill that will be cursed; thereafter, the first time the victim uses that skill in the following month, her result becomes a dramatic failure regardless of what she rolls. The ritemaster immediately knows when this happens. A character may only be the subject of a single vex at a time, and cannot be subjected again until the rite's month of duration has passed. 

'''Drain the Well (Pack Rite ●●●)''' 
This rite uses a locus to draw in its Resonance from the surrounding ar ea, draining the Shadow of Essence attuned to its nature. Paradoxically, this ensures the locus surges deep with Essence of that kind; if left untended, it will wash back out again stronger than before.
'''Symbols:''' Water, pain, piercing or draining, the Resonance type. 
'''Action:''' Extended (20 successes; each roll represents 10 minutes) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed at the site of a locus, draining Resonance into it. This has several effects: spirits and Uratha within 100 yards per dot of the rating of the Locus, or within the entire territory (whichever is larger), take the locus's rating as a penalty to all rolls for Influences that match its Resonance when outside its direct area. The Resonance is reduced in general, removing many incidents of the Resonant Condition across the affected region; draining a locus of pain would cause injuries and aches to inflict less pain, humans and animals will recover faster from harm and may simply not notice minor damage. This will have long-term effects on the Shadow and the material world. 
The ritemaster gains a persistent Ban Condition for the duration of the rite's effect, reflecting the Resonance of the locus; this Condition lifts when the rite ends. If the ritemaster ever violates the ban, the effects of the rite immediately end. If ended via ban violation, or if this rite is not performed on the locus again within a week of its duration ending, the locus becomes empowered for one month as if it were the subject of the Wellspring rite.

'''Shadow Signs (Pack Rite ●●●●)''' 
This rite may only be invoked on a territory that the ritemaster's pack has already sanctified with the Hunting Ground rite. It draws upon the secrets, the names and the flows of Essence that thread between the spirits of the territory's Shadow, revealing truths to the Uratha. 
'''Symbols:''' Writing or tattooing, wounds, whispers, the wind. 
'''Action:''' Extended (10 successes; each roll represents 1 minute) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month. 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed in the Shadow, within territory that the ritemaster's pack has placed the Hunting Ground rite upon. This causes that spot to become a nexus of information about the territory's Shadow. Over roughly a day, words and glyphs will carve themselves into the Shadow-stuff of an area roughly ten feet in radius, often oozing blood or ichor; these words spell out the names of powerful spirits in the area (Rank 3 and higher, as well as spirit nobles), indicate significant Shadow phenomena (like barrens, shoals, or an impending emotion-storm), and may also indicate other threats in the Shadow (such as warning of the warping spells that a Mage is using on the Hisil, or of a non-native monstrosity that has somehow breached the Gauntlet and is now marauding the spirits). The words update roughly every day, with old, bleeding warnings squirming aside for eruptions of fresh and oozing names as new, powerful spirits move in or a threat manifests itself. Any Uratha who reads the shadow signs gains a +3 bonus to locate or perceive spirits, entities or phenomena that they have seen the warnings or names of, while the rite lasts. However, picking key information out of the mass of glyphs and sigils is not necessarily straightforward.

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T12:40:39Z

Acrozatarim: /* Beyond Hong Kong */

=Werewolf: the Forsaken - The Eater of Names=
A Werewolf: the Forsaken game set in Hong Kong.

==Hong Kong==

===Werewolf Oddities of Hong Kong===
*Something steals the First Change of the majority of nusuzul. At the moment of the Change, they have their newfound nature torn out of them by an unknown force, leaving them as normal humans suffering a psychotic break – even former Wolf-Blooded have their inheritance stripped from them at this moment.
*The territories of Hong Kong are a complete patchwork between the different factions. There are no solid battle lines between Pure and Forsaken, and the vertical nature of the urban landscape means that even a small scrap of land can be more than enough to patrol for most packs. The Shadow reflection of the city sees a spiritual ecosystem that is just as confused and turbulent.
*Due to the sheer population density and the patchwork nature of the territories, Hong Kong packs have strong traditions about hospitality and allowances for crossing another pack's turf – even between Pure and Forsaken.
*There are no Protectorates in Hong Kong. The closest to any sort of formal structure are the Five Great Packs – the Wen, Hou, Peng, Tang and Liao, formed from amongst the Uratha of the mortal clans of the area in 1899. The Great Packs are probably the largest and most influential of the city, but with respect comes responsibility, and they are expected to provide aid and guidance to other werewolves. These expectations, again, cross factional lines.
*Tribes and allegiances to Pure and Forsaken are important, but Hong Kong also plays host to a number of strange packs allied to neither faction, packs amongst foreign immigrant populations with odd practices and traditions, and a focus on Lodges. The sheer density of the city can make the patchwork of territories confusing and Tribes rarely organise on a wide scale, but Lodge connections matter and underpin much of the social fabric of Hong Kong.
*With so much movement in and out of Hong Kong, its transitional position in the world (geographically, politically and symbolically) and its possession of so many layers and shadows that even the werewolves cannot plumb them all, the city is a hotbed for weirdness and occult conspiracies. Yao guai and jiang shi slither through the darkness, hungry ghosts and watery shades prowl at the fringes, and now the forces of the dreaded Cull are preparing to assault the borders of the territory – something that has both Pure and Forsaken alike on edge.
*Local Uratha lore has it that, in some past age, Hong Kong was the site of a meeting between the Nine Dragons – held to be the eight Firstborn of the Pure and the Forsaken, and a last figure of disputed nature. Some believe it was one of the first Chinese emperors. It was this gathering of beings of incredible power that, it is claimed, is responsible for the strong currents of Essence that pour through the region's Shadow even today.
*The chenghuanshen, the city-spirit of Hong Kong, definitely exists – but its nature is not entirely clear. It may actually be a consciousness split across a number of powerful urban spirits, and seems quite capable of fighting with itself as much as any other spirit nobles of the region. Furthermore, it has a long-running feud with the spirits of the mountains and the peaks.

==The Blossom Society Pack==
History is important to the packs of Hong Kong, although knowledge of the past of the Forsaken is usually rather patchy:
*Most Kowloon Forsaken hark back to the '''Salt Eaters''', a pack that controlled much of the area in the middle of the second millenium.
*In the late 1800s, the third bubonic plague wracked China; as a result the '''Yellow-Feathered Owls''', a pack of Bone Shadows and Hunters in Darkness, controlled what is now Sham Shui Po.
*In 1899, territorial unrest with the five Chinese clans in the area resulted in the creation of the Five Great Packs; the original Cherry Gardens themselves were held by a daughter pack of the Wen, the '''White Jade''' pack.
*After the Japanese occupation, the predecessors of the Blossom Society took over the area. They were not opposed in doing so; the sheer damage done by the occupation had resulted in the deportation or deaths of most of the White Jade and their extended pack.

Of the pack's previous Uratha, the existing pack members may know of the following:
*''''Red Shroud'''' – Bone Shadow, formed pack in aftermath of Japanese occupation – famous for dealing with a terrifying plague of restless ghosts and widely venerated by Uratha across Hong Kong for her accomplishments.
*'''Wen Liang''' – Iron Master, powerful figure amongst the packs in the 60's and 70's, infamous for his involvement in the 1967 riots and his killing of a number of communist ringleaders. A name both respected and feared.
*'''Melissa Tsang''' – Blood Talon, took control of the Cherry Garden Night Market in the 80s by driving out the '''Sung-Ti''', a vicious yao guai and its Fire-Touched Pure followers.

The recent losses the pack has suffered are:
*'''James 'Steeljaw Trap' Liu''' – Hunter in Darkness Cahalith and member of the Lodge of Seven Venoms. Died five years ago fighting beshilu in the typhoon shelter; he sank a floating crane raft infested with Rat Hosts while he was still onboard.
*'''Gwok Mei''' – Bone Shadow Rahu and member of the Lodge of Death. Left two years ago in response to the Lodge calling a pilgrimage against the Cull in northern China. She has not been heard from since.
*'''Mark Callahan-Cheung''' – Iron Master shaman, local landlord and member of the Yau Tsim Mong district council. Died under strange circumstances one month before the game's beginning, which the pack had difficulties investigating due to Mark's public position as a councilman and the police and press interest in the case.

The totem of the pack is the '''Eight Lanterns Minister''', spirit of the Cherry Gardens Night Market. The minister appears in the form of a set of grandiose mandarin ministerial garb, threaded with lines of neon and jangling talismans of commerce, wrapped around a withered but strong frame. Its face is concealed behind a veil, but seems to emanate a gentle glow. Lanterns hang from a frame of lacquered wood that floats behind its shoulders; the colours of the lanterns often indicate the spirit's mood.

The Eight Lanterns Minister has served the pack as totem since the 1980s, its fortunes waxing and waning over that time. It is devious, smart and opportunistic. The Minister is a very lowly spirit noble, with a paltry court of lesser spirits of the market at its beck and call; it in turn is the vassal of the spirit noble of Temple Street Night Market, which has caused some friction with the Wen over the years.

===Werewolves===
*'''Red Lantern Widow, Bone Shadow Elodoth''', formerly wife of an up and coming politician until she killed him during her First Change. She uses his skull as a focus in her rites.
*'''Lucky Rat, Hunter in Darkness Rahu''', whose pest control company gives him an overwatch on Beshilu activity in the area. Possesses some anger issues.
*'''Wang Lee, Bone Shadow Irraka''', the youngest of the pack members and something of a street rat. Son of Wang Jing.
*'''Lao Min, newly-Changed Ithaeur''', straight-A's university student whose First Change was triggered by a manifestation of Death Wolf. Despite appearing as an embodiment of that Firstborn, she's leaning towards Red Wolf's Tribe.

===Wolf-Blooded===
*'''Zhongli Hu''' – 'Auntie' Hu is an elderly fortune-teller and seller of offerings and incense in the night market. She is also a Wolf-Blooded with the Piercing Eyes Tell. Hu was a little girl when Red Shroud ran these streets, claims to have been Wen Liang's mistress, and has certainly lived a storied life.
*'''Ko Lei''' runs the market's security, a sturdy man with a pock-marked face and a quick temper. Lei is a Wolf-Blooded with the Wolf's Meat Tell. He used to be a member of the 14K triad.
*'''Wang Jing''' – She owns and runs the Hive Bar, just outside the night market. She has the Skinner Tell, and has obviously been mentally scarred by some of what she has seen and done. The older pack members would only reference her past activities obliquely and refuse to give details. Some tension between her and her son.
*'''Zhao Bo''' – Widow's sister, who took a very different career path; she is a low-ranking financial auditor in Hong Kong's financial investigative body. Plagued by what she thought were psychiatric problems through her life, it was only since her sister Changed that she discovered the truth – the voices in her head were spirits. She is a Wolf-Blooded with the Waystone Tell.

===Humans===
*The exterminators of '''Yellow Kowloon Pest Control''' are the employees and associates of Arran's character. Working out of an office and storehouse in the territory, they're perhaps the most 'in the know' of all the humans about the supernatural, and they'd probably be hunters if they hadn't been brought under the wing of the pack. The company was briefly used as a front by a Rat Host, which is what drew the pack's attention.
*Several of the market's '''security guards''', Ko Lei's colleagues, are pack members. They know enough to understand that the pack have their back in keeping control of the Night Market, and they like to hang out with pack members to absorb some of the respect and fear that the werewolves are accorded.
*A half-dozen of the stall vendors are, like the security guards, pack members; they form the '''Mutual Activity Committee''' of the market, and the other shopkeepers know they're an 'inner circle' separate from the actual management (who are not pack members).
*'''Zhongli Zhuang''', or 'Uncle' Zhuang, is an old former Sun Yee On triad member and the husband of Auntie Hu. Despite his age, he still possesses a heavy frame; these days he sells occult tat and the like alongside his wife, but he also keeps an eye on the black market dealers in the area for the pack.
*'''Yi Kun''', owner of the Yi Healthy Wu Kwan (martial club), is a martial artist trainer who knows enough about the Uratha to understand their role as guardians of the area; he's had a few unpleasant run-ins over the years.

===Others===
*Michael Jin – a former manager of the Night Market, Michael died in the early 2000s in a horrific murder; a business rival with schemes on the property's future arranged for a construction 'accident' when a large block of concrete fell from scaffolding onto the man. Mister Jin was a client of the pack at the time, who were surprised by the lucidity his ghost retained after death. Michael is odd, fussy and obsessive, the broken remains of a personality clinging on to existence through his ties to the Night Market.

===The Totem - Eight Lanterns Minister (''Usufunsugal'' in the First Tongue)===
'''Rank 2 night market spirit''' 
'''Attributes:''' Power 2 Finesse 5 Resistance 2 
'''Willpower:''' 7 
'''Essence:''' 15 
'''Initiative:''' 7 
'''Defence:''' 2 
'''Speed:''' 10 
'''Size:''' 5 
'''Corpus:''' 7 
'''Influences:''' Wealth 1, Light 1 
'''Numina:''' Awe, Coin Curse*, Sign 
''Coin Curse – New Numina:'' The spirit may use this power on anyone it witnesses cheating in a trade, making a false deal or forcing a grievously unfair exchange, as long as money of some sort is involved. Coin Curse costs 1 Essence to use, and affects a coin, bank note, cheque or even money existing only as an electronic transfer. For as long as the character possesses that money in any way, they are affected by an increasingly unpleasant withering disease and the moderate Sick Tilt persistently; even if treated, it will return. Throwing or giving away the money ends the effect. 
'''Manifestations:''' Twilight Form, Gauntlet Breach, Materialise 
'''Ban:''' While the Cherry Gardens shrine of prosperity is damaged or desecrated, the Eight Lanterns Minister cannot leave the night market; if outside the market when the shrine is damaged, it is immediately called back. 
'''Bane:''' Glass from broken lights. 

==Cherry Gardens Market==

==The Five Great Packs==
The five pillars of Hong Kong Uratha society, born from agreements forged in 1899 alongside those made between the British colony and the local Chinese Punti clans, are called the Great Packs. Originally, each pack corresponded to the same mortal clan that it took the name of, but in the modern day there is no major link between the Punti clan families and the make-up of the pack in question. Most of the Great Packs are large, powerful and have two tiers amongst their Uratha members. The lower tier of 'nieces' and 'nephews' operate somewhat more like a conventional pack, but the upper tier of 'aunts' and 'uncles' are, oddly, less tightly bound together. The aunts and uncles are mentors, experts, revered elders and the like who focus more on their own matters, loosely connected to the other aunts and uncles but not necessarily very involved in the day-to-day running of the pack's assets. When an aunt or uncle asks for a service, the nephews and nieces are expected to snap to attention, but they are in turn expected not to abuse this authority to any great extent. Each Great Pack has a different system for providing more concrete leadership; the Hou select a single overall leader so that the other upper tier Uratha don't need to be bothered by petty concerns, while the Tang demand regular meetings of their aunts and uncles to ensure co-ordination.

The Great Packs are heavily tied into the occult fabric of Hong Kong, and possess considerable knowledge, influence and stockpiles of materials. A Lodge's leadership usually comes from Great Pack members. Each possesses an incredibly powerful totem spirit, but the nature of that relationship between pack and totem is closely guarded and outsiders suspect whatever agreement was signed in 1899 plays a heavy part.

The Five Great Packs are:
*'''The Wen – Yau Tsim Mong'''. Forsaken, mostly Hunters in Darkness and Iron Masters; their totem is the Serpent of Dreams and Bile, a spirit of incense, drugs and pollution. Known for their influence in shipping, narcotics, and their deep occult knowledge. The Wen have long been obsessed with hunting down the source of the Scourge, as they call the phenomenon that blights First Changes, and are known to truck with jiang shi, yao guai and other, stranger entities in their search for the truth.
*'''The Hou – Kwun Tong'''. Pure, Ivory Claws; their totem is Crimson and White Agony, a spirit of salt and pain. Known for their incredible ancestral and bloodline records, as well as their heavy involvement in Hong Kong politics and medical services. The Hou are seen as cruel, cold and clinical; few fates are worse than falling into the hands of a Hou torturer. The Hou claim to be the oldest and most legitimate of all the Five Great Packs, as unlike the other four the Hou already existed prior to 1899; Hou stories have it that they formed when the Punti migrated to Hong Kong in the 1200s, taking over the sacred mantle of an even older pack who were appointed by the Nine Dragons.
*'''The Peng – Hongkong Island'''. Pure, mostly Ivory Claws; their totem is the Thousand Roaring Eyes and Mouths, a spirit of water and destruction. Known for their wealth and the role they play as financial agents for Pure across the world, their foreign contacts and also their martial traditions. The Peng claim that Hong Kong is actually the site on which Wolf was slain by its treacherous children. They are known for undertaking lavish, extravagant rituals offering sacrifices to the spirits and the waters in penance, to which werewolves of all stripes are invited. Despite their outwards expressions of wealth and openness, they're also said to be a hotbed of internal scheming due to the influence of rival spirit lords.
*'''The Tang – Hongkong Island'''. Forsaken, mostly Bone Shadows and Storm Lords; their totem is the Pale Mandarin, a spirit of secrets, knowledge and fear. They are known for their information network and the dirt they're said to hold on every figure of note in Hong Kong, their knowledge of death and the Underworld, and their involvement in urban planning and development. Rumour has it that the Tang have successfully used occult geometries to create paths into the Deep Shadow. A few pieces of particularly bitter hearsay that refuse to die have it that the Tang take their marching orders from packs in Beijing.
*'''The Liao – New Territories'''. Forsaken, mostly Blood Talons; their totem is the Torn Banner, a spirit of change and violence. They are known for their fighting prowess, their trade and manufacture of spiritual goods (including fetishes and talens) and their connections to mainland China. The Liao are generally seen as the most traditionalist and conservative of the Five Great Packs, ironic given the nature of their totem and their own history; they were originally mostly Predator Kings, changing allegiance to the Forsaken via bloody infighting shortly after the Japanese occupation.

==Other Packs==
*'''The Sung-Ti – Mong Kok'''. The Sung-Ti are a largely Fire-Touched pack of Pure holding territory to the north-east of the pack – and they still nurse a grudge over the loss of Cherry Gardens to Melissa Tsang in the 80s. Pitching themselves as judges of certain sins, the Sung-Ti reputedly have significant involvement in both the criminal side of Kowloon and its charities.
*'''The Stone Lions – Various'''. The Stone Lions are mostly Hunters in Darkness who oversee the occult maintenance of Boundary Street, once the limit of Hong Kong. The Lions are a 'daughter pack' of the Liao; they are also rumoured to participate in various sinister rituals to maintain their power.
*'''The Eyeless – Sham Shui Po'''. The Eyeless are a strange and esoteric pack, believed to be a reclusive and likely heretical group of Forsaken. They generally avoid outside contact, but it is known that they pluck their own eyes out for some cultic purpose. Rumour links the Eyeless to the Japanese occupation, and those who would mock them call them the 'Nopera-Bo'.
*'''The Two Claw Society – Sham Shui Po'''. The Two Claw Society are a pack of Bone Shadows and Blood Talons known to be particularly vicious in defending their territory, but also respected as being highly honourable. The Two Claws was created to deal with a horrific Wound resulting from a Japanese concentration camp on their territory – a Wound that still exists despite the pack's best efforts.
*'''The Tsen-Kuang – Tsim Sha Tsui'''. A Pure pack on the south of the peninsula, known to be largely made up of Fire-Touched. The Tsen-Kuang have their claws firmly dug into the flow of migrants moving through Hong Kong, and are rumoured to cavort with Beshilu and other, even fouler denizens of the waterfronts. They are reputed to venerate an entity that they believe is responsible for stealing the Changes of nusuzul in Hong Kong; the Tsen-Kuang believe it to be a judge that weeds out those who are not worthy.

==Other Groups and Entities==

==Beyond Hong Kong==

===Macau – The Zealous Warlord's Domain===
Often referred to as the 'darker sibling' by Hong Kong Uratha, Macau has a sinister reputation amongst werewolves – even despite it being a Forsaken stronghold. Beneath its seemingly placid surface, Macau is a place of nightmares. From 1966 onwards, the notorious Blood Talon warlord 'Silver Claw' Yin fought a sustained and bloody campaign against the Pure, claiming to have been given divine visions by the Moon and instructions from the Lunes. After just ten years, the last Pure were annihilated or driven out of the city. In 1987, however, the Pure attempted to return. In the three decades since, Macau has seen repeated attacks by the Pure, particularly under the leadership of the Fire-Touched sibling Elders Sheu-Fuh and Shunyan, although they have not yet regained a foothold for more than a few months at a time. Its occult landscape is a mess, scarred by brutality, madness and the mostly-unchecked spiritual off-flow of the mass of humanity crammed into the region. Other things have also been drawn in or caught up by the violence; it is said there is an alchemist amongst the Iron Masters of Macau who knows how to render sorcerers down for their power, while both Bone Shadows and Ivory Claws are said to have some means of producing vampires which they use as disposable agents and killers in their shadow war. Both Destroyer Wolf and Red Wolf are said to have taken an active interest in events in Macau since the 60s, but there is a much, much older shrine to Red Wolf in the city that the Forsaken defend fanatically – some rumours allege it is Pangaean in origin. For now, Yin continues to rule her Protectorate with an iron fist.

===Shenzen – The City Without History===
Shenzen is a mirror of Hong Kong's success story – a busy port, major financial centre and huge city butting against its northern border. Shenzen exploded from a small town in the 80s to the urban behemoth of today, and the the Uratha of the province know full well its growth was down to more than just the PRC labelling it a Special Economic Zone. Something has long been awry with the very fabric of reality in Shenzen and someone, or something, caused the expansion of the city by stealing it from a history that never happened, a Shenzen that never was, and overlaying it into this world. The layout of the city possesses innumerable minor pieces of occult geometry, coming together into some sort of vast chronal siphon that forces this reality to match the Other Shenzen. For years, the 'city without history' and the time spirits that flock there served as a major attraction for Uratha seers and secret-seekers of both Pure and Forsaken, with bitter fighting breaking out across its prime territories, but the Cull have moved in in recent years – and established a major Deep Shadow monastery as a bastion. Now this major land route into Hong Kong is threatened, the Cull bringing in more adherents as the months progress and the Uratha of the City of Nine Dragons watching uneasily from over the border. Word has it that the Thousand Steel Teeth are gathering their own war parties, determined to defend their supply lines that run through Hong Kong and Shenzen out into the wider world. The new city of Shenzen may be about to become a battleground for a particularly vicious phase of the war with the Cull.

===Guangdong – Riches Worth Fighting For===
The province of Guangdong may be a large and prosperous region, but for the Forsaken of the area it is perhaps most characterised by its river spirits. Threading down to the Pearl River Delta, these spirits are probably the most organised, widespread and outright hostile court of Guangdong; the feud dates back to the battle of Yamen in 1279. Defeating and subjugating the local river spirits is an ongoing struggle, not at all helped by the Pure's own alliance with the River King. Despite this hostility, there is much for the Forsaken to covet here – the wealth of the human population and the uncommonly high number of wellsprings of Essence. Guangdong has a great abundance of sites that naturally form talens, rich loci of rare Resonances, and unusual qualities to the Shadow that make certain rites – such as those that craft fetishes – easier to work than elsewhere. The Claimed are a particular threat across the province, and the Storm Lords have traditionally been very powerful here; there are several Tribal bastions where the Iminir protect ancient artefacts and relics that are the destination of pilgrims from across the globe. The Storm Lords of Guangdong have a highly organised Tribal structure that crosses throughout the packs and Protectorates of the province, leading up to an elected gong whose task is to tend to the ancient, revered Tribal elder known as the Zongshi – a near-mythical figure amongst the Forsaken, said to alternate between sleeping in a Storm Lord fastness and prowling the Deep Shadow for the most terrifying of prey. Guangdong regularly sees the conflict between Forsaken and Pure flare into open and brutal warfare, but these periods are almost always short – usually a year or two at most before things lapse once again, agreements are made and lines redrawn. The recent arrival of sects of the Cull from the west and north, however, threatens to upset that balance.

===Taiwan – Tyrants of the Earth===
Taiwan's Shadow was once ruled by the spirits of the mountains and the grumbling, shifting earth – but around two centuries ago, the Forsaken of the island undertook a great and mighty binding on the lords of rock and stone to chain them with fetters of symbolism. This caused a great rift amongst the Taiwanese Tribes, with the Bone Shadows breaking off to form their own separate faction, condemning the act as one of hubris that would only serve to harm Shadow and Flesh alike. For two centuries now, the bindings have mostly held – but when they weaken or shift, the furious spirits of the earth vent their rage on the world. Even today, the Bone Shadows remain separate to the other Forsaken and have, as the years turn, formed a distinct identity from Hirfathra Hissu elsewhere as well. The Predator Kings have long sought to unmake the chains that bind the mountain spirits and once formed the bulk of the Pure numbers in Taiwan, but since the Chinese Civil War the other two Pure Tribes have made significant inroads into what was once almost entirely under Forsaken control. Today, Taiwanese Uratha are renowned for their mastery of rites and the binding of spirits, but often considered prideful and arrogant in their disdain for other werewolves who do not have the strength to chain the Shadow to their will. Taiwanese packs commonly include spirits enslaved to the pack's will, and even totems are treated less as respected equals and more as vassals or servants. The Bone Shadows continue to warn that a reckoning will yet come; but as each decade passes without sign of their forecast apocalypse, so does the scorn for the fifth Tribe rise amongst the Taiwanese.

===Philippines – The Spinner Hag's Bastion===
In many ways, Uratha in the Philippines have lives similar to werewolves elsewhere – though the boundaries of territories in the archipelago are often delineated by coastline and travel between islands can be tricky. The rising prosperity and development of the country has left Uratha with many of the same challenges and opportunities as in other nations. The Shadow across the Philippines, however, is in a ruinous state – and has been for millennia. By local lore, the Great Predator fought much of its battle with the Spinner Hag over what became these islands, and in many places the Gauntlet is still torn asunder by the mere echo of Wolf's claws and teeth. Worse, other patches of Gauntlet are thick and distended, shrouded in Azlo webs and said to contain oozing gobbets of the Hag's carcass. The Azlu are numerous and powerful here, and are no mere monstrous beasts – the Host spider-witches of the Philippines think and plan with an alien but clinically precise approach, their schemes spanning centuries. The poor state of the Gauntlet has also resulted in a much higher number of spirits crossing over into the Flesh, bizarre and unique forms of Claimed, and other entities born by the fusion of the two worlds. Repeated rumours bubble up that there are actually still areas of Pangaea itself hidden away, somehow saved from the Great Predator's death-howl. Unsurprisingly, the Hunters in Darkness lead the Forsaken here, and Filipino werewolves are said to be both particularly vigilant – or paranoid, by the less charitable – and particularly talented in the matter of wards and occult protections. The Philippines have long served as a destination for Hunter in Darkness pilgrimages – old and veteran Meninna from other countries, even far-off continents, have been known to 'retire' to this heart of Azlu power, and werewolves seeking lore and insights into the spider Hosts often seek out Filipino brethren for aid.

===Vietnam – The Harmonious Kings===
Early in the 20th Century, the Pure of Vietnam began to tip the scales against their Forsaken counterparts; they took advantage of the disruption and conflict that plagued the country until, after the US-Vietnam war and the fall of the South, the Fire-Touched and Predator Kings had near total domination of the unified country. The Forsaken of today, though, are having a comparatively easy time of it; the Pure are far more focused on warring with each other, and there are a number of powerful spirit nobles that have sided with the Forsaken in the wake of the Pure calling down horrific spirit-horrors from beyond Luna's orbit. The Predator Kings have split into two factions that battle one another with brutal ferocity, mainly due to the emergence of a radical, heretical Ninna Farakh Lodge called the Lan that has rapidly surged in converts. The Lan adhere to portions of Dire Wolf's philosophy, but are far more connected to humanity than their erstwhile comrades; the totem's ban makes it difficult for the Lan to work within society so they instead use a large cult of human and Wolf-Blooded go-betweens to sink their claws into Vietnam. Espousing a creed that the Predator Kings should adapt to the changing world and shepherd humanity to a harmonious union with the wild and the hunt, the Lan are largely uninterested in pursuing the Forsaken compared to destroying the Fire-Touched and converting or killing the rest of their Tribe. To the Forsaken, it all looks very much like the Predator Kings' penchant for savagery has finally turned inwards while the real Vietnam moves beyond their outmoded ways – but there are those who worry that the Harmonious Kings of the Lan are winning, and fear what may happen once they have done so. Some wonder if the Lan might be converted in turn to the Forsaken, but the Lodge has shown little interest in any Urdaga Creeds.

==New Material==

===New Rite===

'''Vex (Wolf Rite ●)''' 
This petty curse calls upon spirits of misfortune and malevolence to plague whoever has drawn the werewolf's ire. 
'''Symbols:''' Fire, venom, violence, the skill that is to be targeted. 
'''Cost:''' 1 Essence 
'''Action:''' Extended (5 successes; each roll represents 1 minute); resisted by the target's Composure. 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The Essence used to fuel this rite must come from a locus of hatred, pain, despair or decay. Additionally, the ritemaster must have a possession of the target, a nail clipping, a lock of hair or some other bodily substance from the intended victim. The ritemaster selects a single skill that will be cursed; thereafter, the first time the victim uses that skill in the following month, her result becomes a dramatic failure regardless of what she rolls. The ritemaster immediately knows when this happens. A character may only be the subject of a single vex at a time, and cannot be subjected again until the rite's month of duration has passed. 

'''Drain the Well (Pack Rite ●●●)''' 
This rite uses a locus to draw in its Resonance from the surrounding ar ea, draining the Shadow of Essence attuned to its nature. Paradoxically, this ensures the locus surges deep with Essence of that kind; if left untended, it will wash back out again stronger than before.
'''Symbols:''' Water, pain, piercing or draining, the Resonance type. 
'''Action:''' Extended (20 successes; each roll represents 10 minutes) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed at the site of a locus, draining Resonance into it. This has several effects: spirits and Uratha within 100 yards per dot of the rating of the Locus, or within the entire territory (whichever is larger), take the locus's rating as a penalty to all rolls for Influences that match its Resonance when outside its direct area. The Resonance is reduced in general, removing many incidents of the Resonant Condition across the affected region; draining a locus of pain would cause injuries and aches to inflict less pain, humans and animals will recover faster from harm and may simply not notice minor damage. This will have long-term effects on the Shadow and the material world. 
The ritemaster gains a persistent Ban Condition for the duration of the rite's effect, reflecting the Resonance of the locus; this Condition lifts when the rite ends. If the ritemaster ever violates the ban, the effects of the rite immediately end. If ended via ban violation, or if this rite is not performed on the locus again within a week of its duration ending, the locus becomes empowered for one month as if it were the subject of the Wellspring rite.

'''Shadow Signs (Pack Rite ●●●●)''' 
This rite may only be invoked on a territory that the ritemaster's pack has already sanctified with the Hunting Ground rite. It draws upon the secrets, the names and the flows of Essence that thread between the spirits of the territory's Shadow, revealing truths to the Uratha. 
'''Symbols:''' Writing or tattooing, wounds, whispers, the wind. 
'''Action:''' Extended (10 successes; each roll represents 1 minute) 
'''Duration:''' 1 month. 
'''Success:''' The rite must be performed in the Shadow, within territory that the ritemaster's pack has placed the Hunting Ground rite upon. This causes that spot to become a nexus of information about the territory's Shadow. Over roughly a day, words and glyphs will carve themselves into the Shadow-stuff of an area roughly ten feet in radius, often oozing blood or ichor; these words spell out the names of powerful spirits in the area (Rank 3 and higher, as well as spirit nobles), indicate significant Shadow phenomena (like barrens, shoals, or an impending emotion-storm), and may also indicate other threats in the Shadow (such as warning of the warping spells that a Mage is using on the Hisil, or of a non-native monstrosity that has somehow breached the Gauntlet and is now marauding the spirits). The words update roughly every day, with old, bleeding warnings squirming aside for eruptions of fresh and oozing names as new, powerful spirits move in or a threat manifests itself. Any Uratha who reads the shadow signs gains a +3 bonus to locate or perceive spirits, entities or phenomena that they have seen the warnings or names of, while the rite lasts. However, picking key information out of the mass of glyphs and sigils is not necessarily straightforward.

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T12:39:37Z

Acrozatarim: /* New Material */

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T12:36:27Z

Acrozatarim:

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T12:35:57Z

Acrozatarim: /* Other Packs */

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T12:35:03Z

Acrozatarim: /* The Five Great Packs */

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T12:33:53Z

Acrozatarim: /* The Blossom Society */

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T12:16:48Z

Acrozatarim: /* Hong Kong */

Werewolf The Eater Of Names

2016-10-16T12:13:38Z

Acrozatarim: Created page with "=Werewolf: the Forsaken - The Eater of Names= A Werewolf: the Forsaken game set in Hong Kong. ==Hong Kong== ==The Blossom Society== ==Cherry Gardens Market== ==The Five Gr..."

=Werewolf: the Forsaken - The Eater of Names=
A Werewolf: the Forsaken game set in Hong Kong.

==Hong Kong==

==The Blossom Society==

==Cherry Gardens Market==

==The Five Great Packs==

==Other Packs==

==Beyond Hong Kong==

==New Material==

Mass: the Effecting/Elkoss Combine Catalogue

2012-10-04T16:07:55Z

Acrozatarim: Tactical Networks added.

=The Elkoss Combine Catalogue=

In Mass: The Effecting, characters can make use of a veritable bounty of high-tech devices, armaments and protections available. With many competing corporations, designers and fabrication facilities all battling for the custom of a galaxy's worth of different species and vocations, there's a near-unfathomable selection of tools of the trade available on the market.

Mass: The Effecting doesn't attempt to chart all of these different implements, VI interfaces, software programmes and vehicles; nor does it attempt to differentiate between products from, say, Devlon Industries and Rosenkov Materials. Instead, you'll find entries for broad categories of key items of equipment, particularly weapons, armour, omni-tools and biotic amps.

==Weaponry==

In the Mass Effect setting, ranged weaponry makes use of mass effect fields to shave slivers of metal off an ammunition block and launch them at high velocity. This creates a great deal of heat, resulting in the need for thermal clips – disposable heat sinks that serve a similar function to old-style ammunition clips.

The weapons detailed here replace the weapons available in the core nWoD system.

'''Autofire''': In Mass: The Effecting, many weapons are capable of autofiring to some extent; however, not all of these weapons can necessarily use all of the options of long, medium and short bursts. A weapon noted as S (semi-automatic) is capable of firing single shots; a weapon noted as BF (burst fire) can fire short bursts; and a weapon noted as A (automatic) can fire medium and long bursts. A weapon can only fire in the modes noted – so a weapon noted as BF/A has to fire short, medium or long bursts but cannot fire single shots.

'''Clips & Ammunition''': Weapons of the same category can share thermal clips with one another; thermal clips for a pistol-sized weapon can be used for a light pistol, heavy pistol or SMG, for example. Support weapons disobey this rule; all support weapons have unique ammunition types that only they can use.

'''Heavy Weapons''': Some weapons are noted as having the Heavy Weapon trait. These impose a -3 penalty on any attempts to fire them while moving; additionally, a character cannot take aim actions with a Heavy Weapon.

'''Unwieldy''': Some weapons are designed for snipers and long-range targeting, becoming cumbersome or unwieldy to use against close-range targets. When fired at a moving target within its short range band, an Unwieldy weapon levies a -2 penalty to attack rolls; at point-blank range this is increased to -4.

'''Sidearms'''

<pre>
Pistols Damage Range Clip ROF Special
----------------------------------------------------------
Light Pistol 1L 20/40/80 10 S/BF
Heavy Pistol 1L 20/40/80 10 S 9-again, AP1
SMG 1L 25/50/100 20 S/BF/A
Stun Pistol 0B 5/10/20 5 S Stun</pre>

''Stun Pistol'': A stun pistol discharges a jolt of power that can leave a target reeling. An opponent hit with a stun pistol's shot must pass a Stamina check or be stunned for 1 round.

'''Longarms'''

<pre>
Rifles Damage Range Clip ROF Special
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Assault Rifle 2L 150/300/600 40 S/BF/A
Battle Rifle 2L 200/400/800 30 S 9-again, AP1
Light Machine Gun 3L 150/300/600 50 BF/A Heavy Weapon
Light Sniper Rifle 2L 250/500/1000 12 S/BF Unwieldy, AP1
Heavy Sniper Rifle 3L 250/500/1000 5 S Unwieldy, 9-again, AP1
Light Shotgun 3L 20/40/80 12 S/BF 9-again at short range
Assault Shotgun 4L 20/40/80 6 S/BF 9-again at short range</pre>

'''Support Weapons'''

<pre>
Support Weapons Damage Range Clip ROF Special
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Entrenched Machine Gun 4L 150/300/600 100 A
One-Shot Rocket Launcher 6L 200/400/600 1 S 8-again, AP 3, Blast 5
Light Rocket Launcher 4L 150/300/600 3 S 9-again, AP1
Grenade Launcher 3L 50/100/150 6 S/BF Blast 10
Flame-Thrower 5L 10/20/30 30 BF/A 8-again
Arc Projector 3B 100/200/300 5 S 9-again, Stun
Anti-Materiel Rifle 5L 250/500/1000 1 S Unwieldy, 9-again</pre>

All support weapons have the Heavy Weapon trait.

''One-Shot Rocket Launcher & Light Rocket Launcher'': Rockets use onboard guidance systems to lock on and home in. These weapons always give a +2 aiming bonus to attack rolls when fired, which is not cumulative with normal aim actions. 
''Flame-Thrower'': Flame-throwers spew blazing torrents of chemical fire, and will ignite flammable materials. An exceptional success on an attack against a character wielding a flame-thrower when they no longer have Shield levels results in the fuel tanks detonating, setting the character ablaze. 
''Arc Projector'': Arc projector weapons discharge high-voltage electrical attacks. If the first target is hit, an arc jumps to the closest target within 10 yards, and finally to a third closest target within 10 yards; the jumping arcs will never strike the same target twice, however. All targets struck must also make pass a Stamina check or be stunned for 1 round. 

'''Grenades'''

<pre>
Grenades Damage Special
-----------------------------------------------------------
Concussive Grenade 2B Blast 5, Knock-Down
Frag Grenade 2L Blast 5
Inferno Grenade 1L Blast 5, Inferno
Lift Grenade None Blast 5, Lift
Smoke Grenade None Blast 5, Smoke
Stun Grenade None Blast 5, Stun</pre>

''Concussive Grenade'': A target hit by a concussive grenade must make a Dexterity + Athetics check, with a penalty equal to the amount of health points damaged by the attack. Failure results in the target being knocked down. 
''Inferno Grenade'': Inferno grenades burn with a fiercely corrosive chemical flame. All other attacks against targets that are doused in an inferno grenade's flame benefit from Armour Piercing 1 for the single turn the grenade's effects last. 
''Lift Grenade'': A lift grenade deals no damage; instead, targets within its area of effect are hauled 2 yards from the ground for 1 round by a mass effect field. 
''Smoke Grenade'': A smoke grenade deals no damage; instead, it spews out a plume of thick smoke where it lands. The smoke covers an area of 5 yard radius for 5 rounds, providing a -3 concealment penalty to all attack rolls made against targets within it. A Perception check with a -3 penalty is necessary to make out targets beyond the smoke cloud if it blocks line of sight from the attacker, and even on a success the targets still benefit from the smoke's concealment. 
''Stun Grenade'': A stun grenade uses an intense pulse of light, sound and disorientating force to incapacitate targets, forcing them to succeed at a Stamina roll or be stunned for 1 round. 

'''Melee Weapons'''

<pre>
Melee Weapons Damage Special
------------------------------------------------
Unarmed Attack 0B Increases to 1B if wearing heavy armour
Assault Baton 2B
Improvised Club 1B
Knife 1L
Omni-Blade 1L
Stun Baton 1B Stun</pre>

''Stun Baton'': A stun baton is a standard policing and suppression implement, discharging a stun charge whenever it strikes a target. An opponent hit with a stun baton must succeed at a Stamina check or be stunned for 1 round.

==Armour==

In the Mass Effect setting, personal protection comes in two main forms – armour and kinetic barriers. Modern technology has resulted in armour plating that can hold off small arms fire with some success, while biotics and shield generators both provide effective barriers that can absorb incoming attacks.

Armour suits are still heavy, however, due to the bulk of the plating and the kinetic barrier generators that they need to carry, and can impede the fine control that technical experts and biotic users require to get the best out of their talents.

''Cumbersome'': A suit of armour inflicts a penalty to the wearer's Defence and Speed. Light armour inflicts a -1 penalty, medium armour inflicts -2 and heavy armour inflicts -3. Additionally, heavy armour inflicts the same penalty to Initiative.

''Impeding'': All rolls to use Tech Processes and Biotic Disciplines suffer a -1 penalty when used by a character wearing medium armour, increased to -2 for heavy armour.

''Medi-Gel'': Armour has a standard reservoir of 3 doses of medi-gel that the wearer can use on themselves. Onboard systems will automatically apply a dose for medi-gel's Emergency Trauma Injection use if the wearer has all their health boxes filled with Lethal damage.

''Onboard Systems'': As per standard, armour comes with a set of onboard systems. This includes a comm-link, a high powered torch, a HUD, target recognition systems and a short-range radar (50 yards), and light amplification systems that can negate up to a -2 penalty on ranged attack rolls due to low-light conditions. It also includes an onboard oxygen supply good for 2 hours, and an environmental filtration system that grants a +4 bonus to Stamina-based rolls to resist inhaled toxins and poisons.

''Webbing'': Most suits of armour come with enough webbing and pouches to hold up to six thermal clips for a rifle-sized weapon. Alternatively, a single thermal clip can be exchanged for a grenade or two clips for a pistol-sized weapon. Two thermal clips can be exchanged for a clip for a support weapon.

'''Personal Shield Generator (Shields 3/5/8)''': A relatively small personal barrier generator allows unarmoured individuals to benefit from protection. The version of this device that offers 3 Shield points is the most common; the version that offers 5 Shield points is very rare, an example of cutting edge technology or powered by an unwieldy generator back-pack. Finally, the version that offers Shields 8 is nearly unheard of, the kind of personal protection that a Councillor might carry. Personal shield generators lack the medi-gel reservoirs and onboard systems of true armour.

'''Light Armour (Armour 2, Shields 7)''': Common light armour offers little encumbrance but still has the power for a potent kinetic barrier.

'''Reconnaissance Armour (Armour 2, Shields 3)''': Specialised light armour designed for infiltrators and scouts, recon armour features a stealth field which puts a heavy drain on the generator. Due to its construction, recon armour does not suffer from the Cumbersome rule.

'''Medium Armour (Armour 3, Shields 7)''': Sacrificing speed and mobility for additional armour plating, medium armour is the standard level of protection worn by dedicated combat troops.

'''Medium Assault Armour (Armour 3, Shields 5)''': Specialised medium armour designed for shock troops and vanguards who need the additional mobility, assault armour cuts some of the power to shields in return for more potent servos. Assault armour does not suffer from the Cumbersome rule.

'''Heavy Armour (Armour 4, Shields 8)''': Big, heavy and slow, heavy classes of armour go the whole hog; since they need a larger generator to power the servos already, they also enhance the kinetic barriers.

'''Heavy Colossus Armour (Armour 4, Shields 10)''': The ultimate answer to the need for personal protection, short of taking a step up into the mechanised walker class of vehicles, colossus armour is slow as hell but very resilient. As well as applying the Cumbersome rule to Initiative, a wearer of colossus-class armour cannot run.

===Armour Mods===

A suit of armour can have a single armour mod, representing a tinkered upgrade, manufacturer's enhancements or bolt-on augmentation purchased separately. Armour does not need to have an armour mod, but there is no penalty for having one.

Rarely, armour can have a secondary mod. This mod is inactive and does nothing unless an Armour Subsystem Management programme from the Engineering Process talent is running, in which case the mod is given power and bestows the wearer with its benefits as well. A secondary mod cannot be the same as the regular armour mod that the suit has.

'''Armour-Jets''': Provides inbuilt armour-jets for the suit, allowing the wearer to make Piloting checks for short-ranged vertical jumps and to slow descent. Dropping into combat leaves the wearer unable to act in the first round as they touch down. 
'''Cyberwarfare Defences''': Inflicts a -2 penalty on all attempts to hack the wearer's systems or to affect them with Tech Processes. 
'''Enhanced Arm Servos''': Increases the wearer's melee damage by 1. 
'''Enhanced Leg Servos''': Increases the wearer's Speed by 2. 
'''Extended Medi-Gel Reservoir''': Increases the armour's medi-gel reservoir to 4 doses. 
'''Fortified Shielding''': Increases the armour's Shield levels by 1. 
'''Full Environmental Systems''': Increases the oxygen supply to 4 hours and offers a +2 bonus to all Stamina checks to resist radiation and environmental effects. 
'''Onboard Targeting VI''': Reduces any cover penalty to ranged attack rolls by 1. 
'''Workhorse Capacity Upgrade''': Increases the number of rifle thermal clips (or equivalent) that can be carried to 9. 

==Other Equipment==

'''Tactical Network'''

Military and mercenary personnel commonly use tactical networks to link up squad-mates with a suite of combat telemetry readouts. These provide each member of a team with data on their colleagues' bio-signs, hardened comm channels and visual and audial feeds from their suits of armour, among other things.

Due to the bio-sign readouts and the two-way stream, a medic can easily observe their team's medical status and even directly engage with a team-mate's onboard medi-gel systems. Medicine programmes can be used from any range on another character sharing the same tactical network as long as they are within comms range, regardless of line of sight. The character can even use the Medicine skill remotely via this method.

'''Medi-Gel'''

An incredible medical substance patented by the Sirta Foundation, medi-gel skirts close to banned genetic engineering but is so useful that this is overlooked by most. Medi-gel aids with healing, seals wounds, clots blood and serves as an anaesthetic.

Medi-gel has the following applications, in amounts denoted as doses. Armour usually comes with a reservoir that can hold up to 3 doses, applying medi-gel as needed to treat injuries.

'''Continual Healing''': At a cost of 1 dose of medi-gel per week continual use of small amounts of gel, stimms and other medical fluids can bolster the body's natural healing rates. This allows a character to heal Lethal and Bashing damage at twice the normal natural healing rates, but is no help with Aggravated damage – such wounds are simply too severe and need real medical attention. 
'''Emergency Trauma Injection''': When a character is injured to such an extent that they begin dying due to having their health boxes filled with Lethal or Aggravated damage, 1 dose of medi-gel can immediately stabilise them. 
'''Rapid Biological Restoration''': Via systemative intensive treatment of injuries with 1 dose of medi-gel, a character can give up efficiency for relatively rapid repair. This heals 1 Lethal point of damage over the course of 1 hour, or 3 Bashing points of damage over the course of 15 minutes, on top of normal healing rates. Extensive overuse of this function is not recommended as it both drains medi-gel reserves rapidly and can be deleterious to long-term health unless overseen by a qualified health professional. 

'''Biotic Amps'''

Biotics require implants to be able to properly control and harness the power of the eezo nodules in their bodies, and amplifiers can be plugged into these implants for greater effectiveness. There are a great number of different biotic amps on the market, often tailored to further enhance specific Disciplines or techniques.

A biotic character can only benefit from a single biotic amp at a time. Changing from one amp to another is a relatively simple process but takes some time and requires care, so cannot be done during combat.

'''Discipline Amps''': These amplify one of the three Disciplines, offering a +1 equipment bonus to all dice pools for using powers of that Discipline. 
'''Technique Amps''': These amplify a single biotic power, offering a +2 equipment bonus to all dice pools for the use of that specific power only. 

'''Omni-Tools'''

Omni-tools are common, multi-purpose personal computational devices that serve as micro-fabrication facilities, interfacing tools and diagnostic systems. Basic models are extremely common, but more specialised versions are available for technicians, soldiers and scientists who need further functionality.

Several omni-tools have a Library Size number. This is the amount of programmes for each Tech Process that the omni-tool can hold in its data library. All omni-tools apart from the basic model provide an omni-blade facility, flash-forging a weapon with the device's fabricator to deliver a devastating melee attack.

'''Basic Omni-Tool (Library Size 0)''': A cheap, regular-quality omni-tool offers no exceptional qualities. While it lacks the sophistication to run elaborate Tech programmes, it is fitted with simple fabrication patterns and interfacing systems to make it a useful tool. A basic omni-tool gives a +1 equipment bonus to one of either Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine or Science skill rolls. 
'''Enhanced Library Omni-Tool (Library Size 8)''': A omni-tool with extensive memory banks, this tool can store a great deal of programmes for retrieval by its user for whatever situation faces them. 
'''Enhanced Processor Omni-Tool (Library Size 6)''': Sacrificing memory for high performance, this omni-tool offers a +1 equipment bonus to the use of programmes from a single Process talent. 
'''Intrusion Omni-Tool (Library Size 4)''': A kind of omni-tool used by infiltrators, assassins and criminals, this tool devotes a large proportion of its power to intrusion purposes, offering a +2 equipment bonus to all attempts to hack or to use Interfacing Process programmes. 
'''Military Omni-Tool (Library Size 4)''': A military-grade omni-tool used by soldiers includes an augmented omni-blade facility, increasing the weapon's basic damage to 2L. 

'''Other Tools'''

'''Ballistic Shield''': A ballistic shield takes one hand to hold up, and provides the user with a very resilient composite shield that provides them with some measure of cover. Making full use of a ballistic shield offers a -2 cover penalty on attack rolls against the character, but the character suffers the normal penalty from firing from cover themselves (so suffers a -1 penalty to their own ranged attack rolls). Opponents with sufficiently powerful weapons may choose to simply try and punch a hole through the shield; in this case, no cover penalty is applied to the attack roll, but the shield-bearer benefits from 2 additional points of Armour on their Shield and health levels. 
'''Drop Casing''': While armour-jets will suffice for dropping from an aircraft into combat, they are insufficient for orbital drops; equally, not all troops have armour-jets built into their suits. Drop casings are bolt-on one-shot additions designed to protect the wearer from entry into an atmosphere and to slow their descent, detaching and falling off as the trooper hits the ground. Drop casings are usually programmed with guidance systems so that no Piloting checks are required from the wearer; however, if the situation has changed then the wearer can take control and use their Piloting skill to try and make small adjustments to their trajectory and landing zone. Dropping into combat leaves the wearer unable to act in the first round as they touch down. 
'''Med-Pack''': The size of a satchel or backpack, a med-pack can carry up to five doses of medi-gel, and comes with application nozzles and ports so that it can be used on injured individuals or to top up armour reservours. 
'''Remote Drone''': A remote drone is a small bundle of circuitry and energy projection mechanisms around a mass effect generator and power source, coming to about the size of a human fist. When activated, a remote drone generates a holographic display around itself and hovers a metre above the ground. Remote drones are usually used as helpers by technicians, offering a +1 teamwork bonus to Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine or Science rolls made by the drone's user, but special programming can improve their performance. Drones have 1 point of Armour, 3 Shield points and 2 health points of directly attacked. These are not to be confused with military drones, which are sizeable unmanned attack or scout vehicles. 
'''Tactical Cloak''': With an abundance of radar and other detection systems, unaugmented attempts at stealth can be difficult in some situations. Modern stealth systems have compensated with tactical cloaks, capable of rendering the user near-invisible to most forms of detection. Using a stealth system is an instant action taking a full round, and being invisible isn't much help if hostiles are still aware of where the character is. A successful attack with any kind of weapon against a cloaked character will cause the cloak to drop on the following turn. As long as the character moves up to their normal Speed the cloak remains intact, but running or charging provides too much interference and will break the tactical cloak's stealth field. Since a cloak is usually powered by the onboard generator of a reconnaissance armour suit, it can maintain its effect for up to ten minutes, or five minutes if the character is on the move, requiring a pause of ten minutes to recharge after this period. Rare personal stealth systems that are not part of a suit of armour can generally cloak for a far shorter period of time.

[[Mass:_the_Effecting |Back to main page]]

Mass: the Effecting/Elkoss Combine Catalogue

2012-10-04T15:59:49Z

Acrozatarim: Changes to armour rules, and to Armour and Shield levels.

=The Elkoss Combine Catalogue=

In Mass: The Effecting, characters can make use of a veritable bounty of high-tech devices, armaments and protections available. With many competing corporations, designers and fabrication facilities all battling for the custom of a galaxy's worth of different species and vocations, there's a near-unfathomable selection of tools of the trade available on the market.

Mass: The Effecting doesn't attempt to chart all of these different implements, VI interfaces, software programmes and vehicles; nor does it attempt to differentiate between products from, say, Devlon Industries and Rosenkov Materials. Instead, you'll find entries for broad categories of key items of equipment, particularly weapons, armour, omni-tools and biotic amps.

==Weaponry==

In the Mass Effect setting, ranged weaponry makes use of mass effect fields to shave slivers of metal off an ammunition block and launch them at high velocity. This creates a great deal of heat, resulting in the need for thermal clips – disposable heat sinks that serve a similar function to old-style ammunition clips.

The weapons detailed here replace the weapons available in the core nWoD system.

'''Autofire''': In Mass: The Effecting, many weapons are capable of autofiring to some extent; however, not all of these weapons can necessarily use all of the options of long, medium and short bursts. A weapon noted as S (semi-automatic) is capable of firing single shots; a weapon noted as BF (burst fire) can fire short bursts; and a weapon noted as A (automatic) can fire medium and long bursts. A weapon can only fire in the modes noted – so a weapon noted as BF/A has to fire short, medium or long bursts but cannot fire single shots.

'''Clips & Ammunition''': Weapons of the same category can share thermal clips with one another; thermal clips for a pistol-sized weapon can be used for a light pistol, heavy pistol or SMG, for example. Support weapons disobey this rule; all support weapons have unique ammunition types that only they can use.

'''Heavy Weapons''': Some weapons are noted as having the Heavy Weapon trait. These impose a -3 penalty on any attempts to fire them while moving; additionally, a character cannot take aim actions with a Heavy Weapon.

'''Unwieldy''': Some weapons are designed for snipers and long-range targeting, becoming cumbersome or unwieldy to use against close-range targets. When fired at a moving target within its short range band, an Unwieldy weapon levies a -2 penalty to attack rolls; at point-blank range this is increased to -4.

'''Sidearms'''

<pre>
Pistols Damage Range Clip ROF Special
----------------------------------------------------------
Light Pistol 1L 20/40/80 10 S/BF
Heavy Pistol 1L 20/40/80 10 S 9-again, AP1
SMG 1L 25/50/100 20 S/BF/A
Stun Pistol 0B 5/10/20 5 S Stun</pre>

''Stun Pistol'': A stun pistol discharges a jolt of power that can leave a target reeling. An opponent hit with a stun pistol's shot must pass a Stamina check or be stunned for 1 round.

'''Longarms'''

<pre>
Rifles Damage Range Clip ROF Special
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Assault Rifle 2L 150/300/600 40 S/BF/A
Battle Rifle 2L 200/400/800 30 S 9-again, AP1
Light Machine Gun 3L 150/300/600 50 BF/A Heavy Weapon
Light Sniper Rifle 2L 250/500/1000 12 S/BF Unwieldy, AP1
Heavy Sniper Rifle 3L 250/500/1000 5 S Unwieldy, 9-again, AP1
Light Shotgun 3L 20/40/80 12 S/BF 9-again at short range
Assault Shotgun 4L 20/40/80 6 S/BF 9-again at short range</pre>

'''Support Weapons'''

<pre>
Support Weapons Damage Range Clip ROF Special
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Entrenched Machine Gun 4L 150/300/600 100 A
One-Shot Rocket Launcher 6L 200/400/600 1 S 8-again, AP 3, Blast 5
Light Rocket Launcher 4L 150/300/600 3 S 9-again, AP1
Grenade Launcher 3L 50/100/150 6 S/BF Blast 10
Flame-Thrower 5L 10/20/30 30 BF/A 8-again
Arc Projector 3B 100/200/300 5 S 9-again, Stun
Anti-Materiel Rifle 5L 250/500/1000 1 S Unwieldy, 9-again</pre>

All support weapons have the Heavy Weapon trait.

''One-Shot Rocket Launcher & Light Rocket Launcher'': Rockets use onboard guidance systems to lock on and home in. These weapons always give a +2 aiming bonus to attack rolls when fired, which is not cumulative with normal aim actions. 
''Flame-Thrower'': Flame-throwers spew blazing torrents of chemical fire, and will ignite flammable materials. An exceptional success on an attack against a character wielding a flame-thrower when they no longer have Shield levels results in the fuel tanks detonating, setting the character ablaze. 
''Arc Projector'': Arc projector weapons discharge high-voltage electrical attacks. If the first target is hit, an arc jumps to the closest target within 10 yards, and finally to a third closest target within 10 yards; the jumping arcs will never strike the same target twice, however. All targets struck must also make pass a Stamina check or be stunned for 1 round. 

'''Grenades'''

<pre>
Grenades Damage Special
-----------------------------------------------------------
Concussive Grenade 2B Blast 5, Knock-Down
Frag Grenade 2L Blast 5
Inferno Grenade 1L Blast 5, Inferno
Lift Grenade None Blast 5, Lift
Smoke Grenade None Blast 5, Smoke
Stun Grenade None Blast 5, Stun</pre>

''Concussive Grenade'': A target hit by a concussive grenade must make a Dexterity + Athetics check, with a penalty equal to the amount of health points damaged by the attack. Failure results in the target being knocked down. 
''Inferno Grenade'': Inferno grenades burn with a fiercely corrosive chemical flame. All other attacks against targets that are doused in an inferno grenade's flame benefit from Armour Piercing 1 for the single turn the grenade's effects last. 
''Lift Grenade'': A lift grenade deals no damage; instead, targets within its area of effect are hauled 2 yards from the ground for 1 round by a mass effect field. 
''Smoke Grenade'': A smoke grenade deals no damage; instead, it spews out a plume of thick smoke where it lands. The smoke covers an area of 5 yard radius for 5 rounds, providing a -3 concealment penalty to all attack rolls made against targets within it. A Perception check with a -3 penalty is necessary to make out targets beyond the smoke cloud if it blocks line of sight from the attacker, and even on a success the targets still benefit from the smoke's concealment. 
''Stun Grenade'': A stun grenade uses an intense pulse of light, sound and disorientating force to incapacitate targets, forcing them to succeed at a Stamina roll or be stunned for 1 round. 

'''Melee Weapons'''

<pre>
Melee Weapons Damage Special
------------------------------------------------
Unarmed Attack 0B Increases to 1B if wearing heavy armour
Assault Baton 2B
Improvised Club 1B
Knife 1L
Omni-Blade 1L
Stun Baton 1B Stun</pre>

''Stun Baton'': A stun baton is a standard policing and suppression implement, discharging a stun charge whenever it strikes a target. An opponent hit with a stun baton must succeed at a Stamina check or be stunned for 1 round.

==Armour==

In the Mass Effect setting, personal protection comes in two main forms – armour and kinetic barriers. Modern technology has resulted in armour plating that can hold off small arms fire with some success, while biotics and shield generators both provide effective barriers that can absorb incoming attacks.

Armour suits are still heavy, however, due to the bulk of the plating and the kinetic barrier generators that they need to carry, and can impede the fine control that technical experts and biotic users require to get the best out of their talents.

''Cumbersome'': A suit of armour inflicts a penalty to the wearer's Defence and Speed. Light armour inflicts a -1 penalty, medium armour inflicts -2 and heavy armour inflicts -3. Additionally, heavy armour inflicts the same penalty to Initiative.

''Impeding'': All rolls to use Tech Processes and Biotic Disciplines suffer a -1 penalty when used by a character wearing medium armour, increased to -2 for heavy armour.

''Medi-Gel'': Armour has a standard reservoir of 3 doses of medi-gel that the wearer can use on themselves. Onboard systems will automatically apply a dose for medi-gel's Emergency Trauma Injection use if the wearer has all their health boxes filled with Lethal damage.

''Onboard Systems'': As per standard, armour comes with a set of onboard systems. This includes a comm-link, a high powered torch, a HUD, target recognition systems and a short-range radar (50 yards), and light amplification systems that can negate up to a -2 penalty on ranged attack rolls due to low-light conditions. It also includes an onboard oxygen supply good for 2 hours, and an environmental filtration system that grants a +4 bonus to Stamina-based rolls to resist inhaled toxins and poisons.

''Webbing'': Most suits of armour come with enough webbing and pouches to hold up to six thermal clips for a rifle-sized weapon. Alternatively, a single thermal clip can be exchanged for a grenade or two clips for a pistol-sized weapon. Two thermal clips can be exchanged for a clip for a support weapon.

'''Personal Shield Generator (Shields 3/5/8)''': A relatively small personal barrier generator allows unarmoured individuals to benefit from protection. The version of this device that offers 3 Shield points is the most common; the version that offers 5 Shield points is very rare, an example of cutting edge technology or powered by an unwieldy generator back-pack. Finally, the version that offers Shields 8 is nearly unheard of, the kind of personal protection that a Councillor might carry. Personal shield generators lack the medi-gel reservoirs and onboard systems of true armour.

'''Light Armour (Armour 2, Shields 7)''': Common light armour offers little encumbrance but still has the power for a potent kinetic barrier.

'''Reconnaissance Armour (Armour 2, Shields 3)''': Specialised light armour designed for infiltrators and scouts, recon armour features a stealth field which puts a heavy drain on the generator. Due to its construction, recon armour does not suffer from the Cumbersome rule.

'''Medium Armour (Armour 3, Shields 7)''': Sacrificing speed and mobility for additional armour plating, medium armour is the standard level of protection worn by dedicated combat troops.

'''Medium Assault Armour (Armour 3, Shields 5)''': Specialised medium armour designed for shock troops and vanguards who need the additional mobility, assault armour cuts some of the power to shields in return for more potent servos. Assault armour does not suffer from the Cumbersome rule.

'''Heavy Armour (Armour 4, Shields 8)''': Big, heavy and slow, heavy classes of armour go the whole hog; since they need a larger generator to power the servos already, they also enhance the kinetic barriers.

'''Heavy Colossus Armour (Armour 4, Shields 10)''': The ultimate answer to the need for personal protection, short of taking a step up into the mechanised walker class of vehicles, colossus armour is slow as hell but very resilient. As well as applying the Cumbersome rule to Initiative, a wearer of colossus-class armour cannot run.

===Armour Mods===

A suit of armour can have a single armour mod, representing a tinkered upgrade, manufacturer's enhancements or bolt-on augmentation purchased separately. Armour does not need to have an armour mod, but there is no penalty for having one.

Rarely, armour can have a secondary mod. This mod is inactive and does nothing unless an Armour Subsystem Management programme from the Engineering Process talent is running, in which case the mod is given power and bestows the wearer with its benefits as well. A secondary mod cannot be the same as the regular armour mod that the suit has.

'''Advanced Systems Interface''': Reduces the Impeding penalty to Tech and Biotic power use by 1. 
'''Armour-Jets''': Provides inbuilt armour-jets for the suit, allowing the wearer to make Piloting checks for short-ranged vertical jumps and to slow descent. Dropping into combat leaves the wearer unable to act in the first round as they touch down. 
'''Cyberwarfare Defences''': Inflicts a -2 penalty on all attempts to hack the wearer's systems or to affect them with Tech Processes. 
'''Enhanced Arm Servos''': Increases the wearer's melee damage by 1. 
'''Enhanced Leg Servos''': Increases the wearer's Speed by 2. 
'''Extended Medi-Gel Reservoir''': Increases the armour's medi-gel reservoir to 4 doses. 
'''Fortified Shielding''': Increases the armour's Shield levels by 1. 
'''Full Environmental Systems''': Increases the oxygen supply to 4 hours and offers a +2 bonus to all Stamina checks to resist radiation and environmental effects. 
'''Onboard Targeting VI''': Reduces any cover penalty to ranged attack rolls by 1. 
'''Workhorse Capacity Upgrade''': Increases the number of rifle thermal clips (or equivalent) that can be carried to 9. 

==Other Equipment==

'''Medi-Gel'''

An incredible medical substance patented by the Sirta Foundation, medi-gel skirts close to banned genetic engineering but is so useful that this is overlooked by most. Medi-gel aids with healing, seals wounds, clots blood and serves as an anaesthetic.

Medi-gel has the following applications, in amounts denoted as doses. Armour usually comes with a reservoir that can hold up to 3 doses, applying medi-gel as needed to treat injuries.

'''Continual Healing''': At a cost of 1 dose of medi-gel per week continual use of small amounts of gel, stimms and other medical fluids can bolster the body's natural healing rates. This allows a character to heal Lethal and Bashing damage at twice the normal natural healing rates, but is no help with Aggravated damage – such wounds are simply too severe and need real medical attention. 
'''Emergency Trauma Injection''': When a character is injured to such an extent that they begin dying due to having their health boxes filled with Lethal or Aggravated damage, 1 dose of medi-gel can immediately stabilise them. 
'''Rapid Biological Restoration''': Via systemative intensive treatment of injuries with 1 dose of medi-gel, a character can give up efficiency for relatively rapid repair. This heals 1 Lethal point of damage over the course of 1 hour, or 3 Bashing points of damage over the course of 15 minutes, on top of normal healing rates. Extensive overuse of this function is not recommended as it both drains medi-gel reserves rapidly and can be deleterious to long-term health unless overseen by a qualified health professional. 

'''Biotic Amps'''

Biotics require implants to be able to properly control and harness the power of the eezo nodules in their bodies, and amplifiers can be plugged into these implants for greater effectiveness. There are a great number of different biotic amps on the market, often tailored to further enhance specific Disciplines or techniques.

A biotic character can only benefit from a single biotic amp at a time. Changing from one amp to another is a relatively simple process but takes some time and requires care, so cannot be done during combat.

'''Discipline Amps''': These amplify one of the three Disciplines, offering a +1 equipment bonus to all dice pools for using powers of that Discipline. 
'''Technique Amps''': These amplify a single biotic power, offering a +2 equipment bonus to all dice pools for the use of that specific power only. 

'''Omni-Tools'''

Omni-tools are common, multi-purpose personal computational devices that serve as micro-fabrication facilities, interfacing tools and diagnostic systems. Basic models are extremely common, but more specialised versions are available for technicians, soldiers and scientists who need further functionality.

Several omni-tools have a Library Size number. This is the amount of programmes for each Tech Process that the omni-tool can hold in its data library. All omni-tools apart from the basic model provide an omni-blade facility, flash-forging a weapon with the device's fabricator to deliver a devastating melee attack.

'''Basic Omni-Tool (Library Size 0)''': A cheap, regular-quality omni-tool offers no exceptional qualities. While it lacks the sophistication to run elaborate Tech programmes, it is fitted with simple fabrication patterns and interfacing systems to make it a useful tool. A basic omni-tool gives a +1 equipment bonus to one of either Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine or Science skill rolls. 
'''Enhanced Library Omni-Tool (Library Size 8)''': A omni-tool with extensive memory banks, this tool can store a great deal of programmes for retrieval by its user for whatever situation faces them. 
'''Enhanced Processor Omni-Tool (Library Size 6)''': Sacrificing memory for high performance, this omni-tool offers a +1 equipment bonus to the use of programmes from a single Process talent. 
'''Intrusion Omni-Tool (Library Size 4)''': A kind of omni-tool used by infiltrators, assassins and criminals, this tool devotes a large proportion of its power to intrusion purposes, offering a +2 equipment bonus to all attempts to hack or to use Interfacing Process programmes. 
'''Military Omni-Tool (Library Size 4)''': A military-grade omni-tool used by soldiers includes an augmented omni-blade facility, increasing the weapon's basic damage to 2L. 

'''Other Tools'''

'''Ballistic Shield''': A ballistic shield takes one hand to hold up, and provides the user with a very resilient composite shield that provides them with some measure of cover. Making full use of a ballistic shield offers a -2 cover penalty on attack rolls against the character, but the character suffers the normal penalty from firing from cover themselves (so suffers a -1 penalty to their own ranged attack rolls). Opponents with sufficiently powerful weapons may choose to simply try and punch a hole through the shield; in this case, no cover penalty is applied to the attack roll, but the shield-bearer benefits from 2 additional points of Armour on their Shield and health levels. 
'''Drop Casing''': While armour-jets will suffice for dropping from an aircraft into combat, they are insufficient for orbital drops; equally, not all troops have armour-jets built into their suits. Drop casings are bolt-on one-shot additions designed to protect the wearer from entry into an atmosphere and to slow their descent, detaching and falling off as the trooper hits the ground. Drop casings are usually programmed with guidance systems so that no Piloting checks are required from the wearer; however, if the situation has changed then the wearer can take control and use their Piloting skill to try and make small adjustments to their trajectory and landing zone. Dropping into combat leaves the wearer unable to act in the first round as they touch down. 
'''Med-Pack''': The size of a satchel or backpack, a med-pack can carry up to five doses of medi-gel, and comes with application nozzles and ports so that it can be used on injured individuals or to top up armour reservours. 
'''Remote Drone''': A remote drone is a small bundle of circuitry and energy projection mechanisms around a mass effect generator and power source, coming to about the size of a human fist. When activated, a remote drone generates a holographic display around itself and hovers a metre above the ground. Remote drones are usually used as helpers by technicians, offering a +1 teamwork bonus to Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine or Science rolls made by the drone's user, but special programming can improve their performance. Drones have 1 point of Armour, 3 Shield points and 2 health points of directly attacked. These are not to be confused with military drones, which are sizeable unmanned attack or scout vehicles. 
'''Tactical Cloak''': With an abundance of radar and other detection systems, unaugmented attempts at stealth can be difficult in some situations. Modern stealth systems have compensated with tactical cloaks, capable of rendering the user near-invisible to most forms of detection. Using a stealth system is an instant action taking a full round, and being invisible isn't much help if hostiles are still aware of where the character is. A successful attack with any kind of weapon against a cloaked character will cause the cloak to drop on the following turn. As long as the character moves up to their normal Speed the cloak remains intact, but running or charging provides too much interference and will break the tactical cloak's stealth field. Since a cloak is usually powered by the onboard generator of a reconnaissance armour suit, it can maintain its effect for up to ten minutes, or five minutes if the character is on the move, requiring a pause of ten minutes to recharge after this period. Rare personal stealth systems that are not part of a suit of armour can generally cloak for a far shorter period of time.

[[Mass:_the_Effecting |Back to main page]]

Mass: the Effecting/Hard-Won Experience

2012-10-04T13:07:12Z

Acrozatarim:

=Hard-Won Experience=

In Mass: The Effecting, your character possesses one of the six Archetype minor templates. As well as a special active and passive ability, this template gives your character a number of points to spend on Biotic, Combat Training and Tech talents, marking them out through their exceptional capabilities.

Each type of Archetype talent is distinct from the other two. Biotic talents are potent, specific uses of biotic power, draining to use but devastating in effect. Combat Training talents passively enhance a character's existing abilities or opening up new options in combat. Tech talents grant a great deal of flexibility through high-performance omni-tool programmes that augment and aid one of four skills – Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine and Science.

Each talent category is actually made up of 4 talents – so the Combat Training talents are Assault, Command, Guardian and Tactical. Your character can have up to 5 dots in a particular talent.

While your character's starting talent allocation is constrained by their Archetype, you can purchase any kind of talent for them with your character's experience points as the chronicle progresses. An Adept can acquire Combat Training talents to help them survive the battles they keep finding themselves in, and a Soldier can pick up some Tech programming tricks. However, if you wish to purchase Biotic talents with a non-Biotic Archetype, you should either make some concession to this in your starting character concept (such as the character having biotic potential but never getting the implants or training to use it) or something should have happened to enable this. Non-biotic individuals are simply unable to spontaneously start using biotic powers due to the way biotics work in the Mass Effect setting.

The experience cost for buying dots in a talent with experience points is equal to new dots x 5. If your Archetype has only one category of talent, then the cost of buying dots in that category is new dots x 3. If your Archetype has two categories of talent, then the cost of buying dots in those categories is new dots x 4.

''For example, a Soldier who wishes to increase their Command Training purchases at new dots x 3, as Command is a Combat Training talent and the Soldier Archetype only has the Combat Training category. A Vanguard who wishes to increase their Command Training or Integration Discipline talents purchases at new dots x 4, since the Vanguard Archetype has the Combat Training and Biotic categories. Both Soldier and Vanguard pay new dots x 5 for Tech talents, as neither has the Tech category.''

==Biotic Talents==

Biotics are capable of controlling mass effect fields due to nodules of element zero in their bodies. This can grant them tremendous power, but requires the use of implants and biotic amps to fully exploit. Biotic use also comes at a cost – it puts a huge drain on the user's metabolism, increasing their energy intake needs by a ferocious amount and building up static charge in their bodies to sometimes dangerous levels.

The different biotic talents are referred to as Disciplines. The four Disciplines are Distortion, Esoterics, Integration and Kinetics. Each point in a Discipline allows the character to pick a single power from the Discipline's list, granting the character the capability to use that power at will. These powers are picked when the dots are acquired and cannot be changed.

''Using Biotic Powers'': Using a biotic power usually involves rolling a dice pool of Resolve plus the character's dots in the relevant Discipline, with a variety of effects depending on the power in question. Using a power also requires that a cost be paid. This cost is in points of Bashing damage or Willpower, and possibly both. Points of Armour rating do not reduce the amount of damage taken from using biotic powers.

Unless otherwise noted, using a biotic power is an instant action. Biotic powers that target characters or locations other than the biotic themselves require line of sight.

Biotic powers require at least some freedom of movement to act, as biotic users are trained to use mudras to activate their implants and nervous systems in particular ways. Restraining a biotic is an effective way to prevent them from using their capabilities.

''Boosting Biotic Powers'': A biotic character can choose to boost a power, pushing themselves to the limit to empower themselves further. This increases the cost of the power, as noted in the boost's entry.

''Willpower Points and Biotic Powers'': Willpower points spent to activate or boost a biotic power do not count towards the one point of Willpower that a character can normally spend per turn to increase their dice pool or defences. A character could conceivably activate a biotic power that costs 1 point of Willpower, its boost that costs another point of Willpower and then spend their one point of Willpower per turn for a +3 bonus to the activation dice pool.

''Kinetics and Countering'': A biotic may choose to spend their turn's action countering the Kinetic abilities of another biotic within 25 yards. If they do so, they may take no other action but inflict a penalty on all Kinetic power rolls by the target equal to their own dots in the Kinetic discipline.

===Distortion===

Distortion is the Discipline of molecular agitation and the manipulation of mass to distort and warp.

'''Haze'''

This technique uses low-level distortion fields to create a shell of warped spacetime around an area, interfering with any sorts of senses or perception attempting to cross the shell's edge. To the outside world, the hazed air looks like warped, shimmering glass.

Haze affects an area centred on the biotic with a radius of Resolve x 5 yards. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Any attempts to perceive by any means (sight, hearing, radar etc) into the area covered by Haze suffer a penalty equal to the biotic's Resolve, and indeed need to make Perception or other appropriate rolls in the first place. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the effect can be placed within 50 yards instead of being centred on the biotic. 

'''Reave'''

This technique unleashes a powerful distortion field into the target's nervous or synthetic systems, causing a crippling overload.

Reave affects a single target up to 200 yards away. Roll Resolve + Distortion against an opposed roll of the target's Stamina. Success results in the target suffering wound penalties as if they had their last three health points filled with damage, with a duration of the biotic's Resolve in rounds. The penalty isn't cumulative with any existing wound penalties the target is already suffering, and can be reduced as normal by effects such as Iron Stamina. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Reave nullifies any healing from any source during its duration, and it inflicts the -3 wound penalty in addition to any existing wound penalties, regardless of any Iron Stamina or other reductions. 

'''Scramble'''

Scramble unleashes a thrashing flux of mass effect fields around the biotic, warping and distorting gravity and space.

Scramble affects an area centred on the biotic with a radius of Resolve x 3 yards. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Everyone other than the biotic in the area of effect suffers a -2 penalty to their Speed, and to any attack rolls and Athletics-based rolls that they make. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1B, the -2 penalty to attack rolls also applies to any ranged attacks made against the biotic from outside Scramble's area. 

'''Singularity'''

Singularity uses distortion to punch a gravity well into the fabric of spacetime, dragging anyone nearby towards its centre.

Choose a point within 100 yards; this is where the singularity appears, affecting an area Resolve x 5 yards in radius. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Anyone in the area of effect must succeed in a Strength + Athletics check in order to move in any direction other than directly towards the singularity, with successes equal to the number of yards they can move in a direction they wish. On the biotic's turn every round, everyone in the area of effect gets pulled 5 yards towards the singularity. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, increase the number of yards the singularity pulls each round by the biotic's Resolve. 

'''Warp'''

Warp creates rapidly shifting mass effect fields that tear a target apart.

Warp is used as a ranged attack by the biotic, with a short range of 100 yards and no medium or long range. This power uses Resolve + Distortion as its attack pool and is affected by other situational modifiers, such as cover, just as a normal ranged attack. If Warp hits, it has a Damage rating equal to the biotic's Resolve, with added damage from successes as normal.

If the target is already under the effect of another biotic power, Warp causes a biotic explosion. This increases its' Damage rating by 1 against the target, and inflicts a 3L explosion centred on the target with a radius equal to the biotic's Resolve in yards. The pre-existing biotic power immediately ends if it is a Distortion or Kinetic power. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, Warp grants all attacks against the target Armour Piercing 1 for a number of rounds equal to Resolve. 

===Esoterics===

Esoterics is a new and rare discipline of biotics. The powers that are classified under Esoterics come from a variety of scientific and research sources, pushing at the boundaries of what is understood about the biotic condition and exploring new (and often unsafe) concepts. These powers are not in general use and some are essentially secret, or only available through extremely dubious channels. Unlike the other three biotic disciplines, users of Esoterics must undergo special training and implants to gain an Esoteric power, as standard biotic amps and implants do not have the advanced or experimental systems needed.

'''Annihilation Field'''

Annihilation Field shrouds the biotic in a highly dangerous cloak of agitated space-time that seethes with contained energies; this technique has been pioneered by human researchers.

Annihilation Field allows the biotic to make an additional attack against ''all'' other characters within 5 yards at the beginning of the biotic's turn. This attack uses only the biotic's Resolve as its dice pool but ignores defence, and has a Damage rating of 3. Annihilation Field will also tend to corrode, ignite or otherwise wreck the nearby environment, and makes stealth impossible. Annihilation Field lasts a scene, or until the biotic chooses to end it.
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, Annihilation Field grants all attacks against any target hit by it Armour Piercing 1 for one round. 

'''Mindscram'''

Mindscram finely hones the same methods used by Reave to assault the cerebral nervous system of the target; it is rumoured to have been developed from studying a rare Asari mutation.

Mindscram affects a single target up to 5 yards away. Roll Resolve against an opposed roll of the target's Stamina. Success results in the target being stunned for a number of rounds equal to successes. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, the biotic may choose not to stun the target, instead inflicting a -2 dice penalty on all mental and social dice pools made to oppose the biotic for a number of rounds equal to successes. 

'''Rift'''

Rift saturates an area with minute levels of constant mass effect manipulation, interfering with mass effect fields created by other biotics. This esoteric technique was first reported as being deployed by certain Turian cabals on the field of battle.

Rift affects an area centred on the biotic with a radius of Resolve x 5 yards. Roll Resolve; the Rift lasts for a number of rounds equal to successes. Any attempts by a biotic to use a biotic power in this area, or to affect a target within the area from outside it with a biotic power, suffer a -3 penalty to any dice pool involved. This includes the biotic using Rift. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1B, the biotic may extend the radius of Rift to Resolve x 10 yards and add 2 to the number of rounds that it lasts.

===Integration===

Integration is the biotic discipline of molecular integration, using mass effect fields to strengthen and control the fabric of spacetime around the user.

'''Barrier'''

Barrier protects the biotic with mass effect fields in the same way as technological kinetic barrier generators.

Barrier provides the biotic with a number of biotic Shield levels equal to Resolve. These shield levels do not stack with any existing Shield levels, but will overwrite them if existing Shield levels are lower than the biotic's Resolve. Roll Resolve + Integration, with the biotic gaining a +1 bonus to resist attempts to knock them down or move them around for each success on the dice roll, as long as Barrier is in effect. Barrier lasts one scene, or until the Shield levels are lost. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Barrier can be activated as a Reflexive action. 

'''Charge'''

Charge encases the biotic in a mass effect field and launches them forwards at high velocity, akin to the technique employed by mass relays.

Charge allows the biotic to move up to their Speed x Resolve in yards in a straight line at near-instantaneous speed. This power doesn't allow them to pass through solid obstacles but they may go straight over gaps of up to their Speed in yards without any need for jumping checks. Roll Resolve + Integration, with each success increasing the biotic's Defence by 1; this effect lasts 1 round.

The biotic may still make a melee or ranged attack after using Charge. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic does not need to Charge in a straight line and may make any number of turns along the way, they may also cover a gap of twice their Speed in yards. 

'''Smite'''

Smite uses mass effect fields to empower the biotic's unarmed strikes with immense force.

Smite is a reflexive action used to augment an unarmed attack. It increases the Damage rating of the unarmed attack by an amount equal to the biotic's Resolve, and the biotic may choose to make the damage Lethal rather than Bashing. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Smite augments all unarmed attacks the biotic makes for one additional round. 

'''Stasis'''

Stasis simply locks the target into place with integrated mass effect fields that prevent them from moving.

Choose a target within 50 yards. The target must make a Strength check, with a penalty imposed of up to the biotic's Resolve at the biotic's choice. If the target achieves no successes, they are locked in place for 1 round and are completely unable to act in any way. However, they gain additional Armour equal to the penalty that the biotic applied to their strength check, affecting all attacks whether against Shield levels or health levels, and which is cumulative with existing Armour.

''For example, a biotic with Resolve 5 chooses to apply a -3 penalty to a target's Strength check. Since the target only has Strength 3, this reduces them to a chance die. They fail, and are locked in place for 1 round. During this round, they benefit from an additional 3 points of Armour against all attacks.''

''Cost'': 1 Willpower point. 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the target gains no Armour from Stasis. 

'''Wall'''

Wall uses similar mass effect fields to Barrier and Stasis to forge a layer of integrated mass effect fields across an area.

The Wall power creates a wall of biotic force that is up to Resolve x 2 yards wide and high. The centre point of the wall's line must be within 5 yards of the biotic when created. Roll Resolve + Integration; the Wall has a number of Shield levels equal to 5 + successes rolled. The Wall can serve as cover and an obstacle, preventing any movement through it. Attackers may choose to attack the Wall directly; it has Armour equal to the Biotic's Resolve.

The Wall remains present as long as the biotic is within 5 yards of it. If he moves away, creates a new Wall, or the Wall's Shield levels are lost, it immediately ceases to exist. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower, the biotic may make a Wall that will exist even after moving 5 yards away from it, or he may turn it into a shell of up to Resolve x 2 yards radius centred on himself. 

===Kinetics===

Kinetics is the biotic discipline of directly applying force through mass effect fields.

'''Glide'''

The Glide technique involves applying kinetic mass effect fields to the biotic themselves, allowing them to defy the forces of gravity through fine biotic control.

Roll Resolve + Kinetics, with Glide lasting for a number of rounds equal to successes rolled. While Glide is in effect, the biotic can reduce the distance they fall each round to any speed including zero, and they suffer no falling damage when making contact with the ground. If they continue to have some downward velocity, they may also move sideways in any direction up to their Resolve in yards per round. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can move in any direction at all for up to their Resolve in yards per round, without any requirement to continue moving down. This allows the biotic to 'fly' upwards if they wish. 

'''Lift'''

The Lift technique uses mass effect fields to pull the target up into the air.

Choose a target within 100 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. The target is lifted a number of yards equal to successes rolled, lasting for the biotic's Resolve in rounds. A gentle drift can be applied to the target as they are lifted if desired, so they will move 1 yard per round in a particular direction.

The Lifted target is not incapacitated and may continue to try and act by firing, trying to grab hold of something, and so forth.

Lifting larger, heavier targets is more difficult. For each full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Resolve + Kinetics roll suffers an additional –2 penalty, so lifting a small car (Size 10) would inflict a -2 penalty on the roll. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Lift of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

'''Slam'''

Slam uses fine control over a rapid flux in mass effect fields to exert huge force on a target, picking them up and slamming them down again.

Choose a target within 30 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics as an attack with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. Slam is not affected by other conditional modifiers such as cover. If Slam hits, it has a Damage rating equal to the biotic's Resolve, with added damage from successes as normal. The target is also knocked prone. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Slam of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

'''Shockwave'''

The Shockwave technique unleashes a powerful mass effect field that pulses out in a crashing wave, knocking targets from their feet.

Choose which direction the Shockwave emits, resulting in an area of effect starting at the biotic that is 5 yards wide and 5 x Resolve yards long. Make a Resolve + Kinetics roll once; each target in the area must oppose this with their own Strength roll. If they lose, they are knocked prone. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point. 
''Boost'': For 1B, all targets automatically fail their Strength check. 

'''Throw'''

Throw exerts a strong mass effect field to catapult the target in a particular direction.

Choose a target within 100 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics as an attack with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. The target is hurled in a chosen direction for a distance of up to successes x 5 yards, and suffering Bashing damage in successes if they hit something. The target must make a Dexterity + Athletics roll with a penalty equal to the biotic's Resolve, or be knocked down.

This power can also be used to pick up objects and hurl them at people, inflicting Bashing damage equal to successes if the Throw can reach the target with the object. This has the benefit of most thrown objects not possessing Shield levels.

Lifting larger, heavier targets is more difficult. For each full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Resolve + Kinetics roll suffers an additional –2 penalty, so lifting a small car (Size 10) would inflict a -2 penalty on the roll. However, for every full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Damage inflicted by a thrown object increases by 2. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Throw of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

==Combat Training Talents==

Combat in the Mass Effect setting is fast, lethal and dangerous, thanks to the cutting edge technology deployed on the battlefields of the galaxy. Personal protection from armour and shields only goes so far towards securing victory – the rest comes from the training and talent of the commanders and troops themselves.

The different combat training talents are called Regimens. The four Regimens are Assault, Command, Guardian and Tactical. Each point in a Regimen allows the character to pick a single power from the Regimen's list, granting the character the benefits of that power. These powers are picked when the dots are acquired and cannot be changed.

The Command Training Regimen works slightly differently from the others, as noted in its description below.

''Using Combat Training Powers'': Most Combat Training powers grant their benefits all the time. Some allow the character to use new options in combat, such as Suppressive Fire; the character can choose when to use these options and when not to, and no cost is attached to doing so.

===Assault Training===

Assault training often covers close-quarter combat, ambushes, storming defensive positions and blitzkrieg insertion into hot zones.

'''Agility''': Through a mixture of free-running and combat training, the character can ignore terrain penalties on their movement of an amount up to their dots in Dexterity; so a character with Dexterity 4 could ignore up to -4 in penalties. Ladders, crates, low walls and so forth are easy for this character to handle. Their speed is also increased by 1. 
'''Ambush''': The character is an expert at close, covert work. When attacking an opponent who is not aware of the character, they add a +2 bonus to the Damage rating of their attack. Perception rolls made to hear the character attacking suffer a -2 penalty. 
'''Carnage''': The character is an expert in dealing death with short-ranged weapons in close quarters. When firing at a target within the short-range of a pistol or shotgun, the character benefits from the 9-again rule, or 8-again if the weapon already has 9-again. 
'''Close Quarters Combatant''': The character possesses advanced close combat training. They ignore penalties to their Defence caused by multiple melee attackers, may choose to deal Lethal damage with their unarmed attacks, and benefit from the 9-again rule when making unarmed strikes. 
'''Combat Drop Training''': The character has been trained for rapid-deployment assaults into hot zones. When dropping into combat with armour-jets, from an aircraft or from orbit, the character is able to act on the same round they touch down and suffers no other penalties due to combat drops. They also treat all Piloting checks with armour-jets as rote actions. 
'''Hard Target''': Keeping a low profile and moving fast, the character renders themselves a hard target for attackers. If they move at least 5 yards during their turn, all ranged attacks against them suffer an additional -1 penalty on their attack pools. Running increases the penalty to -2. 
'''Shock Trooper''': The character has the training and experience of a hardened shock trooper and is used to running through hails of bullets and explosions without flinching. The character reduces all penalties suffered from the combat environment by 1, such as from suppressive fire, concealment granted by smoke grenades and so forth. They benefit from a +2 bonus to any dice pool to resist knock-downs, stuns and other disorientation effects, while their Speed is increased by 1. 
'''Slam''': Harnessing their raw strength, the character slams foes to the ground. After a successful melee attack at the end of a charge action, the target of the attack must make a Strength check. If they fail to get as many successes as the points of damage taken from the attack, they are knocked down. This technique is a favourite of Krogan. 

===Command Training===

Command training prepares a character for the rigours of commanding a team in a combat environment, whether a naval commander overseeing their crew from the bridge of a spaceship or a black ops squad leader directing their team through an intense firefight.

Command Training works differently to the other talents available in Combat Training. Rather than offering a new power with every dot, the character instead gains one additional die into the group's Command pool, a pool of dice that refreshes each scene from which the whole group of characters can benefit. These dice can be drawn on for specific purposes by any characters who are in communications-range of one of the Commanding characters.

''For example, a Soldier has Command 4, putting 4 dice into the Command pool. Another character in the group, a Vanguard, has Command 2, increasing the total dice in the Command pool to 6. At the beginning of every scene, this pool refreshes back up to 6 dice, no matter how many of the dice have been spent in the prior scene.''

As long as one of the characters with Command allows it, anyone in the group can take dice from the pool for the purposes noted below, including the characters with the Command talent themselves. A character can take up to their Wits in dice from the pool in a single turn, and can spend them all on one roll or purpose if desired.

Command dice can be:

'''Concentrate Fire''': Added directly to an attack dice pool, before rolling. 
'''Co-Ordinate Action''': Added directly to a secondary actor's teamwork dice pool to aid a primary actor with their action. 
'''Priority Target''': Added directly to the Damage rating of an attack against a target who is knocked down, held by a mass effect field, on fire, frozen, stunned or otherwise vulnerable, before rolling the attack pool. 
'''Ready For Action''': Added as a bonus to a character's Initiative score after rolling in the first round of combat, adding +1 per die used. 
'''Take Cover''': Applied as an additional penalty to an attack roll against a character who is in cover, augmenting the normal cover penalty by -1 per die used, before rolling the attack pool. 
'''Stay Alert''': Added directly to a Perception dice pool, before rolling. 

===Guardian Training===

Guardian training demands the very best of a character physically, pushing them to their limits and beyond to help them and others stay alive.

'''Bastion''': The character knows how to angle armour plating, shift their profile and minimise the damage from incoming fire. If wearing armour, the character benefits from a +1 to their Armour against any ranged attackers in front of them, as long as they haven't moved this turn. 
'''Berserker''': When taking at least one point of Lethal damage, the character may choose to enter a rage, gaining a temporary +2 bonus to Stamina and Resolve and becoming immune to penalties inflicted by suppressive fire. This does result in them gaining two health levels during the rage but, while the health levels are lost once the rage subsides, any damage taken is kept. Many Krogan enter a berserker rage in battle when wounded. 
'''Bodyguard''': The Character has the reflexes and training of a bodyguard, able to protect others with their own body. They can choose to serve as cover for allies when they are between the ally and attacker or are adjacent to that ally, inflicting a -1 cover penalty on attacks that increases to -2 if the bodyguard is carrying a ballistic shield.. This increases to -2 if the ally is willing to allow the bodyguard to drop them prone and shield the ally with their whole body, increasing again to -3 if the bodyguard is in heavy armour or is carrying a ballistic shield. 
'''Fitness''': The character is in excellent physical condition and has two permanent additional health points. 
'''Resilient''': Fists, batons, concussion grenades... Not much phases this character. They benefit from an additional point of Armour against all Bashing attacks, even when not actually wearing armour, and gain a +1 bonus to dice pools to resist stuns and knock-downs. 
'''Second Skin''': The character has the training and experience to treat armour like a second skin, entirely comfortable with its power servos and weight distribution. The character benefits from a +1 to their Defence and Speed while wearing armour. 
'''Survivor''': The character is too tough or just too damn stubborn to stay down, regardless of his injuries. He never falls unconscious as a result of having all his health boxes filled with damage, and doesn't need to succeed on a Stamina roll to do so. 
'''Vigilant''': The character is ever-vigilant for danger. If the character is or becomes aware of an attacker targeting an unaware ally, and the character is within communications range of that ally, the ally becomes aware of the impending attack immediately. The character's Initiative is also increased by 1. 

===Tactical Training===

Tactical training prepares the character for the rapidly changing environment of the battlefield, allowing them to react to new threats swiftly and to apply their own firepower with devastating effect.

'''Advancing Fire''': The character may fire when running, suffering a -3 penalty to their attack roll for doing so. 
'''Heavy Weapons Training''': The character is experienced in handling support weaponry, and ignores any penalties and restrictions from the Heavy Weapon trait. 
'''Marksman''': The character is a skilled marksman. Whenever the character takes at least one aim action with a weapon that has the 9-again trait (apart from shotguns), they benefit from the 8-again rule on the attack dice pool made with the aiming bonus. 
'''Outflank''': The character knows how the make the most of an outmanoeuvred enemy's weakness. Attacking a target in the flank or rear when an ally has engaged them from the front grants the character a +1 bonus to attack rolls. 
'''Sniper''': The character has the patience and talent of a skilled sniper. After using the aim action and firing at a target, the character does not lose his aiming bonus as long as he continues to fire at the same target and does not have his line of sight to them broken. He may even continue to take further aim actions to increase his aiming bonus, subject to the usual +3 aiming bonus cap. 
''For example, a sniper could aim once for a +1 bonus, fire, aim again for a total of +2, fire again, etc.'' 
'''Squad Reflexes''': After rolling for Initiative at the beginning of combat, but before the first round begins, the character can choose to shift their Initiative to match that of one ally within communications range. The character's Initiative is also increased by 1. 
'''Suppressive Fire''': There's a line between effective suppressive fire and just wasting shots. The character may sacrifice the bonus attack dice from autofire to apply it instead as a penalty to the ranged attack rolls of the target for one round. This can be applied to multiple targets as per the normal autofire rules, but it does incur the usual attack dice penalty – so hosing down three targets with long-burst autofire for suppressive fire applies the -3 penalty to all of them but also leaves the character with a -3 penalty on his attack rolls. Suppressive fire doesn't work against opponents who are simply unable to take cover, or are too heavily armoured or mindless to care. 
'''Weapon Drill''': Unloading, reloading and returning to the task of providing fire support is a well-oiled practice for the character. Reloading is a reflexive action as long as the replacement heat clip is to hand (such as in armour webbing or laid out within reach). 

==Tech Talents==

Advanced technology permeates the fabric of society in Mass Effect, and is a key part of life for any technician, engineer, scientist or doctor. Omni-tools are common, multi-purpose personal computational devices that serve as micro-fabrication facilities, interfacing tools and diagnostic systems. Those with the knowledge and skill can use their omni-tool to run enhanced programmes and VIs that can hack, overload or scan to great effect.

The different tech talents are called Processes. The four Processes are Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine and Science, and each is associated with the Mental skill of the same name. Each point in a Process allows the character to run a single programme of that type concurrently on their omni-tool. Unlike Disciplines and Regimens, the exact programme run in the Process slot is not permanent and can be easily changed for other programmes of a similar kind.

''Using Tech Powers'': A character's omni-tool possesses a library of stored programmes to draw upon. An omni-tool has a Library Size trait, as listed under its entry in the Elkoss Combine Catalogue; this is the number of stored programmes it can hold for ''each'' Process talent that the user has dots in. Programmes in the library are inactive until put into a Process slot.

''For example, a character with 2 dots in both the Engineering and Medicine Processes whose omni-tool has Library Size 6 can have 6 Engineering and 6 Medicine programmes stored in their library.''

The character has a number of Process slots equal to their dots in that Process; each slot can run one programme from the omni-tool's library in it.

Programmes come in two types – running and charged. Running programmes are passive, giving a bonus or opening up an option as long as they are in a slot. Charged programmes are expended when they are used, and remain expended for the rest of the scene; they rely on stored power that needs to recharge, need to take time to fabricate some complex new materials, or are otherwise unavailable. An expended charged programme remains in its Process slot.

''For example, a character with 3 dots in the Engineering Process and 1 dot in the Medicine Process could have Shield Modulation, Shield Boost and Overload in his Engineering slots and Defibrillator Pulse in his Medicine slot.''

A programme ''can'' be put into multiple Process slots, but running programmes give no benefit for doing so. In the case of a charged programme, running it in multiple slots essentially makes multiple uses available per scene.

Whenever dice rolls are called for by a tech power and refer to Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine or Science, they refer to the character's skill dots and not the dots in that Process talent.

''Swapping Programmes'': A character can swap out any programme in a slot for any other programme available in their omni-tool's library between scenes or in situations where there is no time pressure, without needing to roll.

During action or combat, swapping programmes is considerably more difficult, especially if the omni-tool's processors are already busy running a dozen other programmes at the same time. Doing so is a full action for the character's turn, wherein they must make roll Intelligence + the skill associated with the Process in question, with a penalty equal to the number of running programmes of that Process currently active. An expended programme's slot cannot be replaced in this way during a scene, but a running programme or an unexpended charged programme can be.

''For example, a character with 3 dots in the Engineering Process, 4 dots in the Engineering skill and 3 dots of Intelligence has two running programmes and a charged programme in their Process slots. During combat, they want to replace one of the running programmes with a more situation-appropriate charged programme. Doing so requires that they roll Intelligence + Engineering, a dice pool of 7, with a penalty of -2 dice for the two running programmes. This leaves them with 5 dice; any success means they have successfully swapped the running programme to the new charged programme.''

''Changing Libraries'': A character may wish to change the programmes they have available in their omni-tool's library. This requires that they either access a database with more programmes archived in it, or that they write a new programme themselves. The latter is time-consuming and very difficult, whereas the former often incurs the cost of purchasing licenses for a programme from a company. Many employers provide access to basic programmes to their staff, such as the line of Analysis programmes; getting access to a more questionable programme such as Overload is somewhat more difficult, requiring either money or military or criminal contacts.

''Scanners'': Several running programmes allow the character to use an omni-tool's facilities to replace Composure with a skill in Perception checks, for the purposes of detecting particular substances or systems. These scans can still suffer from various penalties to the Perception check and, while they can detect through some solid materials, suffer increasing degradation of signal the further they have to go.

===Engineering===

Engineering programmes focus on improving hardware and mechanical processes, whether vehicles and armour or shield modulations.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Emergency Infiltration Protocol''': This is a batch of processes with an emergency power cell for re-establishing a stealth field immediately. The character can expend the programme to activate a stealth field (if they have one) as a reflexive action instead of as an instant action. 
'''Fortification''': Through highly efficient management routines and incoming fire calculations, the power flows and fluid dynamics of armour can be momentarily reinforced. As a reflexive action, roll Wits + Engineering to increase Armour by the number of successes for 1 round. 
'''Neural Shock''': The programme discharges a pulse of electrical current that plays havoc with a target's nervous system. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Engineering versus the Stamina roll of a target within 30 yards. On a success, the target is stunned for 1 round, increased to 2 rounds on an exceptional success. 
'''Overload''': The programme discharges a carefully controlled pulse of electrical current that plays havoc with a target's shields, overloading kinetic barriers. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Engineering to deal damage to the Shield levels of a target within 50 yards – this power does no damage to health levels. If the character has multiple Overload programmes ready, they can all be expended at the same time; each Overload may affect a new target within 5 yards of the last, and the same target cannot be affected twice. 
'''Shield Boost''': The programme runs emergency power management routines to reestablish shield integrity. As a reflexive action, roll Wits + Engineering, restoring a number of lost Shield points to the character or an ally within 25 yards equal to the number of successes rolled. If the character has multiple Shield Boost programmes readied, they can all be expended at the same time; each Boost may target a new ally within 5 yards of the last target, and the same target cannot be affected twice. 
'''Shield Burst''': The programme dumps all remaining kinetic barrier energy into a controlled output. As a reflexive action, the character loses all remaining Shield points. A blast is centred on the character with a radius equal to the number of Shield points lost. Roll Wits + Engineering, dealing successes as Lethal damage to all characters within the area of effect. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Armour Subsystem Management''': Complex power management routines allow for additional energy demands to be handled. As long as this programme is running, the character can make used of a secondary armour mod, allowing them to benefit from both mods at once. 
'''Engineering Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Engineering skill checks, other than for the use of charged Engineering programmes. 
'''Engineering Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for engineering purposes. 
'''Omni-Blade Power Rerouting''': As well as fabricating a keen-edged one-use blade, the omni-tool's power systems divert additional power into the strike. This increases the Damage rating of an omni-blade by 1, and grants 9-again on attacks made with it. 
'''Rig-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced engineering assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Engineering skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Shield Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a shield emitter. The character's remote drone grants a +2 bonus to the maximum Shield points of all allies within 20 yards. 
'''Shield Modulation''': A VI's ongoing shield management processes ensure that a shield restores its integrity at a more rapid rate than normal. The character can reflexively restore 1 Shield point on their turn, as long as they have not been hit by any attacks since their last turn. 
'''Vehicle Control Subsystems''': Advanced integration programmes allow the character to enhance their control of a vehicle, granting the 9-again rule to Piloting checks. 

===Interfacing===

Interfacing programmes include routines for research, data analysis, scanning and hacking; for interfacing experts, information and its denial is the name of the game.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Comms Tap''': A rapid-fire codebreaker VI allows the character to attempt to break in to a communications channel as an instant action. Roll Intelligence + Interfacing, with successes giving the number of minutes that the character can listen in without the users being aware. Heavy-duty encryption can impose a penalty on the roll – standard military comm channels inflict a -3 penalty, with more difficult hacking targets increasing from there. 
'''Haywire''': By unleashing chaos programmes that hammer at any networked systems nearby, the character compromises equipment and armaments. Roll Intelligence + Interfacing as a reflexive action to affect an area of up to successes x 5 yards in radius. All tech devices within this area suffer a -1 penalty to rolls using them for 2 rounds, including firearms' attack dice pools. 
'''Lock-Hack''': A common (and usually illegal) programme for brute-forcing electronic locking systems, a Lock-Hack allows the character to attempt to open a lock as an extended Wits + Interfacing action with one roll representing one turn of work. The number of successes required depends on the quality of the lock in question. This is a crude electronic intrusion and will trigger alarms or alerts to the system, but it gets the job done quickly. 
'''Mask''': Careful infiltration protocols and data-masks shut down the character's network trace. Roll Wits + Interfacing as a reflexive action to immediately 'go silent' for a number of rounds equal to successes rolled, rendering the character's presence on a network untraceable by others. This also serves to render the character undetectable for the duration to any attempts to locate them with technological scans for data signals. 
'''Overheat''': Through a pre-prepared remote rapid hack VI, a weapon's heat sinks can be tampered with. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Interfacing against a target with a penalty based on the largest weapon to be overheated (-1 for a pistol, -2 for a rifle) and a -1 penalty for each additional weapon to be overheated past the first. Success results in all targeted weapons overheating, expending the full capacity of their current heat clip. This programme can even be used reflexive at the moment that a target is about to make an attack action, leaving them pulling the trigger for no effect, but suffers an additional -5 penalty for attempting the hack so fast. 
'''Subvert Synthetic''': A set of programmes that allow the character to try and hack a synthetic's systems on the fly. As an instant action, roll Wits + Interfacing opposed by the target synthetic or AI's Wits + remaining Shield points. Success give the character control of the synthetic for a number of rounds equal to successes. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Interfacing Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Interfacing skill checks, other than for the use of charged Interfacing programmes. 
'''Interfacing Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for interfacing purposes. 
'''Passive Scanning Programme''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to detect active net systems and ID them including active programmes running on omni-tools, armour and weaponry. This allows the character to use Wits + Interfacing for Perception rolls to detect these systems within a 100 yard range, or further if a signal is particularly strong. 
'''Rapid Data Analysis''': An advanced analysis VI and sifting programmes aid to rapidly identify and acquire relevant information vai the extranet or accessed databases. The character has their research times halved when attempting to acquire information via modern tech methods. If they have to actually read a set of old tomes in a pre-tech library, for example, then they're out of luck. 
'''Scout Drone''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a scout and sensor. The character's remote drone grants a +2 bonus to Perception checks, including those made via scanning programmes, and has superior sensory feedback allowing it to transmit full video feeds and readouts as long as it is within communications range of the character. 
'''Secure Routines''': Reactive defensive VI programmes inflict a penalty equal to the character's Interfacing skill on attempts to hack the equipment or systems that the character controls. 
'''Vehicle Interface Programming''': Advanced integration routines augment the character's interfacing with vehicular sensor suites. Perception checks made via a vehicle's sensors and scanners benefit from the 9-again rule. 
'''Sys-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced systems assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Interfacing skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 

===Medicine===

Medical programmes largely focus on subsystems for monitoring patients, administering emergency assistance and aiding with recovery from injuries and sickness; they also augment medical and biological analysis facilities.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Defibrillator Pulse''': The omni-tool discharges a pulse of energy into the patient to jolt them back to awareness. As a reflexive action, the character can target an unconscious character within 5 yards, rolling Intelligence + Medicine. Success brings the target back round to consciousness, unless they are unable to do so due to being drugged, for example. The pulse can be combined together with an Emergency Medi-Gel Application programme into one reflexive action on a single target. 
'''Emergency Medi-Gel Application''': Emergency medical management systems kick into action, allowing the character to direct the treatment to where it will be most effective. As a reflexive action, the character can target themselves or an ally within 5 yards with the programme, rolling Intelligence + Medicine with a penalty equal to any wound penalties that the target is currently suffering. On a success, expend one of the target's medi-gel doses for an immediate healing effect of 1L or 3B. 
'''Hypodermic Dart''': The onboard fabrication systems forge a hypodermic sliver of metal, loaded with carefully tailored toxins. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 30 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Medicine but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. The dart has a Damage rating of 1L with additional damage added from successes as normal but, if it inflicts any points of damage to the target's health points, it applies a Toxicity 2 poison dealing Bashing damage that forces the target to succeed at a Stamina check or fall unconscious. 
'''Medical Threat Analysis''': A diagnostic VI interfaces with the omni-tools sensors to quickly assess any medical hazards present. As a reflexive action, the character can roll Intelligence + Medicine for a near-instantaneous analysis of any chemical, biological or radioactive hazards present in the environment, the character, or a target within 5 yards – so it can identify if a character has been poisoned, or what the local radioactivity levels are. 
'''Stimulant Injection System''': Biological monitoring programmes aid with calculating precisely the right levels of stimulants to be injected into the body. As a reflexive action, the character may increase their Dexterity score by 1, lasting a number of rounds equal to their number of Medicine skill dots. This also affects all allies linked in via a tactical network. 
'''Toxic Cleansing Programme''': Rapid assessment of hazardous toxins affecting the body allows for a tailored chemical response to be quickly deployed into the bloodstream. As an instant action, the character may roll Intelligence + Medicine versus a roll of the Toxicity of a poison affecting themselves or a character within 5 yards. Success results in the poison being neutralised. Extremely exotic or totally unknown toxins may inflict a further penalty on the roll. 
'''Toxic Materials Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a round containing a dangerous cocktail of toxic materials, hurling them away via a magnetic pulse. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Medicine but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. The attack deals no damage but fills an area around the target of 10 yards radius with caustic fumes for a number of rounds equal to the character's Medicine skill dots. This acts as a Toxicity 4 poison dealing Lethal damage via inhalation. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Background Toxicity Monitor''': A background monitoring VI handles automated countermeasures against toxic factors. The character benefits from a +2 bonus to all rolls to resist disease, poison, infection and other biological or chemical agents. This also affects all allies linked in via a tactical network. 
'''Bioscanner''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to detect nearby life-signs and traces of organic matter. This allows the character to use Wits + Medicine for Perception rolls to detect living organisms or organic matter within a 100 yard range. 
'''Decoy-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a decoy drone. Through complex bio-mimicry, the drone projects both a holographic decoy of the character, combined with realistic life-sign emissions that can fool basic scans and senses. The character can set the decoy on a basic 'idle' animation, can pre-record up to 5 minutes of voice and movement (including triggers to activate recorded speech), or can directly steer the decoy-drone's projection on a realtime basis. Observers must pass a Perception check with a penalty equal to the character's Medicine skill dots to note that something is off about the decoy; physically interacting with the decoy will immediately show it to be a holographic projection with a drone at its heart, as will other actions that show its nature. 
'''Med-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced medical assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Medicine skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Medi-Gel Overseer''': A continually running VI programme monitors and adjusts the application of medi-gel to deal with injuries. Whenever the character uses a charge of medi-gel for healing purposes, either on themselves or others, they may roll Intelligence + Medicine. If they achieve as many or more successes as the target has injured health points, the total Bashing or Lethal health points healed is increased by 1. 
'''Medical Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Medicine skill checks, other than for the use of charged Medicine programmes. 
'''Medical Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for medical purposes. 

===Science===

Scientific programmes are often complex systems and containment routines for fabricating, mixing and handling unstable or exotic materials, as well as suites of assessment programmes to analyse the results.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Cryo-Material Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a round containing a mixture of chemicals that will undergo a cryogenic reaction when deployed. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Science but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. Should the attack hit, it deals no damage but douses the target in the freezing gases, inflicting a -2 penalty on all physical action rolls (including attacks) and reducing their Speed by 5 for 1 round. 
'''Hyperscan''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to emit a pulse that can detect nearby unusual or intense energy signatures and matter concentrations. This allows the character to use Intelligence + Science for a Perception roll to detect and identify strong energy emissions or unusual matter within a 100 yard range. 
'''Incendiary Material Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a plasma round containing a mixture of chemicals that will undergo a n incendiary reaction when deployed. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Science but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. Should the attack hit, it deals no damage but douses the target and an area around them of 5 yard radius in flammable materials that immediately start burning with fierce intensity, and will continue to do so for a number of rounds equal to the character's Science skill dots. The fire inflicts 3L per turn, reduced by Armour as normal, but also grants all other attacks against a burning target Armour Piercing 1. As long as a burning target is able to remove themselves from the area of effect, they can put out the fire as a reflexive action on their turn. 
'''Pattern Recognition Algorithms''': A simple VI meshed with pattern recognition programming can perform a high-speed resource-intensive analysis. As an instant action, the character may make an Intelligence + Science roll to identify significant patterns in a set of available data or information. 
'''Rapid Matter Analysis''': A set of scanning programmes quickly analyse a sample of matter to provide a complete breakdown of its composition. As an instant action, the character may roll Intelligence + Science to get a full analysis of some sample matter, including chemical composition and properties. 
'''Unstable Materials''': A set of safety-boundary-pushing programmes allow the character to to increase the operational margins of instability in deployable materials. The character may expend this programme at the same time as an Incendiary, Cryo- or Toxic Materials Deployment programme to increase the radius of effect by 10 yards. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Energy Drone''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to direct energies into an attack. The character's remote drone gains the ability to make a 2L ranged attack at targets up to 15 yards away, using the character's Wits + Science as an attack pool. The remote drone may also serve as the origination of any Incendiary, Cryo- or Toxic Materials Deployment instead of the character. 
'''Energy Projection Modulation''': Advanced energy handling routines increase the omni-tool's output available for emission purposes. The character gains a +1 bonus to any attacks made with Tech Process programmes. 
'''Environmental Shielding''': A monitoring VI keeps vigilant watch over environmental diagnostics, adjusting and augmenting existing protective measures. The character adds their Science skill dots as a bonus to rolls to resist environmental effects such as extreme heat, cold or causticity, and adds 1 point of Armour to their Shield points against any direct attacks of these kinds. 
'''Full Spectrum Sensory Suite''': A top-of-the-range set of analytical and sensory programmes aid the character with close investigation. When they have the time to carefully go over a location, the character benefits from the 9-again rule on Perception and Investigation checks. 
'''Lab-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced lab assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Science skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Mass Shielding Matrix''': Subtle distortion emissions are carefully controlled to interfere with any biotic attacks on the character. Biotic attacks that target the character, even if only due to them being in the area of effect, suffer an additional -1 penalty. 
'''Scientific Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Science skill checks, other than for the use of charged Science programmes. 
'''Scientific Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for scientific purposes. 

[[Mass:_the_Effecting |Back to main page]]

Mass: the Effecting/Hard-Won Experience

2012-10-04T12:52:33Z

Acrozatarim:

=Hard-Won Experience=

In Mass: The Effecting, your character possesses one of the six Archetype minor templates. As well as a special active and passive ability, this template gives your character a number of points to spend on Biotic, Combat Training and Tech talents, marking them out through their exceptional capabilities.

Each type of Archetype talent is distinct from the other two. Biotic talents are potent, specific uses of biotic power, draining to use but devastating in effect. Combat Training talents passively enhance a character's existing abilities or opening up new options in combat. Tech talents grant a great deal of flexibility through high-performance omni-tool programmes that augment and aid one of four skills – Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine and Science.

Each talent category is actually made up of 4 talents – so the Combat Training talents are Assault, Command, Guardian and Tactical. Your character can have up to 5 dots in a particular talent.

While your character's starting talent allocation is constrained by their Archetype, you can purchase any kind of talent for them with your character's experience points as the chronicle progresses. An Adept can acquire Combat Training talents to help them survive the battles they keep finding themselves in, and a Soldier can pick up some Tech programming tricks. However, if you wish to purchase Biotic talents with a non-Biotic Archetype, you should either make some concession to this in your starting character concept (such as the character having biotic potential but never getting the implants or training to use it) or something should have happened to enable this. Non-biotic individuals are simply unable to spontaneously start using biotic powers due to the way biotics work in the Mass Effect setting.

The experience cost for buying dots in a talent with experience points is equal to new dots x 5. If your Archetype has only one category of talent, then the cost of buying dots in that category is new dots x 3. If your Archetype has two categories of talent, then the cost of buying dots in those categories is new dots x 4.

''For example, a Soldier who wishes to increase their Command Training purchases at new dots x 3, as Command is a Combat Training talent and the Soldier Archetype only has the Combat Training category. A Vanguard who wishes to increase their Command Training or Integration Discipline talents purchases at new dots x 4, since the Vanguard Archetype has the Combat Training and Biotic categories. Both Soldier and Vanguard pay new dots x 5 for Tech talents, as neither has the Tech category.''

==Biotic Talents==

Biotics are capable of controlling mass effect fields due to nodules of element zero in their bodies. This can grant them tremendous power, but requires the use of implants and biotic amps to fully exploit. Biotic use also comes at a cost – it puts a huge drain on the user's metabolism, increasing their energy intake needs by a ferocious amount and building up static charge in their bodies to sometimes dangerous levels.

The different biotic talents are referred to as Disciplines. The four Disciplines are Distortion, Esoterics, Integration and Kinetics. Each point in a Discipline allows the character to pick a single power from the Discipline's list, granting the character the capability to use that power at will. These powers are picked when the dots are acquired and cannot be changed.

''Using Biotic Powers'': Using a biotic power usually involves rolling a dice pool of Resolve plus the character's dots in the relevant Discipline, with a variety of effects depending on the power in question. Using a power also requires that a cost be paid. This cost is in points of Bashing damage or Willpower, and possibly both. Points of Armour rating do not reduce the amount of damage taken from using biotic powers.

Unless otherwise noted, using a biotic power is an instant action. Biotic powers that target characters or locations other than the biotic themselves require line of sight.

Biotic powers require at least some freedom of movement to act, as biotic users are trained to use mudras to activate their implants and nervous systems in particular ways. Restraining a biotic is an effective way to prevent them from using their capabilities.

''Boosting Biotic Powers'': A biotic character can choose to boost a power, pushing themselves to the limit to empower themselves further. This increases the cost of the power, as noted in the boost's entry.

''Willpower Points and Biotic Powers'': Willpower points spent to activate or boost a biotic power do not count towards the one point of Willpower that a character can normally spend per turn to increase their dice pool or defences. A character could conceivably activate a biotic power that costs 1 point of Willpower, its boost that costs another point of Willpower and then spend their one point of Willpower per turn for a +3 bonus to the activation dice pool.

''Kinetics and Countering'': A biotic may choose to spend their turn's action countering the Kinetic abilities of another biotic within 25 yards. If they do so, they may take no other action but inflict a penalty on all Kinetic power rolls by the target equal to their own dots in the Kinetic discipline.

===Distortion===

Distortion is the Discipline of molecular agitation and the manipulation of mass to distort and warp.

'''Haze'''

This technique uses low-level distortion fields to create a shell of warped spacetime around an area, interfering with any sorts of senses or perception attempting to cross the shell's edge. To the outside world, the hazed air looks like warped, shimmering glass.

Haze affects an area centred on the biotic with a radius of Resolve x 5 yards. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Any attempts to perceive by any means (sight, hearing, radar etc) into the area covered by Haze suffer a penalty equal to the biotic's Resolve, and indeed need to make Perception or other appropriate rolls in the first place. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the effect can be placed within 50 yards instead of being centred on the biotic. 

'''Reave'''

This technique unleashes a powerful distortion field into the target's nervous or synthetic systems, causing a crippling overload.

Reave affects a single target up to 200 yards away. Roll Resolve + Distortion against an opposed roll of the target's Stamina. Success results in the target suffering wound penalties as if they had their last three health points filled with damage, with a duration of the biotic's Resolve in rounds. The penalty isn't cumulative with any existing wound penalties the target is already suffering, and can be reduced as normal by effects such as Iron Stamina. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Reave nullifies any healing from any source during its duration, and it inflicts the -3 wound penalty in addition to any existing wound penalties, regardless of any Iron Stamina or other reductions. 

'''Scramble'''

Scramble unleashes a thrashing flux of mass effect fields around the biotic, warping and distorting gravity and space.

Scramble affects an area centred on the biotic with a radius of Resolve x 3 yards. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Everyone other than the biotic in the area of effect suffers a -2 penalty to their Speed, and to any attack rolls and Athletics-based rolls that they make. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1B, the -2 penalty to attack rolls also applies to any ranged attacks made against the biotic from outside Scramble's area. 

'''Singularity'''

Singularity uses distortion to punch a gravity well into the fabric of spacetime, dragging anyone nearby towards its centre.

Choose a point within 100 yards; this is where the singularity appears, affecting an area Resolve x 5 yards in radius. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Anyone in the area of effect must succeed in a Strength + Athletics check in order to move in any direction other than directly towards the singularity, with successes equal to the number of yards they can move in a direction they wish. On the biotic's turn every round, everyone in the area of effect gets pulled 5 yards towards the singularity. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, increase the number of yards the singularity pulls each round by the biotic's Resolve. 

'''Warp'''

Warp creates rapidly shifting mass effect fields that tear a target apart.

Warp is used as a ranged attack by the biotic, with a short range of 100 yards and no medium or long range. This power uses Resolve + Distortion as its attack pool and is affected by other situational modifiers, such as cover, just as a normal ranged attack. If Warp hits, it has a Damage rating equal to the biotic's Resolve, with added damage from successes as normal.

If the target is already under the effect of another biotic power, Warp causes a biotic explosion. This increases its' Damage rating by 1 against the target, and inflicts a 3L explosion centred on the target with a radius equal to the biotic's Resolve in yards. The pre-existing biotic power immediately ends if it is a Distortion or Kinetic power. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, Warp grants all attacks against the target Armour Piercing 1 for a number of rounds equal to Resolve. 

===Esoterics===

Esoterics is a new and rare discipline of biotics. The powers that are classified under Esoterics come from a variety of scientific and research sources, pushing at the boundaries of what is understood about the biotic condition and exploring new (and often unsafe) concepts. These powers are not in general use and some are essentially secret, or only available through extremely dubious channels. Unlike the other three biotic disciplines, users of Esoterics must undergo special training and implants to gain an Esoteric power, as standard biotic amps and implants do not have the advanced or experimental systems needed.

'''Annihilation Field'''

Annihilation Field shrouds the biotic in a highly dangerous cloak of agitated space-time that seethes with contained energies; this technique has been pioneered by human researchers.

Annihilation Field allows the biotic to make an additional attack against ''all'' other characters within 5 yards at the beginning of the biotic's turn. This attack uses only the biotic's Resolve as its dice pool but ignores defence, and has a Damage rating of 3. Annihilation Field will also tend to corrode, ignite or otherwise wreck the nearby environment, and makes stealth impossible. Annihilation Field lasts a scene, or until the biotic chooses to end it.
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, Annihilation Field grants all attacks against any target hit by it Armour Piercing 1 for one round. 

'''Mindscram'''

Mindscram finely hones the same methods used by Reave to assault the cerebral nervous system of the target; it is rumoured to have been developed from studying a rare Asari mutation.

Mindscram affects a single target up to 5 yards away. Roll Resolve against an opposed roll of the target's Stamina. Success results in the target being stunned for a number of rounds equal to successes. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, the biotic may choose not to stun the target, instead inflicting a -2 dice penalty on all mental and social dice pools made to oppose the biotic for a number of rounds equal to successes. 

'''Rift'''

Rift saturates an area with minute levels of constant mass effect manipulation, interfering with mass effect fields created by other biotics. This esoteric technique was first reported as being deployed by certain Turian cabals on the field of battle.

Rift affects an area centred on the biotic with a radius of Resolve x 5 yards. Roll Resolve; the Rift lasts for a number of rounds equal to successes. Any attempts by a biotic to use a biotic power in this area, or to affect a target within the area from outside it with a biotic power, suffer a -3 penalty to any dice pool involved. This includes the biotic using Rift. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1B, the biotic may extend the radius of Rift to Resolve x 10 yards and add 2 to the number of rounds that it lasts.

===Integration===

Integration is the biotic discipline of molecular integration, using mass effect fields to strengthen and control the fabric of spacetime around the user.

'''Barrier'''

Barrier protects the biotic with mass effect fields in the same way as technological kinetic barrier generators.

Barrier provides the biotic with a number of biotic Shield levels equal to Resolve. These shield levels do not stack with any existing Shield levels, but will overwrite them if existing Shield levels are lower than the biotic's Resolve. Roll Resolve + Integration, with the biotic gaining a +1 bonus to resist attempts to knock them down or move them around for each success on the dice roll, as long as Barrier is in effect. Barrier lasts one scene, or until the Shield levels are lost. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Barrier can be activated as a Reflexive action. 

'''Charge'''

Charge encases the biotic in a mass effect field and launches them forwards at high velocity, akin to the technique employed by mass relays.

Charge allows the biotic to move up to their Speed x Resolve in yards in a straight line at near-instantaneous speed. This power doesn't allow them to pass through solid obstacles but they may go straight over gaps of up to their Speed in yards without any need for jumping checks. Roll Resolve + Integration, with each success increasing the biotic's Defence by 1; this effect lasts 1 round.

The biotic may still make a melee or ranged attack after using Charge. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic does not need to Charge in a straight line and may make any number of turns along the way, they may also cover a gap of twice their Speed in yards. 

'''Smite'''

Smite uses mass effect fields to empower the biotic's unarmed strikes with immense force.

Smite is a reflexive action used to augment an unarmed attack. It increases the Damage rating of the unarmed attack by an amount equal to the biotic's Resolve, and the biotic may choose to make the damage Lethal rather than Bashing. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Smite augments all unarmed attacks the biotic makes for one additional round. 

'''Stasis'''

Stasis simply locks the target into place with integrated mass effect fields that prevent them from moving.

Choose a target within 50 yards. The target must make a Strength check, with a penalty imposed of up to the biotic's Resolve at the biotic's choice. If the target achieves no successes, they are locked in place for 1 round and are completely unable to act in any way. However, they gain additional Armour equal to the penalty that the biotic applied to their strength check, affecting all attacks whether against Shield levels or health levels, and which is cumulative with existing Armour.

''For example, a biotic with Resolve 5 chooses to apply a -3 penalty to a target's Strength check. Since the target only has Strength 3, this reduces them to a chance die. They fail, and are locked in place for 1 round. During this round, they benefit from an additional 3 points of Armour against all attacks.''

''Cost'': 1 Willpower point. 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the target gains no Armour from Stasis. 

'''Wall'''

Wall uses similar mass effect fields to Barrier and Stasis to forge a layer of integrated mass effect fields across an area.

The Wall power creates a wall of biotic force that is up to Resolve x 2 yards wide and high. The centre point of the wall's line must be within 5 yards of the biotic when created. Roll Resolve + Integration; the Wall has a number of Shield levels equal to 5 + successes rolled. The Wall can serve as cover and an obstacle, preventing any movement through it. Attackers may choose to attack the Wall directly; it has Armour equal to the Biotic's Resolve.

The Wall remains present as long as the biotic is within 5 yards of it. If he moves away, creates a new Wall, or the Wall's Shield levels are lost, it immediately ceases to exist. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower, the biotic may make a Wall that will exist even after moving 5 yards away from it, or he may turn it into a shell of up to Resolve x 2 yards radius centred on himself. 

===Kinetics===

Kinetics is the biotic discipline of directly applying force through mass effect fields.

'''Glide'''

The Glide technique involves applying kinetic mass effect fields to the biotic themselves, allowing them to defy the forces of gravity through fine biotic control.

Roll Resolve + Kinetics, with Glide lasting for a number of rounds equal to successes rolled. While Glide is in effect, the biotic can reduce the distance they fall each round to any speed including zero, and they suffer no falling damage when making contact with the ground. If they continue to have some downward velocity, they may also move sideways in any direction up to their Resolve in yards per round. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can move in any direction at all for up to their Resolve in yards per round, without any requirement to continue moving down. This allows the biotic to 'fly' upwards if they wish. 

'''Lift'''

The Lift technique uses mass effect fields to pull the target up into the air.

Choose a target within 100 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. The target is lifted a number of yards equal to successes rolled, lasting for the biotic's Resolve in rounds. A gentle drift can be applied to the target as they are lifted if desired, so they will move 1 yard per round in a particular direction.

The Lifted target is not incapacitated and may continue to try and act by firing, trying to grab hold of something, and so forth.

Lifting larger, heavier targets is more difficult. For each full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Resolve + Kinetics roll suffers an additional –2 penalty, so lifting a small car (Size 10) would inflict a -2 penalty on the roll. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Lift of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

'''Slam'''

Slam uses fine control over a rapid flux in mass effect fields to exert huge force on a target, picking them up and slamming them down again.

Choose a target within 30 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics as an attack with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. Slam is not affected by other conditional modifiers such as cover. If Slam hits, it has a Damage rating equal to the biotic's Resolve, with added damage from successes as normal. The target is also knocked prone. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Slam of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

'''Shockwave'''

The Shockwave technique unleashes a powerful mass effect field that pulses out in a crashing wave, knocking targets from their feet.

Choose which direction the Shockwave emits, resulting in an area of effect starting at the biotic that is 5 yards wide and 5 x Resolve yards long. Make a Resolve + Kinetics roll once; each target in the area must oppose this with their own Strength roll. If they lose, they are knocked prone. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point. 
''Boost'': For 1B, all targets automatically fail their Strength check. 

'''Throw'''

Throw exerts a strong mass effect field to catapult the target in a particular direction.

Choose a target within 100 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics as an attack with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. The target is hurled in a chosen direction for a distance of up to successes x 5 yards, and suffering Bashing damage in successes if they hit something. The target must make a Dexterity + Athletics roll with a penalty equal to the biotic's Resolve, or be knocked down.

This power can also be used to pick up objects and hurl them at people, inflicting Bashing damage equal to successes if the Throw can reach the target with the object. This has the benefit of most thrown objects not possessing Shield levels.

Lifting larger, heavier targets is more difficult. For each full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Resolve + Kinetics roll suffers an additional –2 penalty, so lifting a small car (Size 10) would inflict a -2 penalty on the roll. However, for every full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Damage inflicted by a thrown object increases by 2. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Throw of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

==Combat Training Talents==

Combat in the Mass Effect setting is fast, lethal and dangerous, thanks to the cutting edge technology deployed on the battlefields of the galaxy. Personal protection from armour and shields only goes so far towards securing victory – the rest comes from the training and talent of the commanders and troops themselves.

The different combat training talents are called Regimens. The four Regimens are Assault, Command, Guardian and Tactical. Each point in a Regimen allows the character to pick a single power from the Regimen's list, granting the character the benefits of that power. These powers are picked when the dots are acquired and cannot be changed.

The Command Training Regimen works slightly differently from the others, as noted in its description below.

''Using Combat Training Powers'': Most Combat Training powers grant their benefits all the time. Some allow the character to use new options in combat, such as Suppressive Fire; the character can choose when to use these options and when not to, and no cost is attached to doing so.

===Assault Training===

Assault training often covers close-quarter combat, ambushes, storming defensive positions and blitzkrieg insertion into hot zones.

'''Agility''': Through a mixture of free-running and combat training, the character can ignore terrain penalties on their movement of an amount up to their dots in Dexterity; so a character with Dexterity 4 could ignore up to -4 in penalties. Ladders, crates, low walls and so forth are easy for this character to handle. Their speed is also increased by 1. 
'''Ambush''': The character is an expert at close, covert work. When attacking an opponent who is not aware of the character, they add a +2 bonus to the Damage rating of their attack. Perception rolls made to hear the character attacking suffer a -2 penalty. 
'''Carnage''': The character is an expert in dealing death with short-ranged weapons in close quarters. When firing at a target within the short-range of a pistol or shotgun, the character benefits from the 9-again rule, or 8-again if the weapon already has 9-again. 
'''Close Quarters Combatant''': The character possesses advanced close combat training. They ignore penalties to their Defence caused by multiple melee attackers, may choose to deal Lethal damage with their unarmed attacks, and benefit from the 9-again rule when making unarmed strikes. 
'''Combat Drop Training''': The character has been trained for rapid-deployment assaults into hot zones. When dropping into combat with armour-jets, from an aircraft or from orbit, the character is able to act on the same round they touch down and suffers no other penalties due to combat drops. They also treat all Piloting checks with armour-jets as rote actions. 
'''Hard Target''': Keeping a low profile and moving fast, the character renders themselves a hard target for attackers. If they move at least 5 yards during their turn, all ranged attacks against them suffer an additional -1 penalty on their attack pools. Running increases the penalty to -2. 
'''Shock Trooper''': The character has the training and experience of a hardened shock trooper and is used to running through hails of bullets and explosions without flinching. The character reduces all penalties suffered from the combat environment by 1, such as from suppressive fire, concealment granted by smoke grenades and so forth. They benefit from a +2 bonus to any dice pool to resist knock-downs, stuns and other disorientation effects, while their Speed is increased by 1. 
'''Slam''': Harnessing their raw strength, the character slams foes to the ground. After a successful melee attack at the end of a charge action, the target of the attack must make a Strength check. If they fail to get as many successes as the points of damage taken from the attack, they are knocked down. This technique is a favourite of Krogan. 

===Command Training===

Command training prepares a character for the rigours of commanding a team in a combat environment, whether a naval commander overseeing their crew from the bridge of a spaceship or a black ops squad leader directing their team through an intense firefight.

Command Training works differently to the other talents available in Combat Training. Rather than offering a new power with every dot, the character instead gains one additional die into the group's Command pool, a pool of dice that refreshes each scene from which the whole group of characters can benefit. These dice can be drawn on for specific purposes by any characters who are in communications-range of one of the Commanding characters.

''For example, a Soldier has Command 4, putting 4 dice into the Command pool. Another character in the group, a Vanguard, has Command 2, increasing the total dice in the Command pool to 6. At the beginning of every scene, this pool refreshes back up to 6 dice, no matter how many of the dice have been spent in the prior scene.''

As long as one of the characters with Command allows it, anyone in the group can take dice from the pool for the purposes noted below, including the characters with the Command talent themselves. A character can take up to their Wits in dice from the pool in a single turn, and can spend them all on one roll or purpose if desired.

Command dice can be:

'''Concentrate Fire''': Added directly to an attack dice pool, before rolling. 
'''Co-Ordinate Action''': Added directly to a secondary actor's teamwork dice pool to aid a primary actor with their action. 
'''Priority Target''': Added directly to the Damage rating of an attack against a target who is knocked down, held by a mass effect field, on fire, frozen, stunned or otherwise vulnerable, before rolling the attack pool. 
'''Ready For Action''': Added as a bonus to a character's Initiative score after rolling in the first round of combat, adding +1 per die used. 
'''Take Cover''': Applied as an additional penalty to an attack roll against a character who is in cover, augmenting the normal cover penalty by -1 per die used, before rolling the attack pool. 
'''Stay Alert''': Added directly to a Perception dice pool, before rolling. 

===Guardian Training===

Guardian training demands the very best of a character physically, pushing them to their limits and beyond to help them and others stay alive.

'''Bastion''': The character knows how to angle armour plating, shift their profile and minimise the damage from incoming fire. If wearing armour, the character benefits from a +1 to their Armour against any ranged attackers in front of them, as long as they haven't moved this turn. 
'''Berserker''': When taking at least one point of Lethal damage, the character may choose to enter a rage, gaining a temporary +2 bonus to Stamina and Resolve and becoming immune to penalties inflicted by suppressive fire. This does result in them gaining two health levels during the rage but, while the health levels are lost once the rage subsides, any damage taken is kept. Many Krogan enter a berserker rage in battle when wounded. 
'''Bodyguard''': The Character has the reflexes and training of a bodyguard, able to protect others with their own body. They can choose to serve as cover for allies when they are between the ally and attacker or are adjacent to that ally, inflicting a -1 cover penalty on attacks that increases to -2 if the bodyguard is carrying a ballistic shield.. This increases to -2 if the ally is willing to allow the bodyguard to drop them prone and shield the ally with their whole body, increasing again to -3 if the bodyguard is in heavy armour or is carrying a ballistic shield. 
'''Fitness''': The character is in excellent physical condition and has two permanent additional health points. 
'''Resilient''': Fists, batons, concussion grenades... Not much phases this character. They benefit from an additional point of Armour against all Bashing attacks, even when not actually wearing armour, and gain a +1 bonus to dice pools to resist stuns and knock-downs. 
'''Second Skin''': The character has the training and experience to treat armour like a second skin, entirely comfortable with its power servos and weight distribution. The character benefits from a +1 to their Defence and Speed while wearing armour. 
'''Survivor''': The character is too tough or just too damn stubborn to stay down, regardless of his injuries. He never falls unconscious as a result of having all his health boxes filled with damage, and doesn't need to succeed on a Stamina roll to do so. 
'''Vigilant''': The character is ever-vigilant for danger. If the character is or becomes aware of an attacker targeting an unaware ally, and the character is within communications range of that ally, the ally becomes aware of the impending attack immediately. The character's Initiative is also increased by 1. 

===Tactical Training===

Tactical training prepares the character for the rapidly changing environment of the battlefield, allowing them to react to new threats swiftly and to apply their own firepower with devastating effect.

'''Advancing Fire''': The character may fire when running, suffering a -3 penalty to their attack roll for doing so. 
'''Heavy Weapons Training''': The character is experienced in handling support weaponry, and ignores any penalties and restrictions from the Heavy Weapon trait. 
'''Marksman''': The character is a skilled marksman. Whenever the character takes at least one aim action with a weapon that has the 9-again trait (apart from shotguns), they benefit from the 8-again rule on the attack dice pool made with the aiming bonus. 
'''Outflank''': The character knows how the make the most of an outmanoeuvred enemy's weakness. Attacking a target in the flank or rear when an ally has engaged them from the front grants the character a +1 bonus to attack rolls. 
'''Sniper''': The character has the patience and talent of a skilled sniper. After using the aim action and firing at a target, the character does not lose his aiming bonus as long as he continues to fire at the same target and does not have his line of sight to them broken. He may even continue to take further aim actions to increase his aiming bonus, subject to the usual +3 aiming bonus cap. 
''For example, a sniper could aim once for a +1 bonus, fire, aim again for a total of +2, fire again, etc.'' 
'''Squad Reflexes''': After rolling for Initiative at the beginning of combat, but before the first round begins, the character can choose to shift their Initiative to match that of one ally within communications range. The character's Initiative is also increased by 1. 
'''Suppressive Fire''': There's a line between effective suppressive fire and just wasting shots. The character may sacrifice the bonus attack dice from autofire to apply it instead as a penalty to the ranged attack rolls of the target for one round. This can be applied to multiple targets as per the normal autofire rules, but it does incur the usual attack dice penalty – so hosing down three targets with long-burst autofire for suppressive fire applies the -3 penalty to all of them but also leaves the character with a -3 penalty on his attack rolls. Suppressive fire doesn't work against opponents who are simply unable to take cover, or are too heavily armoured or mindless to care. 
'''Weapon Drill''': Unloading, reloading and returning to the task of providing fire support is a well-oiled practice for the character. Reloading is a reflexive action as long as the replacement heat clip is to hand (such as in armour webbing or laid out within reach). 

==Tech Talents==

Advanced technology permeates the fabric of society in Mass Effect, and is a key part of life for any technician, engineer, scientist or doctor. Omni-tools are common, multi-purpose personal computational devices that serve as micro-fabrication facilities, interfacing tools and diagnostic systems. Those with the knowledge and skill can use their omni-tool to run enhanced programmes and VIs that can hack, overload or scan to great effect.

The different tech talents are called Processes. The four Processes are Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine and Science, and each is associated with the Mental skill of the same name. Each point in a Process allows the character to run a single programme of that type concurrently on their omni-tool. Unlike Disciplines and Regimens, the exact programme run in the Process slot is not permanent and can be easily changed for other programmes of a similar kind.

''Using Tech Powers'': A character's omni-tool possesses a library of stored programmes to draw upon. An omni-tool has a Library Size trait, as listed under its entry in the Elkoss Combine Catalogue; this is the number of stored programmes it can hold for ''each'' Process talent that the user has dots in. Programmes in the library are inactive until put into a Process slot.

''For example, a character with 2 dots in both the Engineering and Medicine Processes whose omni-tool has Library Size 6 can have 6 Engineering and 6 Medicine programmes stored in their library.''

The character has a number of Process slots equal to their dots in that Process; each slot can run one programme from the omni-tool's library in it.

Programmes come in two types – running and charged. Running programmes are passive, giving a bonus or opening up an option as long as they are in a slot. Charged programmes are expended when they are used, and remain expended for the rest of the scene; they rely on stored power that needs to recharge, need to take time to fabricate some complex new materials, or are otherwise unavailable. An expended charged programme remains in its Process slot.

''For example, a character with 3 dots in the Engineering Process and 1 dot in the Medicine Process could have Shield Modulation, Shield Boost and Overload in his Engineering slots and Defibrillator Pulse in his Medicine slot.''

A programme ''can'' be put into multiple Process slots, but running programmes give no benefit for doing so. In the case of a charged programme, running it in multiple slots essentially makes multiple uses available per scene.

Whenever dice rolls are called for by a tech power and refer to Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine or Science, they refer to the character's skill dots and not the dots in that Process talent.

''Swapping Programmes'': A character can swap out any programme in a slot for any other programme available in their omni-tool's library between scenes or in situations where there is no time pressure, without needing to roll.

During action or combat, swapping programmes is considerably more difficult, especially if the omni-tool's processors are already busy running a dozen other programmes at the same time. Doing so is a full action for the character's turn, wherein they must make roll Intelligence + the skill associated with the Process in question, with a penalty equal to the number of running programmes of that Process currently active. An expended programme's slot cannot be replaced in this way during a scene, but a running programme or an unexpended charged programme can be.

''For example, a character with 3 dots in the Engineering Process, 4 dots in the Engineering skill and 3 dots of Intelligence has two running programmes and a charged programme in their Process slots. During combat, they want to replace one of the running programmes with a more situation-appropriate charged programme. Doing so requires that they roll Intelligence + Engineering, a dice pool of 7, with a penalty of -2 dice for the two running programmes. This leaves them with 5 dice; any success means they have successfully swapped the running programme to the new charged programme.''

''Changing Libraries'': A character may wish to change the programmes they have available in their omni-tool's library. This requires that they either access a database with more programmes archived in it, or that they write a new programme themselves. The latter is time-consuming and very difficult, whereas the former often incurs the cost of purchasing licenses for a programme from a company. Many employers provide access to basic programmes to their staff, such as the line of Analysis programmes; getting access to a more questionable programme such as Overload is somewhat more difficult, requiring either money or military or criminal contacts.

''Scanners'': Several running programmes allow the character to use an omni-tool's facilities to replace Composure with a skill in Perception checks, for the purposes of detecting particular substances or systems. These scans can still suffer from various penalties to the Perception check and, while they can detect through some solid materials, suffer increasing degradation of signal the further they have to go.

===Engineering===

Engineering programmes focus on improving hardware and mechanical processes, whether vehicles and armour or shield modulations.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Emergency Infiltration Protocol''': This is a batch of processes with an emergency power cell for re-establishing a stealth field immediately. The character can expend the programme to activate a stealth field (if they have one) as a reflexive action instead of as an instant action. 
'''Fortification''': Through highly efficient management routines and incoming fire calculations, the power flows and fluid dynamics of armour can be momentarily reinforced. As a reflexive action, roll Wits + Engineering to increase Armour by the number of successes for 1 round. 
'''Neural Shock''': The programme discharges a pulse of electrical current that plays havoc with a target's nervous system. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Engineering versus the Stamina roll of a target within 30 yards. On a success, the target is stunned for 1 round, increased to 2 rounds on an exceptional success. 
'''Overload''': The programme discharges a carefully controlled pulse of electrical current that plays havoc with a target's shields, overloading kinetic barriers. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Engineering to deal damage to the Shield levels of a target within 50 yards – this power does no damage to health levels. If the character has multiple Overload programmes ready, they can all be expended at the same time; each Overload may affect a new target within 5 yards of the last, and the same target cannot be affected twice. 
'''Shield Boost''': The programme runs emergency power management routines to reestablish shield integrity. As a reflexive action, roll Wits + Engineering, restoring a number of lost Shield points to the character or an ally within 25 yards equal to the number of successes rolled. If the character has multiple Shield Boost programmes readied, they can all be expended at the same time; each Boost may target a new ally within 5 yards of the last target, and the same target cannot be affected twice. 
'''Shield Burst''': The programme dumps all remaining kinetic barrier energy into a controlled output. As a reflexive action, the character loses all remaining Shield points. A blast is centred on the character with a radius equal to the number of Shield points lost. Roll Wits + Engineering, dealing successes as Lethal damage to all characters within the area of effect. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Armour Subsystem Management''': Complex power management routines allow for additional energy demands to be handled. As long as this programme is running, the character can make used of a secondary armour mod, allowing them to benefit from both mods at once. 
'''Engineering Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Engineering skill checks, other than for the use of charged Engineering programmes. 
'''Engineering Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for engineering purposes. 
'''Omni-Blade Power Rerouting''': As well as fabricating a keen-edged one-use blade, the omni-tool's power systems divert additional power into the strike. This increases the Damage rating of an omni-blade by 1, and grants 9-again on attacks made with it. 
'''Rig-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced engineering assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Engineering skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Shield Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a shield emitter. The character's remote drone grants a +2 bonus to the maximum Shield points of all allies within 20 yards. 
'''Shield Modulation''': A VI's ongoing shield management processes ensure that a shield restores its integrity at a more rapid rate than normal. The character can reflexively restore 1 Shield point on their turn, as long as they have not been hit by any attacks since their last turn. 
'''Vehicle Control Subsystems''': Advanced integration programmes allow the character to enhance their control of a vehicle, granting the 9-again rule to Piloting checks. 

===Interfacing===

Interfacing programmes include routines for research, data analysis, scanning and hacking; for interfacing experts, information and its denial is the name of the game.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Comms Tap''': A rapid-fire codebreaker VI allows the character to attempt to break in to a communications channel as an instant action. Roll Intelligence + Interfacing, with successes giving the number of minutes that the character can listen in without the users being aware. Heavy-duty encryption can impose a penalty on the roll – standard military comm channels inflict a -3 penalty, with more difficult hacking targets increasing from there. 
'''Haywire''': By unleashing chaos programmes that hammer at any networked systems nearby, the character compromises equipment and armaments. Roll Intelligence + Interfacing as a reflexive action to affect an area of up to successes x 5 yards in radius. All tech devices within this area suffer a -1 penalty to rolls using them for 2 rounds, including firearms' attack dice pools. 
'''Lock-Hack''': A common (and usually illegal) programme for brute-forcing electronic locking systems, a Lock-Hack allows the character to attempt to open a lock as an extended Wits + Interfacing action with one roll representing one turn of work. The number of successes required depends on the quality of the lock in question. This is a crude electronic intrusion and will trigger alarms or alerts to the system, but it gets the job done quickly. 
'''Mask''': Careful infiltration protocols and data-masks shut down the character's network trace. Roll Wits + Interfacing as a reflexive action to immediately 'go silent' for a number of rounds equal to successes rolled, rendering the character's presence on a network untraceable by others. This also serves to render the character undetectable for the duration to any attempts to locate them with technological scans for data signals. 
'''Overheat''': Through a pre-prepared remote rapid hack VI, a weapon's heat sinks can be tampered with. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Interfacing against a target with a penalty based on the largest weapon to be overheated (-1 for a pistol, -2 for a rifle) and a -1 penalty for each additional weapon to be overheated past the first. Success results in all targeted weapons overheating, expending the full capacity of their current heat clip. This programme can even be used reflexive at the moment that a target is about to make an attack action, leaving them pulling the trigger for no effect, but suffers an additional -5 penalty for attempting the hack so fast. 
'''Subvert Synthetic''': A set of programmes that allow the character to try and hack a synthetic's systems on the fly. As an instant action, roll Wits + Interfacing opposed by the target synthetic or AI's Wits + remaining Shield points. Success give the character control of the synthetic for a number of rounds equal to successes. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Interfacing Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Interfacing skill checks, other than for the use of charged Interfacing programmes. 
'''Interfacing Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for interfacing purposes. 
'''Passive Scanning Programme''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to detect active net systems and ID them including active programmes running on omni-tools, armour and weaponry. This allows the character to use Wits + Interfacing for Perception rolls to detect these systems within a 100 yard range, or further if a signal is particularly strong. 
'''Rapid Data Analysis''': An advanced analysis VI and sifting programmes aid to rapidly identify and acquire relevant information vai the extranet or accessed databases. The character has their research times halved when attempting to acquire information via modern tech methods. If they have to actually read a set of old tomes in a pre-tech library, for example, then they're out of luck. 
'''Scout Drone''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a scout and sensor. The character's remote drone grants a +2 bonus to Perception checks, including those made via scanning programmes, and has superior sensory feedback allowing it to transmit full video feeds and readouts as long as it is within communications range of the character. 
'''Secure Routines''': Reactive defensive VI programmes inflict a penalty equal to the character's Interfacing skill on attempts to hack the equipment or systems that the character controls. 
'''Vehicle Interface Programming''': Advanced integration routines augment the character's interfacing with vehicular sensor suites. Perception checks made via a vehicle's sensors and scanners benefit from the 9-again rule. 
'''Sys-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced systems assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Interfacing skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 

===Medicine===

Medical programmes largely focus on subsystems for monitoring patients, administering emergency assistance and aiding with recovery from injuries and sickness; they also augment medical and biological analysis facilities.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Defibrillator Pulse''': The omni-tool discharges a pulse of energy into the patient to jolt them back to awareness. As a reflexive action, the character can target an unconscious character within 5 yards, rolling Intelligence + Medicine. Success brings the target back round to consciousness, unless they are unable to do so due to being drugged, for example. The pulse can be combined together with an Emergency Medi-Gel Application programme into one reflexive action on a single target. 
'''Emergency Medi-Gel Application''': Emergency medical management systems kick into action, allowing the character to direct the treatment to where it will be most effective. As a reflexive action, the character can target themselves or an ally within 5 yards with the programme, rolling Intelligence + Medicine with a penalty equal to any wound penalties that the target is currently suffering. On a success, expend one of the target's medi-gel doses for an immediate healing effect of 1L or 3B. 
'''Hypodermic Dart''': The onboard fabrication systems forge a hypodermic sliver of metal, loaded with carefully tailored toxins. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 30 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Medicine but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. The dart has a Damage rating of 1L with additional damage added from successes as normal but, if it inflicts any points of damage to the target's health points, it applies a Toxicity 2 poison dealing Bashing damage that forces the target to succeed at a Stamina check or fall unconscious. 
'''Medical Threat Analysis''': A diagnostic VI interfaces with the omni-tools sensors to quickly assess any medical hazards present. As a reflexive action, the character can roll Intelligence + Medicine for a near-instantaneous analysis of any chemical, biological or radioactive hazards present in the environment, the character, or a target within 5 yards – so it can identify if a character has been poisoned, or what the local radioactivity levels are. 
'''Stimulant Injection System''': Biological monitoring programmes aid with calculating precisely the right levels of stimulants to be injected into the body. As a reflexive action, the character may increase their Dexterity score by 1, lasting a number of rounds equal to their number of Medicine skill dots. This also affects all allies linked in via a Biological Monitor programme. 
'''Toxic Cleansing Programme''': Rapid assessment of hazardous toxins affecting the body allows for a tailored chemical response to be quickly deployed into the bloodstream. As an instant action, the character may roll Intelligence + Medicine versus a roll of the Toxicity of a poison affecting themselves or a character within 5 yards. Success results in the poison being neutralised. Extremely exotic or totally unknown toxins may inflict a further penalty on the roll. 
'''Toxic Materials Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a round containing a dangerous cocktail of toxic materials, hurling them away via a magnetic pulse. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Medicine but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. The attack deals no damage but fills an area around the target of 10 yards radius with caustic fumes for a number of rounds equal to the character's Medicine skill dots. This acts as a Toxicity 4 poison dealing Lethal damage via inhalation. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Background Toxicity Monitor''': A background monitoring VI handles automated countermeasures against toxic factors. The character benefits from a +2 bonus to all rolls to resist disease, poison, infection and other biological or chemical agents. This also affects all allies linked in via a Biological Monitor programme. 
'''Biological Monitor''': A suite of readouts and diagnostics provide unparalleled information on the life-signs of networked allies. The character always knows the exact health levels of all allies within communications range, and can apply Medicine programmes to allies without needing to worry about normal range or line of sight restrictions – they can even undertake a regular Medicine first aid roll from a distance. 
'''Bioscanner''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to detect nearby life-signs and traces of organic matter. This allows the character to use Wits + Medicine for Perception rolls to detect living organisms or organic matter within a 100 yard range. 
'''Decoy-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a decoy drone. Through complex bio-mimicry, the drone projects both a holographic decoy of the character, combined with realistic life-sign emissions that can fool basic scans and senses. The character can set the decoy on a basic 'idle' animation, can pre-record up to 5 minutes of voice and movement (including triggers to activate recorded speech), or can directly steer the decoy-drone's projection on a realtime basis. Observers must pass a Perception check with a penalty equal to the character's Medicine skill dots to note that something is off about the decoy; physically interacting with the decoy will immediately show it to be a holographic projection with a drone at its heart, as will other actions that show its nature. 
'''Med-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced medical assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Medicine skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Medi-Gel Overseer''': A continually running VI programme monitors and adjusts the application of medi-gel to deal with injuries. Whenever the character uses a charge of medi-gel for healing purposes, either on themselves or others, they may roll Intelligence + Medicine. If they achieve as many or more successes as the target has injured health points, the total Bashing or Lethal health points healed is increased by 1. 
'''Medical Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Medicine skill checks, other than for the use of charged Medicine programmes. 
'''Medical Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for medical purposes. 

===Science===

Scientific programmes are often complex systems and containment routines for fabricating, mixing and handling unstable or exotic materials, as well as suites of assessment programmes to analyse the results.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Cryo-Material Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a round containing a mixture of chemicals that will undergo a cryogenic reaction when deployed. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Science but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. Should the attack hit, it deals no damage but douses the target in the freezing gases, inflicting a -2 penalty on all physical action rolls (including attacks) and reducing their Speed by 5 for 1 round. 
'''Hyperscan''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to emit a pulse that can detect nearby unusual or intense energy signatures and matter concentrations. This allows the character to use Intelligence + Science for a Perception roll to detect and identify strong energy emissions or unusual matter within a 100 yard range. 
'''Incendiary Material Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a plasma round containing a mixture of chemicals that will undergo a n incendiary reaction when deployed. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Science but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. Should the attack hit, it deals no damage but douses the target and an area around them of 5 yard radius in flammable materials that immediately start burning with fierce intensity, and will continue to do so for a number of rounds equal to the character's Science skill dots. The fire inflicts 3L per turn, reduced by Armour as normal, but also grants all other attacks against a burning target Armour Piercing 1. As long as a burning target is able to remove themselves from the area of effect, they can put out the fire as a reflexive action on their turn. 
'''Pattern Recognition Algorithms''': A simple VI meshed with pattern recognition programming can perform a high-speed resource-intensive analysis. As an instant action, the character may make an Intelligence + Science roll to identify significant patterns in a set of available data or information. 
'''Rapid Matter Analysis''': A set of scanning programmes quickly analyse a sample of matter to provide a complete breakdown of its composition. As an instant action, the character may roll Intelligence + Science to get a full analysis of some sample matter, including chemical composition and properties. 
'''Unstable Materials''': A set of safety-boundary-pushing programmes allow the character to to increase the operational margins of instability in deployable materials. The character may expend this programme at the same time as an Incendiary, Cryo- or Toxic Materials Deployment programme to increase the radius of effect by 10 yards. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Energy Drone''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to direct energies into an attack. The character's remote drone gains the ability to make a 2L ranged attack at targets up to 15 yards away, using the character's Wits + Science as an attack pool. The remote drone may also serve as the origination of any Incendiary, Cryo- or Toxic Materials Deployment instead of the character. 
'''Energy Projection Modulation''': Advanced energy handling routines increase the omni-tool's output available for emission purposes. The character gains a +1 bonus to any attacks made with Tech Process programmes. 
'''Environmental Shielding''': A monitoring VI keeps vigilant watch over environmental diagnostics, adjusting and augmenting existing protective measures. The character adds their Science skill dots as a bonus to rolls to resist environmental effects such as extreme heat, cold or causticity, and adds 1 point of Armour to their Shield points against any direct attacks of these kinds. 
'''Full Spectrum Sensory Suite''': A top-of-the-range set of analytical and sensory programmes aid the character with close investigation. When they have the time to carefully go over a location, the character benefits from the 9-again rule on Perception and Investigation checks. 
'''Lab-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced lab assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Science skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Mass Shielding Matrix''': Subtle distortion emissions are carefully controlled to interfere with any biotic attacks on the character. Biotic attacks that target the character, even if only due to them being in the area of effect, suffer an additional -1 penalty. 
'''Scientific Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Science skill checks, other than for the use of charged Science programmes. 
'''Scientific Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for scientific purposes. 

[[Mass:_the_Effecting |Back to main page]]

Mass: the Effecting/Hard-Won Experience

2012-10-04T12:32:50Z

Acrozatarim: Undo revision 215258 by 2.96.87.221 (talk)

=Hard-Won Experience=

In Mass: The Effecting, your character possesses one of the six Archetype minor templates. As well as a special active and passive ability, this template gives your character a number of points to spend on Biotic, Combat Training and Tech talents, marking them out through their exceptional capabilities.

Each type of Archetype talent is distinct from the other two. Biotic talents are potent, specific uses of biotic power, draining to use but devastating in effect. Combat Training talents passively enhance a character's existing abilities or opening up new options in combat. Tech talents grant a great deal of flexibility through high-performance omni-tool programmes that augment and aid one of four skills – Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine and Science.

Each talent category is actually made up of 4 talents – so the Combat Training talents are Assault, Command, Guardian and Tactical. Your character can have up to 5 dots in a particular talent.

While your character's starting talent allocation is constrained by their Archetype, you can purchase any kind of talent for them with your character's experience points as the chronicle progresses. An Adept can acquire Combat Training talents to help them survive the battles they keep finding themselves in, and a Soldier can pick up some Tech programming tricks. However, if you wish to purchase Biotic talents with a non-Biotic Archetype, you should either make some concession to this in your starting character concept (such as the character having biotic potential but never getting the implants or training to use it) or something should have happened to enable this. Non-biotic individuals are simply unable to spontaneously start using biotic powers due to the way biotics work in the Mass Effect setting.

The experience cost for buying dots in a talent with experience points is equal to new dots x 5. If your Archetype has only one category of talent, then the cost of buying dots in that category is new dots x 3. If your Archetype has two categories of talent, then the cost of buying dots in those categories is new dots x 4.

''For example, a Soldier who wishes to increase their Command Training purchases at new dots x 3, as Command is a Combat Training talent and the Soldier Archetype only has the Combat Training category. A Vanguard who wishes to increase their Command Training or Integration Discipline talents purchases at new dots x 4, since the Vanguard Archetype has the Combat Training and Biotic categories. Both Soldier and Vanguard pay new dots x 5 for Tech talents, as neither has the Tech category.''

==Biotic Talents==

Biotics are capable of controlling mass effect fields due to nodules of element zero in their bodies. This can grant them tremendous power, but requires the use of implants and biotic amps to fully exploit. Biotic use also comes at a cost – it puts a huge drain on the user's metabolism, increasing their energy intake needs by a ferocious amount and building up static charge in their bodies to sometimes dangerous levels.

The different biotic talents are referred to as Disciplines. The four Disciplines are Distortion, Esoterics, Integration and Kinetics. Each point in a Discipline allows the character to pick a single power from the Discipline's list, granting the character the capability to use that power at will. These powers are picked when the dots are acquired and cannot be changed.

''Using Biotic Powers'': Using a biotic power usually involves rolling a dice pool of Resolve plus the character's dots in the relevant Discipline, with a variety of effects depending on the power in question. Using a power also requires that a cost be paid. This cost is in points of Bashing damage or Willpower, and possibly both. Points of Armour rating do not reduce the amount of damage taken from using biotic powers.

Unless otherwise noted, using a biotic power is an instant action. Biotic powers that target characters or locations other than the biotic themselves require line of sight.

Biotic powers require at least some freedom of movement to act, as biotic users are trained to use mudras to activate their implants and nervous systems in particular ways. Restraining a biotic is an effective way to prevent them from using their capabilities.

''Boosting Biotic Powers'': A biotic character can choose to boost a power, pushing themselves to the limit to empower themselves further. This increases the cost of the power, as noted in the boost's entry.

''Willpower Points and Biotic Powers'': Willpower points spent to activate or boost a biotic power do not count towards the one point of Willpower that a character can normally spend per turn to increase their dice pool or defences. A character could conceivably activate a biotic power that costs 1 point of Willpower, its boost that costs another point of Willpower and then spend their one point of Willpower per turn for a +3 bonus to the activation dice pool.

''Kinetics and Countering'': A biotic may choose to spend their turn's action countering the Kinetic abilities of another biotic within 25 yards. If they do so, they may take no other action but inflict a penalty on all Kinetic power rolls by the target equal to their own dots in the Kinetic discipline.

===Distortion===

Distortion is the Discipline of molecular agitation and the manipulation of mass to distort and warp.

'''Haze'''

This technique uses low-level distortion fields to create a shell of warped spacetime around an area, interfering with any sorts of senses or perception attempting to cross the shell's edge. To the outside world, the hazed air looks like warped, shimmering glass.

Haze affects an area centred on the biotic with a radius of Resolve x 5 yards. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Any attempts to perceive by any means (sight, hearing, radar etc) into the area covered by Haze suffer a penalty equal to the biotic's Resolve, and indeed need to make Perception or other appropriate rolls in the first place. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the effect can be placed within 50 yards instead of being centred on the biotic. 

'''Reave'''

This technique unleashes a powerful distortion field into the target's nervous or synthetic systems, causing a crippling overload.

Reave affects a single target up to 200 yards away. Roll Resolve + Distortion against an opposed roll of the target's Stamina. Success results in the target suffering wound penalties as if they had their last three health points filled with damage, with a duration of the biotic's Resolve in rounds. The penalty isn't cumulative with any existing wound penalties the target is already suffering, and can be reduced as normal by effects such as Iron Stamina. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Reave nullifies any healing from any source during its duration, and it inflicts the -3 wound penalty in addition to any existing wound penalties, regardless of any Iron Stamina or other reductions. 

'''Scramble'''

Scramble unleashes a thrashing flux of mass effect fields around the biotic, warping and distorting gravity and space.

Scramble affects an area centred on the biotic with a radius of Resolve x 3 yards. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Everyone other than the biotic in the area of effect suffers a -2 penalty to their Speed, and to any attack rolls and Athletics-based rolls that they make. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1B, the -2 penalty to attack rolls also applies to any ranged attacks made against the biotic from outside Scramble's area. 

'''Singularity'''

Singularity uses distortion to punch a gravity well into the fabric of spacetime, dragging anyone nearby towards its centre.

Choose a point within 100 yards; this is where the singularity appears, affecting an area Resolve x 5 yards in radius. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Anyone in the area of effect must succeed in a Strength + Athletics check in order to move in any direction other than directly towards the singularity, with successes equal to the number of yards they can move in a direction they wish. On the biotic's turn every round, everyone in the area of effect gets pulled 5 yards towards the singularity. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, increase the number of yards the singularity pulls each round by the biotic's Resolve. 

'''Warp'''

Warp creates rapidly shifting mass effect fields that tear a target apart.

Warp is used as a ranged attack by the biotic, with a short range of 100 yards and no medium or long range. This power uses Resolve + Distortion as its attack pool and is affected by other situational modifiers, such as cover, just as a normal ranged attack. If Warp hits, it has a Damage rating equal to the biotic's Resolve, with added damage from successes as normal.

If the target is already under the effect of another biotic power, Warp causes a biotic explosion. This increases its' Damage rating by 1 against the target, and inflicts a 3L explosion centred on the target with a radius equal to the biotic's Resolve in yards. The pre-existing biotic power immediately ends if it is a Distortion or Kinetic power. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, Warp grants all attacks against the target Armour Piercing 1 for a number of rounds equal to Resolve. 

===Esoterics===

Esoterics is a new and rare discipline of biotics. The powers that are classified under Esoterics come from a variety of scientific and research sources, pushing at the boundaries of what is understood about the biotic condition and exploring new (and often unsafe) concepts. These powers are not in general use and some are essentially secret, or only available through extremely dubious channels. Unlike the other three biotic disciplines, users of Esoterics must undergo special training and implants to gain an Esoteric power, as standard biotic amps and implants do not have the advanced or experimental systems needed.

'''Annihilation Field'''

Annihilation Field shrouds the biotic in a highly dangerous cloak of agitated space-time that seethes with contained energies.

Annihilation Field allows the biotic to make an additional attack against ''all'' other characters within 5 yards at the beginning of the biotic's turn. This attack uses only the biotic's Resolve as its dice pool but ignores defence, and has a Damage rating of 3. Annihilation Field will also tend to corrode, ignite or otherwise wreck the nearby environment, and makes stealth impossible. Annihilation Field lasts a scene, or until the biotic chooses to end it.
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, Annihilation Field grants all attacks against any target hit by it Armour Piercing 1 for one round. 

===Integration===

Integration is the biotic discipline of molecular integration, using mass effect fields to strengthen and control the fabric of spacetime around the user.

'''Barrier'''

Barrier protects the biotic with mass effect fields in the same way as technological kinetic barrier generators.

Barrier provides the biotic with a number of biotic Shield levels equal to Resolve. These shield levels do not stack with any existing Shield levels, but will overwrite them if existing Shield levels are lower than the biotic's Resolve. Roll Resolve + Integration, with the biotic gaining a +1 bonus to resist attempts to knock them down or move them around for each success on the dice roll, as long as Barrier is in effect. Barrier lasts one scene, or until the Shield levels are lost. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Barrier can be activated as a Reflexive action. 

'''Charge'''

Charge encases the biotic in a mass effect field and launches them forwards at high velocity, akin to the technique employed by mass relays.

Charge allows the biotic to move up to their Speed x Resolve in yards in a straight line at near-instantaneous speed. This power doesn't allow them to pass through solid obstacles but they may go straight over gaps of up to their Speed in yards without any need for jumping checks. Roll Resolve + Integration, with each success increasing the biotic's Defence by 1; this effect lasts 1 round.

The biotic may still make a melee or ranged attack after using Charge. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic does not need to Charge in a straight line and may make any number of turns along the way, they may also cover a gap of twice their Speed in yards. 

'''Smite'''

Smite uses mass effect fields to empower the biotic's unarmed strikes with immense force.

Smite is a reflexive action used to augment an unarmed attack. It increases the Damage rating of the unarmed attack by an amount equal to the biotic's Resolve, and the biotic may choose to make the damage Lethal rather than Bashing. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Smite augments all unarmed attacks the biotic makes for one additional round. 

'''Stasis'''

Stasis simply locks the target into place with integrated mass effect fields that prevent them from moving.

Choose a target within 50 yards. The target must make a Strength check, with a penalty imposed of up to the biotic's Resolve at the biotic's choice. If the target achieves no successes, they are locked in place for 1 round and are completely unable to act in any way. However, they gain additional Armour equal to the penalty that the biotic applied to their strength check, affecting all attacks whether against Shield levels or health levels, and which is cumulative with existing Armour.

''For example, a biotic with Resolve 5 chooses to apply a -3 penalty to a target's Strength check. Since the target only has Strength 3, this reduces them to a chance die. They fail, and are locked in place for 1 round. During this round, they benefit from an additional 3 points of Armour against all attacks.''

''Cost'': 1 Willpower point. 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the target gains no Armour from Stasis. 

'''Wall'''

Wall uses similar mass effect fields to Barrier and Stasis to forge a layer of integrated mass effect fields across an area.

The Wall power creates a wall of biotic force that is up to Resolve x 2 yards wide and high. The centre point of the wall's line must be within 5 yards of the biotic when created. Roll Resolve + Integration; the Wall has a number of Shield levels equal to 5 + successes rolled. The Wall can serve as cover and an obstacle, preventing any movement through it. Attackers may choose to attack the Wall directly; it has Armour equal to the Biotic's Resolve.

The Wall remains present as long as the biotic is within 5 yards of it. If he moves away, creates a new Wall, or the Wall's Shield levels are lost, it immediately ceases to exist. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower, the biotic may make a Wall that will exist even after moving 5 yards away from it, or he may turn it into a shell of up to Resolve x 2 yards radius centred on himself. 

===Kinetics===

Kinetics is the biotic discipline of directly applying force through mass effect fields.

'''Glide'''

The Glide technique involves applying kinetic mass effect fields to the biotic themselves, allowing them to defy the forces of gravity through fine biotic control.

Roll Resolve + Kinetics, with Glide lasting for a number of rounds equal to successes rolled. While Glide is in effect, the biotic can reduce the distance they fall each round to any speed including zero, and they suffer no falling damage when making contact with the ground. If they continue to have some downward velocity, they may also move sideways in any direction up to their Resolve in yards per round. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can move in any direction at all for up to their Resolve in yards per round, without any requirement to continue moving down. This allows the biotic to 'fly' upwards if they wish. 

'''Lift'''

The Lift technique uses mass effect fields to pull the target up into the air.

Choose a target within 100 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. The target is lifted a number of yards equal to successes rolled, lasting for the biotic's Resolve in rounds. A gentle drift can be applied to the target as they are lifted if desired, so they will move 1 yard per round in a particular direction.

The Lifted target is not incapacitated and may continue to try and act by firing, trying to grab hold of something, and so forth.

Lifting larger, heavier targets is more difficult. For each full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Resolve + Kinetics roll suffers an additional –2 penalty, so lifting a small car (Size 10) would inflict a -2 penalty on the roll. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Lift of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

'''Slam'''

Slam uses fine control over a rapid flux in mass effect fields to exert huge force on a target, picking them up and slamming them down again.

Choose a target within 30 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics as an attack with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. Slam is not affected by other conditional modifiers such as cover. If Slam hits, it has a Damage rating equal to the biotic's Resolve, with added damage from successes as normal. The target is also knocked prone. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Slam of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

'''Shockwave'''

The Shockwave technique unleashes a powerful mass effect field that pulses out in a crashing wave, knocking targets from their feet.

Choose which direction the Shockwave emits, resulting in an area of effect starting at the biotic that is 5 yards wide and 5 x Resolve yards long. Make a Resolve + Kinetics roll once; each target in the area must oppose this with their own Strength roll. If they lose, they are knocked prone. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point. 
''Boost'': For 1B, all targets automatically fail their Strength check. 

'''Throw'''

Throw exerts a strong mass effect field to catapult the target in a particular direction.

Choose a target within 100 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics as an attack with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. The target is hurled in a chosen direction for a distance of up to successes x 5 yards, and suffering Bashing damage in successes if they hit something. The target must make a Dexterity + Athletics roll with a penalty equal to the biotic's Resolve, or be knocked down.

This power can also be used to pick up objects and hurl them at people, inflicting Bashing damage equal to successes if the Throw can reach the target with the object. This has the benefit of most thrown objects not possessing Shield levels.

Lifting larger, heavier targets is more difficult. For each full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Resolve + Kinetics roll suffers an additional –2 penalty, so lifting a small car (Size 10) would inflict a -2 penalty on the roll. However, for every full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Damage inflicted by a thrown object increases by 2. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Throw of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

==Combat Training Talents==

Combat in the Mass Effect setting is fast, lethal and dangerous, thanks to the cutting edge technology deployed on the battlefields of the galaxy. Personal protection from armour and shields only goes so far towards securing victory – the rest comes from the training and talent of the commanders and troops themselves.

The different combat training talents are called Regimens. The four Regimens are Assault, Command, Guardian and Tactical. Each point in a Regimen allows the character to pick a single power from the Regimen's list, granting the character the benefits of that power. These powers are picked when the dots are acquired and cannot be changed.

The Command Training Regimen works slightly differently from the others, as noted in its description below.

''Using Combat Training Powers'': Most Combat Training powers grant their benefits all the time. Some allow the character to use new options in combat, such as Suppressive Fire; the character can choose when to use these options and when not to, and no cost is attached to doing so.

===Assault Training===

Assault training often covers close-quarter combat, ambushes, storming defensive positions and blitzkrieg insertion into hot zones.

'''Agility''': Through a mixture of free-running and combat training, the character can ignore terrain penalties on their movement of an amount up to their dots in Dexterity; so a character with Dexterity 4 could ignore up to -4 in penalties. Ladders, crates, low walls and so forth are easy for this character to handle. Their speed is also increased by 1. 
'''Ambush''': The character is an expert at close, covert work. When attacking an opponent who is not aware of the character, they add a +2 bonus to the Damage rating of their attack. Perception rolls made to hear the character attacking suffer a -2 penalty. 
'''Carnage''': The character is an expert in dealing death with short-ranged weapons in close quarters. When firing at a target within the short-range of a pistol or shotgun, the character benefits from the 9-again rule, or 8-again if the weapon already has 9-again. 
'''Close Quarters Combatant''': The character possesses advanced close combat training. They ignore penalties to their Defence caused by multiple melee attackers, may choose to deal Lethal damage with their unarmed attacks, and benefit from the 9-again rule when making unarmed strikes. 
'''Combat Drop Training''': The character has been trained for rapid-deployment assaults into hot zones. When dropping into combat with armour-jets, from an aircraft or from orbit, the character is able to act on the same round they touch down and suffers no other penalties due to combat drops. They also treat all Piloting checks with armour-jets as rote actions. 
'''Hard Target''': Keeping a low profile and moving fast, the character renders themselves a hard target for attackers. If they move at least 5 yards during their turn, all ranged attacks against them suffer an additional -1 penalty on their attack pools. Running increases the penalty to -2. 
'''Shock Trooper''': The character has the training and experience of a hardened shock trooper and is used to running through hails of bullets and explosions without flinching. The character reduces all penalties suffered from the combat environment by 1, such as from suppressive fire, concealment granted by smoke grenades and so forth. They benefit from a +2 bonus to any dice pool to resist knock-downs, stuns and other disorientation effects, while their Speed is increased by 1. 
'''Slam''': Harnessing their raw strength, the character slams foes to the ground. After a successful melee attack at the end of a charge action, the target of the attack must make a Strength check. If they fail to get as many successes as the points of damage taken from the attack, they are knocked down. This technique is a favourite of Krogan. 

===Command Training===

Command training prepares a character for the rigours of commanding a team in a combat environment, whether a naval commander overseeing their crew from the bridge of a spaceship or a black ops squad leader directing their team through an intense firefight.

Command Training works differently to the other talents available in Combat Training. Rather than offering a new power with every dot, the character instead gains one additional die into the group's Command pool, a pool of dice that refreshes each scene from which the whole group of characters can benefit. These dice can be drawn on for specific purposes by any characters who are in communications-range of one of the Commanding characters.

''For example, a Soldier has Command 4, putting 4 dice into the Command pool. Another character in the group, a Vanguard, has Command 2, increasing the total dice in the Command pool to 6. At the beginning of every scene, this pool refreshes back up to 6 dice, no matter how many of the dice have been spent in the prior scene.''

As long as one of the characters with Command allows it, anyone in the group can take dice from the pool for the purposes noted below, including the characters with the Command talent themselves. A character can take up to their Wits in dice from the pool in a single turn, and can spend them all on one roll or purpose if desired.

Command dice can be:

'''Concentrate Fire''': Added directly to an attack dice pool, before rolling. 
'''Co-Ordinate Action''': Added directly to a secondary actor's teamwork dice pool to aid a primary actor with their action. 
'''Priority Target''': Added directly to the Damage rating of an attack against a target who is knocked down, held by a mass effect field, on fire, frozen, stunned or otherwise vulnerable, before rolling the attack pool. 
'''Ready For Action''': Added as a bonus to a character's Initiative score after rolling in the first round of combat, adding +1 per die used. 
'''Take Cover''': Applied as an additional penalty to an attack roll against a character who is in cover, augmenting the normal cover penalty by -1 per die used, before rolling the attack pool. 
'''Stay Alert''': Added directly to a Perception dice pool, before rolling. 

===Guardian Training===

Guardian training demands the very best of a character physically, pushing them to their limits and beyond to help them and others stay alive.

'''Bastion''': The character knows how to angle armour plating, shift their profile and minimise the damage from incoming fire. If wearing armour, the character benefits from a +1 to their Armour against any ranged attackers in front of them, as long as they haven't moved this turn. 
'''Berserker''': When taking at least one point of Lethal damage, the character may choose to enter a rage, gaining a temporary +2 bonus to Stamina and Resolve and becoming immune to penalties inflicted by suppressive fire. This does result in them gaining two health levels during the rage but, while the health levels are lost once the rage subsides, any damage taken is kept. Many Krogan enter a berserker rage in battle when wounded. 
'''Bodyguard''': The Character has the reflexes and training of a bodyguard, able to protect others with their own body. They can choose to serve as cover for allies when they are between the ally and attacker or are adjacent to that ally, inflicting a -1 cover penalty on attacks that increases to -2 if the bodyguard is carrying a ballistic shield.. This increases to -2 if the ally is willing to allow the bodyguard to drop them prone and shield the ally with their whole body, increasing again to -3 if the bodyguard is in heavy armour or is carrying a ballistic shield. 
'''Fitness''': The character is in excellent physical condition and has two permanent additional health points. 
'''Resilient''': Fists, batons, concussion grenades... Not much phases this character. They benefit from an additional point of Armour against all Bashing attacks, even when not actually wearing armour, and gain a +1 bonus to dice pools to resist stuns and knock-downs. 
'''Second Skin''': The character has the training and experience to treat armour like a second skin, entirely comfortable with its power servos and weight distribution. The character benefits from a +1 to their Defence and Speed while wearing armour. 
'''Survivor''': The character is too tough or just too damn stubborn to stay down, regardless of his injuries. He never falls unconscious as a result of having all his health boxes filled with damage, and doesn't need to succeed on a Stamina roll to do so. 
'''Vigilant''': The character is ever-vigilant for danger. If the character is or becomes aware of an attacker targeting an unaware ally, and the character is within communications range of that ally, the ally becomes aware of the impending attack immediately. The character's Initiative is also increased by 1. 

===Tactical Training===

Tactical training prepares the character for the rapidly changing environment of the battlefield, allowing them to react to new threats swiftly and to apply their own firepower with devastating effect.

'''Advancing Fire''': The character may fire when running, suffering a -3 penalty to their attack roll for doing so. 
'''Heavy Weapons Training''': The character is experienced in handling support weaponry, and ignores any penalties and restrictions from the Heavy Weapon trait. 
'''Marksman''': The character is a skilled marksman. Whenever the character takes at least one aim action with a weapon that has the 9-again trait (apart from shotguns), they benefit from the 8-again rule on the attack dice pool made with the aiming bonus. 
'''Outflank''': The character knows how the make the most of an outmanoeuvred enemy's weakness. Attacking a target in the flank or rear when an ally has engaged them from the front grants the character a +1 bonus to attack rolls. 
'''Sniper''': The character has the patience and talent of a skilled sniper. After using the aim action and firing at a target, the character does not lose his aiming bonus as long as he continues to fire at the same target and does not have his line of sight to them broken. He may even continue to take further aim actions to increase his aiming bonus, subject to the usual +3 aiming bonus cap. 
''For example, a sniper could aim once for a +1 bonus, fire, aim again for a total of +2, fire again, etc.'' 
'''Squad Reflexes''': After rolling for Initiative at the beginning of combat, but before the first round begins, the character can choose to shift their Initiative to match that of one ally within communications range. The character's Initiative is also increased by 1. 
'''Suppressive Fire''': There's a line between effective suppressive fire and just wasting shots. The character may sacrifice the bonus attack dice from autofire to apply it instead as a penalty to the ranged attack rolls of the target for one round. This can be applied to multiple targets as per the normal autofire rules, but it does incur the usual attack dice penalty – so hosing down three targets with long-burst autofire for suppressive fire applies the -3 penalty to all of them but also leaves the character with a -3 penalty on his attack rolls. Suppressive fire doesn't work against opponents who are simply unable to take cover, or are too heavily armoured or mindless to care. 
'''Weapon Drill''': Unloading, reloading and returning to the task of providing fire support is a well-oiled practice for the character. Reloading is a reflexive action as long as the replacement heat clip is to hand (such as in armour webbing or laid out within reach). 

==Tech Talents==

Advanced technology permeates the fabric of society in Mass Effect, and is a key part of life for any technician, engineer, scientist or doctor. Omni-tools are common, multi-purpose personal computational devices that serve as micro-fabrication facilities, interfacing tools and diagnostic systems. Those with the knowledge and skill can use their omni-tool to run enhanced programmes and VIs that can hack, overload or scan to great effect.

The different tech talents are called Processes. The four Processes are Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine and Science, and each is associated with the Mental skill of the same name. Each point in a Process allows the character to run a single programme of that type concurrently on their omni-tool. Unlike Disciplines and Regimens, the exact programme run in the Process slot is not permanent and can be easily changed for other programmes of a similar kind.

''Using Tech Powers'': A character's omni-tool possesses a library of stored programmes to draw upon. An omni-tool has a Library Size trait, as listed under its entry in the Elkoss Combine Catalogue; this is the number of stored programmes it can hold for ''each'' Process talent that the user has dots in. Programmes in the library are inactive until put into a Process slot.

''For example, a character with 2 dots in both the Engineering and Medicine Processes whose omni-tool has Library Size 6 can have 6 Engineering and 6 Medicine programmes stored in their library.''

The character has a number of Process slots equal to their dots in that Process; each slot can run one programme from the omni-tool's library in it.

Programmes come in two types – running and charged. Running programmes are passive, giving a bonus or opening up an option as long as they are in a slot. Charged programmes are expended when they are used, and remain expended for the rest of the scene; they rely on stored power that needs to recharge, need to take time to fabricate some complex new materials, or are otherwise unavailable. An expended charged programme remains in its Process slot.

''For example, a character with 3 dots in the Engineering Process and 1 dot in the Medicine Process could have Shield Modulation, Shield Boost and Overload in his Engineering slots and Defibrillator Pulse in his Medicine slot.''

A programme ''can'' be put into multiple Process slots, but running programmes give no benefit for doing so. In the case of a charged programme, running it in multiple slots essentially makes multiple uses available per scene.

Whenever dice rolls are called for by a tech power and refer to Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine or Science, they refer to the character's skill dots and not the dots in that Process talent.

''Swapping Programmes'': A character can swap out any programme in a slot for any other programme available in their omni-tool's library between scenes or in situations where there is no time pressure, without needing to roll.

During action or combat, swapping programmes is considerably more difficult, especially if the omni-tool's processors are already busy running a dozen other programmes at the same time. Doing so is a full action for the character's turn, wherein they must make roll Intelligence + the skill associated with the Process in question, with a penalty equal to the number of running programmes of that Process currently active. An expended programme's slot cannot be replaced in this way during a scene, but a running programme or an unexpended charged programme can be.

''For example, a character with 3 dots in the Engineering Process, 4 dots in the Engineering skill and 3 dots of Intelligence has two running programmes and a charged programme in their Process slots. During combat, they want to replace one of the running programmes with a more situation-appropriate charged programme. Doing so requires that they roll Intelligence + Engineering, a dice pool of 7, with a penalty of -2 dice for the two running programmes. This leaves them with 5 dice; any success means they have successfully swapped the running programme to the new charged programme.''

''Changing Libraries'': A character may wish to change the programmes they have available in their omni-tool's library. This requires that they either access a database with more programmes archived in it, or that they write a new programme themselves. The latter is time-consuming and very difficult, whereas the former often incurs the cost of purchasing licenses for a programme from a company. Many employers provide access to basic programmes to their staff, such as the line of Analysis programmes; getting access to a more questionable programme such as Overload is somewhat more difficult, requiring either money or military or criminal contacts.

''Scanners'': Several running programmes allow the character to use an omni-tool's facilities to replace Composure with a skill in Perception checks, for the purposes of detecting particular substances or systems. These scans can still suffer from various penalties to the Perception check and, while they can detect through some solid materials, suffer increasing degradation of signal the further they have to go.

===Engineering===

Engineering programmes focus on improving hardware and mechanical processes, whether vehicles and armour or shield modulations.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Emergency Infiltration Protocol''': This is a batch of processes with an emergency power cell for re-establishing a stealth field immediately. The character can expend the programme to activate a stealth field (if they have one) as a reflexive action instead of as an instant action. 
'''Fortification''': Through highly efficient management routines and incoming fire calculations, the power flows and fluid dynamics of armour can be momentarily reinforced. As a reflexive action, roll Wits + Engineering to increase Armour by the number of successes for 1 round. 
'''Neural Shock''': The programme discharges a pulse of electrical current that plays havoc with a target's nervous system. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Engineering versus the Stamina roll of a target within 30 yards. On a success, the target is stunned for 1 round, increased to 2 rounds on an exceptional success. 
'''Overload''': The programme discharges a carefully controlled pulse of electrical current that plays havoc with a target's shields, overloading kinetic barriers. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Engineering to deal damage to the Shield levels of a target within 50 yards – this power does no damage to health levels. If the character has multiple Overload programmes ready, they can all be expended at the same time; each Overload may affect a new target within 5 yards of the last, and the same target cannot be affected twice. 
'''Shield Boost''': The programme runs emergency power management routines to reestablish shield integrity. As a reflexive action, roll Wits + Engineering, restoring a number of lost Shield points to the character or an ally within 25 yards equal to the number of successes rolled. If the character has multiple Shield Boost programmes readied, they can all be expended at the same time; each Boost may target a new ally within 5 yards of the last target, and the same target cannot be affected twice. 
'''Shield Burst''': The programme dumps all remaining kinetic barrier energy into a controlled output. As a reflexive action, the character loses all remaining Shield points. A blast is centred on the character with a radius equal to the number of Shield points lost. Roll Wits + Engineering, dealing successes as Lethal damage to all characters within the area of effect. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Armour Subsystem Management''': Complex power management routines allow for additional energy demands to be handled. As long as this programme is running, the character can make used of a secondary armour mod, allowing them to benefit from both mods at once. 
'''Engineering Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Engineering skill checks, other than for the use of charged Engineering programmes. 
'''Engineering Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for engineering purposes. 
'''Omni-Blade Power Rerouting''': As well as fabricating a keen-edged one-use blade, the omni-tool's power systems divert additional power into the strike. This increases the Damage rating of an omni-blade by 1, and grants 9-again on attacks made with it. 
'''Rig-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced engineering assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Engineering skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Shield Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a shield emitter. The character's remote drone grants a +2 bonus to the maximum Shield points of all allies within 20 yards. 
'''Shield Modulation''': A VI's ongoing shield management processes ensure that a shield restores its integrity at a more rapid rate than normal. The character can reflexively restore 1 Shield point on their turn, as long as they have not been hit by any attacks since their last turn. 
'''Vehicle Control Subsystems''': Advanced integration programmes allow the character to enhance their control of a vehicle, granting the 9-again rule to Piloting checks. 

===Interfacing===

Interfacing programmes include routines for research, data analysis, scanning and hacking; for interfacing experts, information and its denial is the name of the game.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Comms Tap''': A rapid-fire codebreaker VI allows the character to attempt to break in to a communications channel as an instant action. Roll Intelligence + Interfacing, with successes giving the number of minutes that the character can listen in without the users being aware. Heavy-duty encryption can impose a penalty on the roll – standard military comm channels inflict a -3 penalty, with more difficult hacking targets increasing from there. 
'''Haywire''': By unleashing chaos programmes that hammer at any networked systems nearby, the character compromises equipment and armaments. Roll Intelligence + Interfacing as a reflexive action to affect an area of up to successes x 5 yards in radius. All tech devices within this area suffer a -1 penalty to rolls using them for 2 rounds, including firearms' attack dice pools. 
'''Lock-Hack''': A common (and usually illegal) programme for brute-forcing electronic locking systems, a Lock-Hack allows the character to attempt to open a lock as an extended Wits + Interfacing action with one roll representing one turn of work. The number of successes required depends on the quality of the lock in question. This is a crude electronic intrusion and will trigger alarms or alerts to the system, but it gets the job done quickly. 
'''Mask''': Careful infiltration protocols and data-masks shut down the character's network trace. Roll Wits + Interfacing as a reflexive action to immediately 'go silent' for a number of rounds equal to successes rolled, rendering the character's presence on a network untraceable by others. This also serves to render the character undetectable for the duration to any attempts to locate them with technological scans for data signals. 
'''Overheat''': Through a pre-prepared remote rapid hack VI, a weapon's heat sinks can be tampered with. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Interfacing against a target with a penalty based on the largest weapon to be overheated (-1 for a pistol, -2 for a rifle) and a -1 penalty for each additional weapon to be overheated past the first. Success results in all targeted weapons overheating, expending the full capacity of their current heat clip. This programme can even be used reflexive at the moment that a target is about to make an attack action, leaving them pulling the trigger for no effect, but suffers an additional -5 penalty for attempting the hack so fast. 
'''Subvert Synthetic''': A set of programmes that allow the character to try and hack a synthetic's systems on the fly. As an instant action, roll Wits + Interfacing opposed by the target synthetic or AI's Wits + remaining Shield points. Success give the character control of the synthetic for a number of rounds equal to successes. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Interfacing Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Interfacing skill checks, other than for the use of charged Interfacing programmes. 
'''Interfacing Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for interfacing purposes. 
'''Passive Scanning Programme''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to detect active net systems and ID them including active programmes running on omni-tools, armour and weaponry. This allows the character to use Wits + Interfacing for Perception rolls to detect these systems within a 100 yard range, or further if a signal is particularly strong. 
'''Rapid Data Analysis''': An advanced analysis VI and sifting programmes aid to rapidly identify and acquire relevant information vai the extranet or accessed databases. The character has their research times halved when attempting to acquire information via modern tech methods. If they have to actually read a set of old tomes in a pre-tech library, for example, then they're out of luck. 
'''Scout Drone''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a scout and sensor. The character's remote drone grants a +2 bonus to Perception checks, including those made via scanning programmes, and has superior sensory feedback allowing it to transmit full video feeds and readouts as long as it is within communications range of the character. 
'''Secure Routines''': Reactive defensive VI programmes inflict a penalty equal to the character's Interfacing skill on attempts to hack the equipment or systems that the character controls. 
'''Vehicle Interface Programming''': Advanced integration routines augment the character's interfacing with vehicular sensor suites. Perception checks made via a vehicle's sensors and scanners benefit from the 9-again rule. 
'''Sys-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced systems assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Interfacing skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 

===Medicine===

Medical programmes largely focus on subsystems for monitoring patients, administering emergency assistance and aiding with recovery from injuries and sickness; they also augment medical and biological analysis facilities.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Defibrillator Pulse''': The omni-tool discharges a pulse of energy into the patient to jolt them back to awareness. As a reflexive action, the character can target an unconscious character within 5 yards, rolling Intelligence + Medicine. Success brings the target back round to consciousness, unless they are unable to do so due to being drugged, for example. The pulse can be combined together with an Emergency Medi-Gel Application programme into one reflexive action on a single target. 
'''Emergency Medi-Gel Application''': Emergency medical management systems kick into action, allowing the character to direct the treatment to where it will be most effective. As a reflexive action, the character can target themselves or an ally within 5 yards with the programme, rolling Intelligence + Medicine with a penalty equal to any wound penalties that the target is currently suffering. On a success, expend one of the target's medi-gel doses for an immediate healing effect of 1L or 3B. 
'''Hypodermic Dart''': The onboard fabrication systems forge a hypodermic sliver of metal, loaded with carefully tailored toxins. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 30 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Medicine but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. The dart has a Damage rating of 1L with additional damage added from successes as normal but, if it inflicts any points of damage to the target's health points, it applies a Toxicity 2 poison dealing Bashing damage that forces the target to succeed at a Stamina check or fall unconscious. 
'''Medical Threat Analysis''': A diagnostic VI interfaces with the omni-tools sensors to quickly assess any medical hazards present. As a reflexive action, the character can roll Intelligence + Medicine for a near-instantaneous analysis of any chemical, biological or radioactive hazards present in the environment, the character, or a target within 5 yards – so it can identify if a character has been poisoned, or what the local radioactivity levels are. 
'''Stimulant Injection System''': Biological monitoring programmes aid with calculating precisely the right levels of stimulants to be injected into the body. As a reflexive action, the character may increase their Dexterity score by 1, lasting a number of rounds equal to their number of Medicine skill dots. This also affects all allies linked in via a Biological Monitor programme. 
'''Toxic Cleansing Programme''': Rapid assessment of hazardous toxins affecting the body allows for a tailored chemical response to be quickly deployed into the bloodstream. As an instant action, the character may roll Intelligence + Medicine versus a roll of the Toxicity of a poison affecting themselves or a character within 5 yards. Success results in the poison being neutralised. Extremely exotic or totally unknown toxins may inflict a further penalty on the roll. 
'''Toxic Materials Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a round containing a dangerous cocktail of toxic materials, hurling them away via a magnetic pulse. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Medicine but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. The attack deals no damage but fills an area around the target of 10 yards radius with caustic fumes for a number of rounds equal to the character's Medicine skill dots. This acts as a Toxicity 4 poison dealing Lethal damage via inhalation. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Background Toxicity Monitor''': A background monitoring VI handles automated countermeasures against toxic factors. The character benefits from a +2 bonus to all rolls to resist disease, poison, infection and other biological or chemical agents. This also affects all allies linked in via a Biological Monitor programme. 
'''Biological Monitor''': A suite of readouts and diagnostics provide unparalleled information on the life-signs of networked allies. The character always knows the exact health levels of all allies within communications range, and can apply Medicine programmes to allies without needing to worry about normal range or line of sight restrictions – they can even undertake a regular Medicine first aid roll from a distance. 
'''Bioscanner''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to detect nearby life-signs and traces of organic matter. This allows the character to use Wits + Medicine for Perception rolls to detect living organisms or organic matter within a 100 yard range. 
'''Decoy-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a decoy drone. Through complex bio-mimicry, the drone projects both a holographic decoy of the character, combined with realistic life-sign emissions that can fool basic scans and senses. The character can set the decoy on a basic 'idle' animation, can pre-record up to 5 minutes of voice and movement (including triggers to activate recorded speech), or can directly steer the decoy-drone's projection on a realtime basis. Observers must pass a Perception check with a penalty equal to the character's Medicine skill dots to note that something is off about the decoy; physically interacting with the decoy will immediately show it to be a holographic projection with a drone at its heart, as will other actions that show its nature. 
'''Med-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced medical assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Medicine skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Medi-Gel Overseer''': A continually running VI programme monitors and adjusts the application of medi-gel to deal with injuries. Whenever the character uses a charge of medi-gel for healing purposes, either on themselves or others, they may roll Intelligence + Medicine. If they achieve as many or more successes as the target has injured health points, the total Bashing or Lethal health points healed is increased by 1. 
'''Medical Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Medicine skill checks, other than for the use of charged Medicine programmes. 
'''Medical Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for medical purposes. 

===Science===

Scientific programmes are often complex systems and containment routines for fabricating, mixing and handling unstable or exotic materials, as well as suites of assessment programmes to analyse the results.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Cryo-Material Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a round containing a mixture of chemicals that will undergo a cryogenic reaction when deployed. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Science but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. Should the attack hit, it deals no damage but douses the target in the freezing gases, inflicting a -2 penalty on all physical action rolls (including attacks) and reducing their Speed by 5 for 1 round. 
'''Hyperscan''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to emit a pulse that can detect nearby unusual or intense energy signatures and matter concentrations. This allows the character to use Intelligence + Science for a Perception roll to detect and identify strong energy emissions or unusual matter within a 100 yard range. 
'''Incendiary Material Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a plasma round containing a mixture of chemicals that will undergo a n incendiary reaction when deployed. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Science but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. Should the attack hit, it deals no damage but douses the target and an area around them of 5 yard radius in flammable materials that immediately start burning with fierce intensity, and will continue to do so for a number of rounds equal to the character's Science skill dots. The fire inflicts 3L per turn, reduced by Armour as normal, but also grants all other attacks against a burning target Armour Piercing 1. As long as a burning target is able to remove themselves from the area of effect, they can put out the fire as a reflexive action on their turn. 
'''Pattern Recognition Algorithms''': A simple VI meshed with pattern recognition programming can perform a high-speed resource-intensive analysis. As an instant action, the character may make an Intelligence + Science roll to identify significant patterns in a set of available data or information. 
'''Rapid Matter Analysis''': A set of scanning programmes quickly analyse a sample of matter to provide a complete breakdown of its composition. As an instant action, the character may roll Intelligence + Science to get a full analysis of some sample matter, including chemical composition and properties. 
'''Unstable Materials''': A set of safety-boundary-pushing programmes allow the character to to increase the operational margins of instability in deployable materials. The character may expend this programme at the same time as an Incendiary, Cryo- or Toxic Materials Deployment programme to increase the radius of effect by 10 yards. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Energy Drone''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to direct energies into an attack. The character's remote drone gains the ability to make a 2L ranged attack at targets up to 15 yards away, using the character's Wits + Science as an attack pool. The remote drone may also serve as the origination of any Incendiary, Cryo- or Toxic Materials Deployment instead of the character. 
'''Energy Projection Modulation''': Advanced energy handling routines increase the omni-tool's output available for emission purposes. The character gains a +1 bonus to any attacks made with Tech Process programmes. 
'''Environmental Shielding''': A monitoring VI keeps vigilant watch over environmental diagnostics, adjusting and augmenting existing protective measures. The character adds their Science skill dots as a bonus to rolls to resist environmental effects such as extreme heat, cold or causticity, and adds 1 point of Armour to their Shield points against any direct attacks of these kinds. 
'''Full Spectrum Sensory Suite''': A top-of-the-range set of analytical and sensory programmes aid the character with close investigation. When they have the time to carefully go over a location, the character benefits from the 9-again rule on Perception and Investigation checks. 
'''Lab-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced lab assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Science skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Mass Shielding Matrix''': Subtle distortion emissions are carefully controlled to interfere with any biotic attacks on the character. Biotic attacks that target the character, even if only due to them being in the area of effect, suffer an additional -1 penalty. 
'''Scientific Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Science skill checks, other than for the use of charged Science programmes. 
'''Scientific Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for scientific purposes. 

[[Mass:_the_Effecting |Back to main page]]

Mass: the Effecting/Hard-Won Experience

2012-03-16T16:29:14Z

Acrozatarim:

=Hard-Won Experience=

In Mass: The Effecting, your character possesses one of the six Archetype minor templates. As well as a special active and passive ability, this template gives your character a number of points to spend on Biotic, Combat Training and Tech talents, marking them out through their exceptional capabilities.

Each type of Archetype talent is distinct from the other two. Biotic talents are potent, specific uses of biotic power, draining to use but devastating in effect. Combat Training talents passively enhance a character's existing abilities or opening up new options in combat. Tech talents grant a great deal of flexibility through high-performance omni-tool programmes that augment and aid one of four skills – Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine and Science.

Each talent category is actually made up of 3 or 4 talents – so the Combat Training talents are Assault, Command, Guardian and Tactical. Your character can have up to 5 dots in a particular talent.

While your character's starting talent allocation is constrained by their Archetype, you can purchase any kind of talent for them with your character's experience points as the chronicle progresses. An Adept can acquire Combat Training talents to help them survive the battles they keep finding themselves in, and a Soldier can pick up some Tech programming tricks. However, if you wish to purchase Biotic talents with a non-Biotic Archetype, you should either make some concession to this in your starting character concept (such as the character having biotic potential but never getting the implants or training to use it) or something should have happened to enable this. Non-biotic individuals are simply unable to spontaneously start using biotic powers due to the way biotics work in the Mass Effect setting.

The experience cost for buying dots in a talent with experience points is equal to new dots x 5. If your Archetype has only one category of talent, then the cost of buying dots in that category is new dots x 3. If your Archetype has two categories of talent, then the cost of buying dots in those categories is new dots x 4.

''For example, a Soldier who wishes to increase their Command Training purchases at new dots x 3, as Command is a Combat Training talent and the Soldier Archetype only has the Combat Training category. A Vanguard who wishes to increase their Command Training or Integration Discipline talents purchases at new dots x 4, since the Vanguard Archetype has the Combat Training and Biotic categories. Both Soldier and Vanguard pay new dots x 5 for Tech talents, as neither has the Tech category.''

==Biotic Talents==

Biotics are capable of controlling mass effect fields due to nodules of element zero in their bodies. This can grant them tremendous power, but requires the use of implants and biotic amps to fully exploit. Biotic use also comes at a cost – it puts a huge drain on the user's metabolism, increasing their energy intake needs by a ferocious amount and building up static charge in their bodies to sometimes dangerous levels.

The different biotic talents are referred to as Disciplines. The three Disciplines are Distortion, Integration and Kinetics. Each point in a Discipline allows the character to pick a single power from the Discipline's list, granting the character the capability to use that power at will. These powers are picked when the dots are acquired and cannot be changed.

''Using Biotic Powers'': Using a biotic power usually involves rolling a dice pool of Resolve plus the character's dots in the relevant Discipline, with a variety of effects depending on the power in question. Using a power also requires that a cost be paid. This cost is in points of Bashing damage or Willpower, and possibly both. Points of Armour rating do not reduce the amount of damage taken from using biotic powers.

Unless otherwise noted, using a biotic power is an instant action. Biotic powers that target characters or locations other than the biotic themselves require line of sight.

Biotic powers require at least some freedom of movement to act, as biotic users are trained to use mudras to activate their implants and nervous systems in particular ways. Restraining a biotic is an effective way to prevent them from using their capabilities.

''Boosting Biotic Powers'': A biotic character can choose to boost a power, pushing themselves to the limit to empower themselves further. This increases the cost of the power, as noted in the boost's entry.

''Willpower Points and Biotic Powers'': Willpower points spent to activate or boost a biotic power do not count towards the one point of Willpower that a character can normally spend per turn to increase their dice pool or defences. A character could conceivably activate a biotic power that costs 1 point of Willpower, its boost that costs another point of Willpower and then spend their one point of Willpower per turn for a +3 bonus to the activation dice pool.

''Kinetics and Countering'': A biotic may choose to spend their turn's action countering the Kinetic abilities of another biotic within 25 yards. If they do so, they may take no other action but inflict a penalty on all Kinetic power rolls by the target equal to their own dots in the Kinetic discipline.

===Distortion===

Distortion is the Discipline of molecular agitation and the manipulation of mass to distort and warp.

'''Haze'''

This technique uses low-level distortion fields to create a shell of warped spacetime around an area, interfering with any sorts of senses or perception attempting to cross the shell's edge. To the outside world, the hazed air looks like warped, shimmering glass.

Haze affects an area centred on the biotic with a radius of Resolve x 5 yards. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Any attempts to perceive by any means (sight, hearing, radar etc) into the area covered by Haze suffer a penalty equal to the biotic's Resolve, and indeed need to make Perception or other appropriate rolls in the first place. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the effect can be placed within 50 yards instead of being centred on the biotic. 

'''Reave'''

This technique unleashes a powerful distortion field into the target's nervous or synthetic systems, causing a crippling overload.

Reave affects a single target up to 200 yards away. Roll Resolve + Distortion against an opposed roll of the target's Stamina. Success results in the target suffering wound penalties as if they had their last three health points filled with damage, with a duration of the biotic's Resolve in rounds. The penalty isn't cumulative with any existing wound penalties the target is already suffering, and can be reduced as normal by effects such as Iron Stamina. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Reave nullifies any healing from any source during its duration, and it inflicts the -3 wound penalty in addition to any existing wound penalties, regardless of any Iron Stamina or other reductions. 

'''Scramble'''

Scramble unleashes a thrashing flux of mass effect fields around the biotic, warping and distorting gravity and space.

Scramble affects an area centred on the biotic with a radius of Resolve x 3 yards. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Everyone other than the biotic in the area of effect suffers a -2 penalty to their Speed, and to any attack rolls and Athletics-based rolls that they make. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1B, the -2 penalty to attack rolls also applies to any ranged attacks made against the biotic from outside Scramble's area. 

'''Singularity'''

Singularity uses distortion to punch a gravity well into the fabric of spacetime, dragging anyone nearby towards its centre.

Choose a point within 100 yards; this is where the singularity appears, affecting an area Resolve x 5 yards in radius. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Anyone in the area of effect must succeed in a Strength + Athletics check penalised by the biotic's Resolve in order to move in any direction other than directly towards the singularity, with successes equal to the number of yards they can move in a direction they wish. On the biotic's turn every round, everyone in the area of effect gets pulled 5 yards towards the singularity. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, increase the number of yards the singularity pulls each round by the biotic's Resolve. 

'''Warp'''

Warp creates rapidly shifting mass effect fields that tear a target apart.

Warp is used as a ranged attack by the biotic, with a short range of 100 yards and no medium or long range. This power uses Resolve + Distortion as its attack pool and is affected by other situational modifiers, such as cover, just as a normal ranged attack. If Warp hits, it has a Damage rating equal to the biotic's Resolve, with added damage from successes as normal.

If the target is already under the effect of another biotic power, Warp causes a biotic explosion. This increases its' Damage rating by 1 against the target, and inflicts a 3L explosion centred on the target with a radius equal to the biotic's Resolve in yards. The pre-existing biotic power immediately ends if it is a Distortion or Kinetic power. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, Warp grants all attacks against the target Armour Piercing 1 for a number of rounds equal to Resolve. 

===Integration===

Integration is the biotic discipline of molecular integration, using mass effect fields to strengthen and control the fabric of spacetime around the user.

'''Barrier'''

Barrier protects the biotic with mass effect fields in the same way as technological kinetic barrier generators.

Barrier provides the biotic with a number of biotic Shield levels equal to Resolve. These shield levels do not stack with any existing Shield levels, but will overwrite them if existing Shield levels are lower than the biotic's Resolve. Roll Resolve + Integration, with the biotic gaining a +1 bonus to resist attempts to knock them down or move them around for each success on the dice roll, as long as Barrier is in effect. Barrier lasts one scene, or until the Shield levels are lost. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Barrier can be activated as a Reflexive action. 

'''Charge'''

Charge encases the biotic in a mass effect field and launches them forwards at high velocity, akin to the technique employed by mass relays.

Charge allows the biotic to move up to their Speed x Resolve in yards in a straight line at near-instantaneous speed. This power doesn't allow them to pass through solid obstacles but they may go straight over gaps of up to their Speed in yards without any need for jumping checks. Roll Resolve + Integration, with each success increasing the biotic's Defence by 1; this effect lasts 1 round.

The biotic may still make a melee or ranged attack after using Charge. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic does not need to Charge in a straight line and may make any number of turns along the way, they may also cover a gap of twice their Speed in yards. 

'''Smite'''

Smite uses mass effect fields to empower the biotic's unarmed strikes with immense force.

Smite is a reflexive action used to augment an unarmed attack. It increases the Damage rating of the unarmed attack by an amount equal to the biotic's Resolve, and the biotic may choose to make the damage Lethal rather than Bashing. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Smite augments all unarmed attacks the biotic makes for one additional round. 

'''Stasis'''

Stasis simply locks the target into place with integrated mass effect fields that prevent them from moving.

Choose a target within 50 yards. The target must make a Strength check, with a penalty imposed of up to the biotic's Resolve at the biotic's choice. If the target achieves no successes, they are locked in place for 1 round and are completely unable to act in any way. However, they gain additional Armour equal to the penalty that the biotic applied to their strength check, affecting all attacks whether against Shield levels or health levels, and which is cumulative with existing Armour.

''For example, a biotic with Resolve 5 chooses to apply a -3 penalty to a target's Strength check. Since the target only has Strength 3, this reduces them to a chance die. They fail, and are locked in place for 1 round. During this round, they benefit from an additional 3 points of Armour against all attacks.''

''Cost'': 1 Willpower point. 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the target gains no Armour from Stasis. 

'''Wall'''

Wall uses similar mass effect fields to Barrier and Stasis to forge a layer of integrated mass effect fields across an area.

The Wall power creates a wall of biotic force that is up to Resolve x 2 yards wide and high. The centre point of the wall's line must be within 5 yards of the biotic when created. Roll Resolve + Integration; the Wall has a number of Shield levels equal to 5 + successes rolled. The Wall can serve as cover and an obstacle, preventing any movement through it. Attackers may choose to attack the Wall directly; it has Armour equal to the Biotic's Resolve.

The Wall remains present as long as the biotic is within 5 yards of it. If he moves away, creates a new Wall, or the Wall's Shield levels are lost, it immediately ceases to exist. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower, the biotic may make a Wall that will exist even after moving 5 yards away from it, or he may turn it into a shell of up to Resolve x 2 yards radius centred on himself. 

===Kinetics===

Kinetics is the biotic discipline of directly applying force through mass effect fields.

'''Glide'''

The Glide technique involves applying kinetic mass effect fields to the biotic themselves, allowing them to defy the forces of gravity through fine biotic control.

Roll Resolve + Kinetics, with Glide lasting for a number of rounds equal to successes rolled. While Glide is in effect, the biotic can reduce the distance they fall each round to any speed including zero, and they suffer no falling damage when making contact with the ground. If they continue to have some downward velocity, they may also move sideways in any direction up to their Resolve in yards per round. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can move in any direction at all for up to their Resolve in yards per round, without any requirement to continue moving down. This allows the biotic to 'fly' upwards if they wish. 

'''Lift'''

The Lift technique uses mass effect fields to pull the target up into the air.

Choose a target within 100 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. The target is lifted a number of yards equal to successes rolled, lasting for the biotic's Resolve in rounds. A gentle drift can be applied to the target as they are lifted if desired, so they will move 1 yard per round in a particular direction.

The Lifted target is not incapacitated and may continue to try and act by firing, trying to grab hold of something, and so forth.

Lifting larger, heavier targets is more difficult. For each full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Resolve + Kinetics roll suffers an additional –2 penalty, so lifting a small car (Size 10) would inflict a -2 penalty on the roll. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Lift of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

'''Slam'''

Slam uses fine control over a rapid flux in mass effect fields to exert huge force on a target, picking them up and slamming them down again.

Choose a target within 30 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics as an attack with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. Slam is not affected by other conditional modifiers such as cover. If Slam hits, it has a Damage rating equal to the biotic's Resolve, with added damage from successes as normal. The target is also knocked prone. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Slam of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

'''Shockwave'''

The Shockwave technique unleashes a powerful mass effect field that pulses out in a crashing wave, knocking targets from their feet.

Choose which direction the Shockwave emits, resulting in an area of effect starting at the biotic that is 5 yards wide and 5 x Resolve yards long. Make a Resolve + Kinetics roll once; each target in the area must oppose this with their own Strength roll. If they lose, they are knocked prone. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point. 
''Boost'': For 1B, all targets automatically fail their Strength check. 

'''Throw'''

Throw exerts a strong mass effect field to catapult the target in a particular direction.

Choose a target within 100 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics as an attack with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. The target is hurled in a chosen direction for a distance of up to successes x 5 yards, and suffering Bashing damage in successes if they hit something. The target must make a Dexterity + Athletics roll with a penalty equal to the biotic's Resolve, or be knocked down.

This power can also be used to pick up objects and hurl them at people, inflicting Bashing damage equal to successes if the Throw can reach the target with the object. This has the benefit of most thrown objects not possessing Shield levels.

Lifting larger, heavier targets is more difficult. For each full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Resolve + Kinetics roll suffers an additional –2 penalty, so lifting a small car (Size 10) would inflict a -2 penalty on the roll. However, for every full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Damage inflicted by a thrown object increases by 2. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Throw of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

==Combat Training Talents==

Combat in the Mass Effect setting is fast, lethal and dangerous, thanks to the cutting edge technology deployed on the battlefields of the galaxy. Personal protection from armour and shields only goes so far towards securing victory – the rest comes from the training and talent of the commanders and troops themselves.

The different combat training talents are called Regimens. The four Regimens are Assault, Command, Guardian and Tactical. Each point in a Regimen allows the character to pick a single power from the Regimen's list, granting the character the benefits of that power. These powers are picked when the dots are acquired and cannot be changed.

The Command Training Regimen works slightly differently from the others, as noted in its description below.

''Using Combat Training Powers'': Most Combat Training powers grant their benefits all the time. Some allow the character to use new options in combat, such as Suppressive Fire; the character can choose when to use these options and when not to, and no cost is attached to doing so.

===Assault Training===

Assault training often covers close-quarter combat, ambushes, storming defensive positions and blitzkrieg insertion into hot zones.

'''Agility''': Through a mixture of free-running and combat training, the character can ignore terrain penalties on their movement of an amount up to their dots in Dexterity; so a character with Dexterity 4 could ignore up to -4 in penalties. Ladders, crates, low walls and so forth are easy for this character to handle. Their speed is also increased by 1. 
'''Ambush''': The character is an expert at close, covert work. When attacking an opponent who is not aware of the character, they add a +2 bonus to the Damage rating of their attack. Perception rolls made to hear the character attacking suffer a -2 penalty. 
'''Carnage''': The character is an expert in dealing death with short-ranged weapons in close quarters. When firing at a target within the short-range of a pistol or shotgun, the character benefits from the 9-again rule, or 8-again if the weapon already has 9-again. 
'''Close Quarters Combatant''': The character possesses advanced close combat training. They ignore penalties to their Defence caused by multiple melee attackers, may choose to deal Lethal damage with their unarmed attacks, and benefit from the 9-again rule when making unarmed strikes. 
'''Combat Drop Training''': The character has been trained for rapid-deployment assaults into hot zones. When dropping into combat with armour-jets, from an aircraft or from orbit, the character is able to act on the same round they touch down and suffers no other penalties due to combat drops. They also treat all Piloting checks with armour-jets as rote actions. 
'''Hard Target''': Keeping a low profile and moving fast, the character renders themselves a hard target for attackers. If they move at least 5 yards during their turn, all ranged attacks against them suffer an additional -1 penalty on their attack pools. Running increases the penalty to -2. 
'''Shock Trooper''': The character has the training and experience of a hardened shock trooper and is used to running through hails of bullets and explosions without flinching. The character reduces all penalties suffered from the combat environment by 1, such as from suppressive fire, concealment granted by smoke grenades and so forth. They benefit from a +2 bonus to any dice pool to resist knock-downs, stuns and other disorientation effects, while their Speed is increased by 1. 
'''Slam''': Harnessing their raw strength, the character slams foes to the ground. After a successful melee attack at the end of a charge action, the target of the attack must make a Strength check. If they fail to get as many successes as the points of damage taken from the attack, they are knocked down. This technique is a favourite of Krogan. 

===Command Training===

Command training prepares a character for the rigours of commanding a team in a combat environment, whether a naval commander overseeing their crew from the bridge of a spaceship or a black ops squad leader directing their team through an intense firefight.

Command Training works differently to the other talents available in Combat Training. Rather than offering a new power with every dot, the character instead gains one additional die into the group's Command pool, a pool of dice that refreshes each scene from which the whole group of characters can benefit. These dice can be drawn on for specific purposes by any characters who are in communications-range of one of the Commanding characters.

''For example, a Soldier has Command 4, putting 4 dice into the Command pool. Another character in the group, a Vanguard, has Command 2, increasing the total dice in the Command pool to 6. At the beginning of every scene, this pool refreshes back up to 6 dice, no matter how many of the dice have been spent in the prior scene.''

As long as one of the characters with Command allows it, anyone in the group can take dice from the pool for the purposes noted below, including the characters with the Command talent themselves. A character can take up to their Wits in dice from the pool in a single turn, and can spend them all on one roll or purpose if desired.

Command dice can be:

'''Concentrate Fire''': Added directly to an attack dice pool, before rolling. 
'''Co-Ordinate Action''': Added directly to a secondary actor's teamwork dice pool to aid a primary actor with their action. 
'''Priority Target''': Added directly to the Damage rating of an attack against a target who is knocked down, held by a mass effect field, on fire, frozen, stunned or otherwise vulnerable, before rolling the attack pool. 
'''Ready For Action''': Added as a bonus to a character's Initiative score after rolling in the first round of combat, adding +1 per die used. 
'''Take Cover''': Applied as an additional penalty to an attack roll against a character who is in cover, augmenting the normal cover penalty by -1 per die used, before rolling the attack pool. 
'''Stay Alert''': Added directly to a Perception dice pool, before rolling. 

===Guardian Training===

Guardian training demands the very best of a character physically, pushing them to their limits and beyond to help them and others stay alive.

'''Bastion''': The character knows how to angle armour plating, shift their profile and minimise the damage from incoming fire. If wearing armour, the character benefits from a +1 to their Armour against any ranged attackers in front of them, as long as they haven't moved this turn. 
'''Berserker''': When taking at least one point of Lethal damage, the character may choose to enter a rage, gaining a temporary +2 bonus to Stamina and Resolve and becoming immune to penalties inflicted by suppressive fire. This does result in them gaining two health levels during the rage but, while the health levels are lost once the rage subsides, any damage taken is kept. Many Krogan enter a berserker rage in battle when wounded. 
'''Bodyguard''': The Character has the reflexes and training of a bodyguard, able to protect others with their own body. They can choose to serve as cover for allies when they are between the ally and attacker or are adjacent to that ally, inflicting a -1 cover penalty on attacks that increases to -2 if the bodyguard is carrying a ballistic shield.. This increases to -2 if the ally is willing to allow the bodyguard to drop them prone and shield the ally with their whole body, increasing again to -3 if the bodyguard is in heavy armour or is carrying a ballistic shield. 
'''Fitness''': The character is in excellent physical condition and has two permanent additional health points. 
'''Resilient''': Fists, batons, concussion grenades... Not much phases this character. They benefit from an additional point of Armour against all Bashing attacks, even when not actually wearing armour, and gain a +1 bonus to dice pools to resist stuns and knock-downs. 
'''Second Skin''': The character has the training and experience to treat armour like a second skin, entirely comfortable with its power servos and weight distribution. The character benefits from a +1 to their Defence and Speed while wearing armour. 
'''Survivor''': The character is too tough or just too damn stubborn to stay down, regardless of his injuries. He never falls unconscious as a result of having all his health boxes filled with damage, and doesn't need to succeed on a Stamina roll to do so. 
'''Vigilant''': The character is ever-vigilant for danger. If the character is or becomes aware of an attacker targeting an unaware ally, and the character is within communications range of that ally, the ally becomes aware of the impending attack immediately. The character's Initiative is also increased by 1. 

===Tactical Training===

Tactical training prepares the character for the rapidly changing environment of the battlefield, allowing them to react to new threats swiftly and to apply their own firepower with devastating effect.

'''Advancing Fire''': The character may fire when running, suffering a -3 penalty to their attack roll for doing so. 
'''Heavy Weapons Training''': The character is experienced in handling support weaponry, and ignores any penalties and restrictions from the Heavy Weapon trait. 
'''Marksman''': The character is a skilled marksman. Whenever the character takes at least one aim action with a weapon that has the 9-again trait (apart from shotguns), they benefit from the 8-again rule on the attack dice pool made with the aiming bonus. 
'''Outflank''': The character knows how the make the most of an outmanoeuvred enemy's weakness. Attacking a target in the flank or rear when an ally has engaged them from the front grants the character a +1 bonus to attack rolls. 
'''Sniper''': The character has the patience and talent of a skilled sniper. After using the aim action and firing at a target, the character does not lose his aiming bonus as long as he continues to fire at the same target and does not have his line of sight to them broken. He may even continue to take further aim actions to increase his aiming bonus, subject to the usual +3 aiming bonus cap. 
''For example, a sniper could aim once for a +1 bonus, fire, aim again for a total of +2, fire again, etc.'' 
'''Squad Reflexes''': After rolling for Initiative at the beginning of combat, but before the first round begins, the character can choose to shift their Initiative to match that of one ally within communications range. The character's Initiative is also increased by 1. 
'''Suppressive Fire''': There's a line between effective suppressive fire and just wasting shots. The character may sacrifice the bonus attack dice from autofire to apply it instead as a penalty to the ranged attack rolls of the target for one round. This can be applied to multiple targets as per the normal autofire rules, but it does incur the usual attack dice penalty – so hosing down three targets with long-burst autofire for suppressive fire applies the -3 penalty to all of them but also leaves the character with a -3 penalty on his attack rolls. Suppressive fire doesn't work against opponents who are simply unable to take cover, or are too heavily armoured or mindless to care. 
'''Weapon Drill''': Unloading, reloading and returning to the task of providing fire support is a well-oiled practice for the character. Reloading is a reflexive action as long as the replacement heat clip is to hand (such as in armour webbing or laid out within reach). 

==Tech Talents==

Advanced technology permeates the fabric of society in Mass Effect, and is a key part of life for any technician, engineer, scientist or doctor. Omni-tools are common, multi-purpose personal computational devices that serve as micro-fabrication facilities, interfacing tools and diagnostic systems. Those with the knowledge and skill can use their omni-tool to run enhanced programmes and VIs that can hack, overload or scan to great effect.

The different tech talents are called Processes. The four Processes are Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine and Science, and each is associated with the Mental skill of the same name. Each point in a Process allows the character to run a single programme of that type concurrently on their omni-tool. Unlike Disciplines and Regimens, the exact programme run in the Process slot is not permanent and can be easily changed for other programmes of a similar kind.

''Using Tech Powers'': A character's omni-tool possesses a library of stored programmes to draw upon. An omni-tool has a Library Size trait, as listed under its entry in the Elkoss Combine Catalogue; this is the number of stored programmes it can hold for ''each'' Process talent that the user has dots in. Programmes in the library are inactive until put into a Process slot.

''For example, a character with 2 dots in both the Engineering and Medicine Processes whose omni-tool has Library Size 6 can have 6 Engineering and 6 Medicine programmes stored in their library.''

The character has a number of Process slots equal to their dots in that Process; each slot can run one programme from the omni-tool's library in it.

Programmes come in two types – running and charged. Running programmes are passive, giving a bonus or opening up an option as long as they are in a slot. Charged programmes are expended when they are used, and remain expended for the rest of the scene; they rely on stored power that needs to recharge, need to take time to fabricate some complex new materials, or are otherwise unavailable. An expended charged programme remains in its Process slot.

''For example, a character with 3 dots in the Engineering Process and 1 dot in the Medicine Process could have Shield Modulation, Shield Boost and Overload in his Engineering slots and Defibrillator Pulse in his Medicine slot.''

A programme ''can'' be put into multiple Process slots, but running programmes give no benefit for doing so. In the case of a charged programme, running it in multiple slots essentially makes multiple uses available per scene.

Whenever dice rolls are called for by a tech power and refer to Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine or Science, they refer to the character's skill dots and not the dots in that Process talent.

''Swapping Programmes'': A character can swap out any programme in a slot for any other programme available in their omni-tool's library between scenes or in situations where there is no time pressure, without needing to roll.

During action or combat, swapping programmes is considerably more difficult, especially if the omni-tool's processors are already busy running a dozen other programmes at the same time. Doing so is a full action for the character's turn, wherein they must make roll Intelligence + the skill associated with the Process in question, with a penalty equal to the number of running programmes of that Process currently active. An expended programme's slot cannot be replaced in this way during a scene, but a running programme or an unexpended charged programme can be.

''For example, a character with 3 dots in the Engineering Process, 4 dots in the Engineering skill and 3 dots of Intelligence has two running programmes and a charged programme in their Process slots. During combat, they want to replace one of the running programmes with a more situation-appropriate charged programme. Doing so requires that they roll Intelligence + Engineering, a dice pool of 7, with a penalty of -2 dice for the two running programmes. This leaves them with 5 dice; any success means they have successfully swapped the running programme to the new charged programme.''

''Changing Libraries'': A character may wish to change the programmes they have available in their omni-tool's library. This requires that they either access a database with more programmes archived in it, or that they write a new programme themselves. The latter is time-consuming and very difficult, whereas the former often incurs the cost of purchasing licenses for a programme from a company. Many employers provide access to basic programmes to their staff, such as the line of Analysis programmes; getting access to a more questionable programme such as Overload is somewhat more difficult, requiring either money or military or criminal contacts.

''Scanners'': Several running programmes allow the character to use an omni-tool's facilities to replace Composure with a skill in Perception checks, for the purposes of detecting particular substances or systems. These scans can still suffer from various penalties to the Perception check and, while they can detect through some solid materials, suffer increasing degradation of signal the further they have to go.

===Engineering===

Engineering programmes focus on improving hardware and mechanical processes, whether vehicles and armour or shield modulations.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Emergency Infiltration Protocol''': This is a batch of processes with an emergency power cell for re-establishing a stealth field immediately. The character can expend the programme to activate a stealth field (if they have one) as a reflexive action instead of as an instant action. 
'''Fortification''': Through highly efficient management routines and incoming fire calculations, the power flows and fluid dynamics of armour can be momentarily reinforced. As a reflexive action, roll Wits + Engineering to increase Armour by the number of successes for 1 round. 
'''Neural Shock''': The programme discharges a pulse of electrical current that plays havoc with a target's nervous system. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Engineering versus the Stamina roll of a target within 30 yards. On a success, the target is stunned for 1 round, increased to 2 rounds on an exceptional success. 
'''Overload''': The programme discharges a carefully controlled pulse of electrical current that plays havoc with a target's shields, overloading kinetic barriers. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Engineering to deal damage to the Shield levels of a target within 50 yards – this power does no damage to health levels. If the character has multiple Overload programmes ready, they can all be expended at the same time; each Overload may affect a new target within 5 yards of the last, and the same target cannot be affected twice. 
'''Shield Boost''': The programme runs emergency power management routines to reestablish shield integrity. As a reflexive action, roll Wits + Engineering, restoring a number of lost Shield points to the character or an ally within 25 yards equal to the number of successes rolled. If the character has multiple Shield Boost programmes readied, they can all be expended at the same time; each Boost may target a new ally within 5 yards of the last target, and the same target cannot be affected twice. 
'''Shield Burst''': The programme dumps all remaining kinetic barrier energy into a controlled output. As a reflexive action, the character loses all remaining Shield points. A blast is centred on the character with a radius equal to the number of Shield points lost. Roll Wits + Engineering, dealing successes as Lethal damage to all characters within the area of effect. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Armour Subsystem Management''': Complex power management routines allow for additional energy demands to be handled. As long as this programme is running, the character can make used of a secondary armour mod, allowing them to benefit from both mods at once. 
'''Engineering Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Engineering skill checks, other than for the use of charged Engineering programmes. 
'''Engineering Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for engineering purposes. 
'''Omni-Blade Power Rerouting''': As well as fabricating a keen-edged one-use blade, the omni-tool's power systems divert additional power into the strike. This increases the Damage rating of an omni-blade by 1, and grants 9-again on attacks made with it. 
'''Rig-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced engineering assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Engineering skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Shield Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a shield emitter. The character's remote drone grants a +2 bonus to the maximum Shield points of all allies within 20 yards. 
'''Shield Modulation''': A VI's ongoing shield management processes ensure that a shield restores its integrity at a more rapid rate than normal. The character can reflexively restore 1 Shield point on their turn, as long as they have not been hit by any attacks since their last turn. 
'''Vehicle Control Subsystems''': Advanced integration programmes allow the character to enhance their control of a vehicle, granting the 9-again rule to Piloting checks. 

===Interfacing===

Interfacing programmes include routines for research, data analysis, scanning and hacking; for interfacing experts, information and its denial is the name of the game.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Comms Tap''': A rapid-fire codebreaker VI allows the character to attempt to break in to a communications channel as an instant action. Roll Intelligence + Interfacing, with successes giving the number of minutes that the character can listen in without the users being aware. Heavy-duty encryption can impose a penalty on the roll – standard military comm channels inflict a -3 penalty, with more difficult hacking targets increasing from there. 
'''Haywire''': By unleashing chaos programmes that hammer at any networked systems nearby, the character compromises equipment and armaments. Roll Intelligence + Interfacing as a reflexive action to affect an area of up to successes x 5 yards in radius. All tech devices within this area suffer a -1 penalty to rolls using them for 2 rounds, including firearms' attack dice pools. 
'''Lock-Hack''': A common (and usually illegal) programme for brute-forcing electronic locking systems, a Lock-Hack allows the character to attempt to open a lock as an extended Wits + Interfacing action with one roll representing one turn of work. The number of successes required depends on the quality of the lock in question. This is a crude electronic intrusion and will trigger alarms or alerts to the system, but it gets the job done quickly. 
'''Mask''': Careful infiltration protocols and data-masks shut down the character's network trace. Roll Wits + Interfacing as a reflexive action to immediately 'go silent' for a number of rounds equal to successes rolled, rendering the character's presence on a network untraceable by others. This also serves to render the character undetectable for the duration to any attempts to locate them with technological scans for data signals. 
'''Overheat''': Through a pre-prepared remote rapid hack VI, a weapon's heat sinks can be tampered with. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Interfacing against a target with a penalty based on the largest weapon to be overheated (-1 for a pistol, -2 for a rifle) and a -1 penalty for each additional weapon to be overheated past the first. Success results in all targeted weapons overheating, expending the full capacity of their current heat clip. This programme can even be used reflexive at the moment that a target is about to make an attack action, leaving them pulling the trigger for no effect, but suffers an additional -5 penalty for attempting the hack so fast. 
'''Subvert Synthetic''': A set of programmes that allow the character to try and hack a synthetic's systems on the fly. As an instant action, roll Wits + Interfacing opposed by the target synthetic or AI's Wits + remaining Shield points. Success give the character control of the synthetic for a number of rounds equal to successes. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Interfacing Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Interfacing skill checks, other than for the use of charged Interfacing programmes. 
'''Interfacing Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for interfacing purposes. 
'''Passive Scanning Programme''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to detect active net systems and ID them including active programmes running on omni-tools, armour and weaponry. This allows the character to use Wits + Interfacing for Perception rolls to detect these systems within a 100 yard range, or further if a signal is particularly strong. 
'''Rapid Data Analysis''': An advanced analysis VI and sifting programmes aid to rapidly identify and acquire relevant information vai the extranet or accessed databases. The character has their research times halved when attempting to acquire information via modern tech methods. If they have to actually read a set of old tomes in a pre-tech library, for example, then they're out of luck. 
'''Scout Drone''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a scout and sensor. The character's remote drone grants a +2 bonus to Perception checks, including those made via scanning programmes, and has superior sensory feedback allowing it to transmit full video feeds and readouts as long as it is within communications range of the character. 
'''Secure Routines''': Reactive defensive VI programmes inflict a penalty equal to the character's Interfacing skill on attempts to hack the equipment or systems that the character controls. 
'''Vehicle Interface Programming''': Advanced integration routines augment the character's interfacing with vehicular sensor suites. Perception checks made via a vehicle's sensors and scanners benefit from the 9-again rule. 
'''Sys-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced systems assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Interfacing skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 

===Medicine===

Medical programmes largely focus on subsystems for monitoring patients, administering emergency assistance and aiding with recovery from injuries and sickness; they also augment medical and biological analysis facilities.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Defibrillator Pulse''': The omni-tool discharges a pulse of energy into the patient to jolt them back to awareness. As a reflexive action, the character can target an unconscious character within 5 yards, rolling Intelligence + Medicine. Success brings the target back round to consciousness, unless they are unable to do so due to being drugged, for example. The pulse can be combined together with an Emergency Medi-Gel Application programme into one reflexive action on a single target. 
'''Emergency Medi-Gel Application''': Emergency medical management systems kick into action, allowing the character to direct the treatment to where it will be most effective. As a reflexive action, the character can target themselves or an ally within 5 yards with the programme, rolling Intelligence + Medicine with a penalty equal to any wound penalties that the target is currently suffering. On a success, expend one of the target's medi-gel doses for an immediate healing effect of 1L or 3B. 
'''Hypodermic Dart''': The onboard fabrication systems forge a hypodermic sliver of metal, loaded with carefully tailored toxins. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 30 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Medicine but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. The dart has a Damage rating of 1L with additional damage added from successes as normal but, if it inflicts any points of damage to the target's health points, it applies a Toxicity 2 poison dealing Bashing damage that forces the target to succeed at a Stamina check or fall unconscious. 
'''Medical Threat Analysis''': A diagnostic VI interfaces with the omni-tools sensors to quickly assess any medical hazards present. As a reflexive action, the character can roll Intelligence + Medicine for a near-instantaneous analysis of any chemical, biological or radioactive hazards present in the environment, the character, or a target within 5 yards – so it can identify if a character has been poisoned, or what the local radioactivity levels are. 
'''Stimulant Injection System''': Biological monitoring programmes aid with calculating precisely the right levels of stimulants to be injected into the body. As a reflexive action, the character may increase their Dexterity score by 1, lasting a number of rounds equal to their number of Medicine skill dots. This also affects all allies linked in via a Biological Monitor programme. 
'''Toxic Cleansing Programme''': Rapid assessment of hazardous toxins affecting the body allows for a tailored chemical response to be quickly deployed into the bloodstream. As an instant action, the character may roll Intelligence + Medicine versus a roll of the Toxicity of a poison affecting themselves or a character within 5 yards. Success results in the poison being neutralised. Extremely exotic or totally unknown toxins may inflict a further penalty on the roll. 
'''Toxic Materials Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a round containing a dangerous cocktail of toxic materials, hurling them away via a magnetic pulse. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Medicine but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. The attack deals no damage but fills an area around the target of 10 yards radius with caustic fumes for a number of rounds equal to the character's Medicine skill dots. This acts as a Toxicity 4 poison dealing Lethal damage via inhalation. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Background Toxicity Monitor''': A background monitoring VI handles automated countermeasures against toxic factors. The character benefits from a +2 bonus to all rolls to resist disease, poison, infection and other biological or chemical agents. This also affects all allies linked in via a Biological Monitor programme. 
'''Biological Monitor''': A suite of readouts and diagnostics provide unparalleled information on the life-signs of networked allies. The character always knows the exact health levels of all allies within communications range, and can apply Medicine programmes to allies without needing to worry about normal range or line of sight restrictions – they can even undertake a regular Medicine first aid roll from a distance. 
'''Bioscanner''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to detect nearby life-signs and traces of organic matter. This allows the character to use Wits + Medicine for Perception rolls to detect living organisms or organic matter within a 100 yard range. 
'''Decoy-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a decoy drone. Through complex bio-mimicry, the drone projects both a holographic decoy of the character, combined with realistic life-sign emissions that can fool basic scans and senses. The character can set the decoy on a basic 'idle' animation, can pre-record up to 5 minutes of voice and movement (including triggers to activate recorded speech), or can directly steer the decoy-drone's projection on a realtime basis. Observers must pass a Perception check with a penalty equal to the character's Medicine skill dots to note that something is off about the decoy; physically interacting with the decoy will immediately show it to be a holographic projection with a drone at its heart, as will other actions that show its nature. 
'''Med-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced medical assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Medicine skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Medi-Gel Overseer''': A continually running VI programme monitors and adjusts the application of medi-gel to deal with injuries. Whenever the character uses a charge of medi-gel for healing purposes, either on themselves or others, they may roll Intelligence + Medicine. If they achieve as many or more successes as the target has injured health points, the total Bashing or Lethal health points healed is increased by 1. 
'''Medical Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Medicine skill checks, other than for the use of charged Medicine programmes. 
'''Medical Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for medical purposes. 

===Science===

Scientific programmes are often complex systems and containment routines for fabricating, mixing and handling unstable or exotic materials, as well as suites of assessment programmes to analyse the results.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Cryo-Material Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a round containing a mixture of chemicals that will undergo a cryogenic reaction when deployed. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Science but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. Should the attack hit, it deals no damage but douses the target in the freezing gases, inflicting a -2 penalty on all physical action rolls (including attacks) and reducing their Speed by 5 for 1 round. 
'''Hyperscan''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to emit a pulse that can detect nearby unusual or intense energy signatures and matter concentrations. This allows the character to use Intelligence + Science for a Perception roll to detect and identify strong energy emissions or unusual matter within a 100 yard range. 
'''Incendiary Material Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a plasma round containing a mixture of chemicals that will undergo a n incendiary reaction when deployed. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Science but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. Should the attack hit, it deals no damage but douses the target and an area around them of 5 yard radius in flammable materials that immediately start burning with fierce intensity, and will continue to do so for a number of rounds equal to the character's Science skill dots. The fire inflicts 3L per turn, reduced by Armour as normal, but also grants all other attacks against a burning target Armour Piercing 1. As long as a burning target is able to remove themselves from the area of effect, they can put out the fire as a reflexive action on their turn. 
'''Pattern Recognition Algorithms''': A simple VI meshed with pattern recognition programming can perform a high-speed resource-intensive analysis. As an instant action, the character may make an Intelligence + Science roll to identify significant patterns in a set of available data or information. 
'''Rapid Matter Analysis''': A set of scanning programmes quickly analyse a sample of matter to provide a complete breakdown of its composition. As an instant action, the character may roll Intelligence + Science to get a full analysis of some sample matter, including chemical composition and properties. 
'''Unstable Materials''': A set of safety-boundary-pushing programmes allow the character to to increase the operational margins of instability in deployable materials. The character may expend this programme at the same time as an Incendiary, Cryo- or Toxic Materials Deployment programme to increase the radius of effect by 10 yards. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Energy Drone''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to direct energies into an attack. The character's remote drone gains the ability to make a 2L ranged attack at targets up to 15 yards away, using the character's Wits + Science as an attack pool. The remote drone may also serve as the origination of any Incendiary, Cryo- or Toxic Materials Deployment instead of the character. 
'''Energy Projection Modulation''': Advanced energy handling routines increase the omni-tool's output available for emission purposes. The character gains a +1 bonus to any attacks made with Tech Process programmes. 
'''Environmental Shielding''': A monitoring VI keeps vigilant watch over environmental diagnostics, adjusting and augmenting existing protective measures. The character adds their Science skill dots as a bonus to rolls to resist environmental effects such as extreme heat, cold or causticity, and adds 1 point of Armour to their Shield points against any direct attacks of these kinds. 
'''Full Spectrum Sensory Suite''': A top-of-the-range set of analytical and sensory programmes aid the character with close investigation. When they have the time to carefully go over a location, the character benefits from the 9-again rule on Perception and Investigation checks. 
'''Lab-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced lab assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Science skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Mass Shielding Matrix''': Subtle distortion emissions are carefully controlled to interfere with any biotic attacks on the character. Biotic attacks that target the character, even if only due to them being in the area of effect, suffer an additional -1 penalty. 
'''Scientific Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Science skill checks, other than for the use of charged Science programmes. 
'''Scientific Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for scientific purposes. 

[[Mass:_the_Effecting |Back to main page]]

Mass: the Effecting/Elkoss Combine Catalogue

2012-03-16T15:34:06Z

Acrozatarim:

=The Elkoss Combine Catalogue=

In Mass: The Effecting, characters can make use of a veritable bounty of high-tech devices, armaments and protections available. With many competing corporations, designers and fabrication facilities all battling for the custom of a galaxy's worth of different species and vocations, there's a near-unfathomable selection of tools of the trade available on the market.

Mass: The Effecting doesn't attempt to chart all of these different implements, VI interfaces, software programmes and vehicles; nor does it attempt to differentiate between products from, say, Devlon Industries and Rosenkov Materials. Instead, you'll find entries for broad categories of key items of equipment, particularly weapons, armour, omni-tools and biotic amps.

==Weaponry==

In the Mass Effect setting, ranged weaponry makes use of mass effect fields to shave slivers of metal off an ammunition block and launch them at high velocity. This creates a great deal of heat, resulting in the need for thermal clips – disposable heat sinks that serve a similar function to old-style ammunition clips.

The weapons detailed here replace the weapons available in the core nWoD system.

'''Autofire''': In Mass: The Effecting, many weapons are capable of autofiring to some extent; however, not all of these weapons can necessarily use all of the options of long, medium and short bursts. A weapon noted as S (semi-automatic) is capable of firing single shots; a weapon noted as BF (burst fire) can fire short bursts; and a weapon noted as A (automatic) can fire medium and long bursts. A weapon can only fire in the modes noted – so a weapon noted as BF/A has to fire short, medium or long bursts but cannot fire single shots.

'''Clips & Ammunition''': Weapons of the same category can share thermal clips with one another; thermal clips for a pistol-sized weapon can be used for a light pistol, heavy pistol or SMG, for example. Support weapons disobey this rule; all support weapons have unique ammunition types that only they can use.

'''Heavy Weapons''': Some weapons are noted as having the Heavy Weapon trait. These impose a -3 penalty on any attempts to fire them while moving; additionally, a character cannot take aim actions with a Heavy Weapon.

'''Unwieldy''': Some weapons are designed for snipers and long-range targeting, becoming cumbersome or unwieldy to use against close-range targets. When fired at a moving target within its short range band, an Unwieldy weapon levies a -2 penalty to attack rolls; at point-blank range this is increased to -4.

'''Sidearms'''

<pre>
Pistols Damage Range Clip ROF Special
----------------------------------------------------------
Light Pistol 1L 20/40/80 10 S/BF
Heavy Pistol 2L 20/40/80 10 S 9-again
SMG 1L 25/50/100 20 S/BF/A
Stun Pistol 0B 5/10/20 5 S Stun</pre>

''Stun Pistol'': A stun pistol discharges a jolt of power that can leave a target reeling. An opponent hit with a stun pistol's shot must pass a Stamina check or be stunned for 1 round.

'''Longarms'''

<pre>
Rifles Damage Range Clip ROF Special
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Assault Rifle 2L 150/300/600 40 S/BF/A
Battle Rifle 3L 200/400/800 30 S 9-again
Light Machine Gun 3L 150/300/600 50 BF/A Heavy Weapon
Light Sniper Rifle 3L 250/500/1000 12 S/BF Unwieldy
Heavy Sniper Rifle 4L 250/500/1000 5 S Unwieldy, 9-again
Light Shotgun 3L 20/40/80 12 S/BF 9-again at short range
Assault Shotgun 4L 20/40/80 6 S/BF 9-again at short range</pre>

'''Support Weapons'''

<pre>
Support Weapons Damage Range Clip ROF Special
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Entrenched Machine Gun 4L 150/300/600 100 A
One-Shot Rocket Launcher 6L 200/400/600 1 S 8-again, AP 3, Blast 5
Light Rocket Launcher 4L 150/300/600 3 S 9-again, AP1
Grenade Launcher 3L 50/100/150 6 S/BF Blast 10
Flame-Thrower 5L 10/20/30 30 BF/A 8-again
Arc Projector 3B 100/200/300 5 S 9-again, Stun
Anti-Materiel Rifle 5L 250/500/1000 1 S Unwieldy, 9-again</pre>

All support weapons have the Heavy Weapon trait.

''One-Shot Rocket Launcher & Light Rocket Launcher'': Rockets use onboard guidance systems to lock on and home in, adding 2 dice to the attack pool if at least one aim action is taken. 
''Flame-Thrower'': Flame-throwers spew blazing torrents of chemical fire, and will ignite flammable materials. An exceptional success on an attack against a character wielding a flame-thrower when they no longer have Shield levels results in the fuel tanks detonating, setting the character ablaze. 
''Arc Projector'': Arc projector weapons discharge high-voltage electrical attacks. If the first target is hit, an arc jumps to the closest target within 10 yards, and finally to a third closest target within 10 yards; the jumping arcs will never strike the same target twice, however. All targets struck must also make pass a Stamina check or be stunned for 1 round. 

'''Grenades'''

<pre>
Grenades Damage Special
-----------------------------------------------------------
Concussive Grenade 2B Blast 5, Knock-Down
Frag Grenade 2L Blast 5
Inferno Grenade 1L Blast 5, Inferno
Lift Grenade None Blast 5, Lift
Smoke Grenade None Blast 5, Smoke
Stun Grenade None Blast 5, Stun</pre>

''Concussive Grenade'': A target hit by a concussive grenade must make a Dexterity + Athetics check, with a penalty equal to the amount of health points damaged by the attack. Failure results in the target being knocked down. 
''Inferno Grenade'': Inferno grenades burn with a fiercely corrosive chemical flame. All other attacks against targets that are doused in an inferno grenade's flame benefit from Armour Piercing 1 for the single turn the grenade's effects last. 
''Lift Grenade'': A lift grenade deals no damage; instead, targets within its area of effect are hauled 2 yards from the ground for 1 round by a mass effect field. 
''Smoke Grenade'': A smoke grenade deals no damage; instead, it spews out a plume of thick smoke where it lands. The smoke covers an area of 5 yard radius for 5 rounds, providing a -3 concealment penalty to all attack rolls made against targets within it. A Perception check with a -3 penalty is necessary to make out targets beyond the smoke cloud if it blocks line of sight from the attacker, and even on a success the targets still benefit from the smoke's concealment. 
''Stun Grenade'': A stun grenade uses an intense pulse of light, sound and disorientating force to incapacitate targets, forcing them to succeed at a Stamina roll or be stunned for 1 round. 

'''Melee Weapons'''

<pre>
Melee Weapons Damage Special
------------------------------------------------
Unarmed Attack 0B Increases to 1B if wearing heavy armour
Assault Baton 2B
Improvised Club 1B
Knife 1L
Omni-Blade 1L
Stun Baton 1B Stun</pre>

''Stun Baton'': A stun baton is a standard policing and suppression implement, discharging a stun charge whenever it strikes a target. An opponent hit with a stun baton must succeed at a Stamina check or be stunned for 1 round.

==Armour==

In the Mass Effect setting, personal protection comes in two main forms – armour and kinetic barriers. Modern technology has resulted in armour plating that can hold off small arms fire with some success, while biotics and shield generators both provide effective barriers that can absorb incoming attacks.

Armour suits are still heavy, however, due to the bulk of the plating and the kinetic barrier generators that they need to carry, and can impede the fine control that technical experts and biotic users require to get the best out of their talents.

''Cumbersome'': A suit of armour inflicts a penalty to the wearer's Defence and Speed equal to the Armour rating of the suit worn.

''Impeding'': All rolls to use Tech Processes and Biotic Disciplines suffer a penalty equal to the Armour value of the suit worn.

''Medi-Gel'': Armour has a standard reservoir of 3 doses of medi-gel that the wearer can use on themselves. Onboard systems will automatically apply a dose for medi-gel's Emergency Trauma Injection use if the wearer has all their health boxes filled with Lethal damage.

''Onboard Systems'': As per standard, armour comes with a set of onboard systems. This includes a comm-link, a high powered torch, a HUD, target recognition systems and a short-range radar (50 yards), and light amplification systems that can negate up to a -2 penalty on ranged attack rolls due to low-light conditions. It also includes an onboard oxygen supply good for 2 hours, and an environmental filtration system that grants a +4 bonus to Stamina-based rolls to resist inhaled toxins and poisons.

''Webbing'': Most suits of armour come with enough webbing and pouches to hold up to six thermal clips for a rifle-sized weapon. Alternatively, a single thermal clip can be exchanged for a grenade or two clips for a pistol-sized weapon. Two thermal clips can be exchanged for a clip for a support weapon.

'''Personal Shield Generator (Shields 3/5/8)''': A relatively small personal barrier generator allows unarmoured individuals to benefit from protection. The version of this device that offers 3 Shield points is the most common; the version that offers 5 Shield points is very rare, an example of cutting edge technology or powered by an unwieldy generator back-pack. Finally, the version that offers Shields 8 is nearly unheard of, the kind of personal protection that a Councillor might carry. Personal shield generators lack the medi-gel reservoirs and onboard systems of true armour.

'''Light Armour (Armour 1, Shields 6)''': Common light armour offers little encumbrance but still has the power for a potent kinetic barrier.

'''Reconnaissance Armour (Armour 1, Shields 3)''': Specialised light armour designed for infiltrators and scouts, recon armour features a stealth field which puts a heavy drain on the generator. Due to its construction, recon armour does not suffer from the Cumbersome rule.

'''Medium Armour (Armour 2, Shields 6)''': Sacrificing speed and mobility for additional armour plating, medium armour is the standard level of protection worn by dedicated combat troops.

'''Medium Assault Armour (Armour 2, Shields 5)''': Specialised medium armour designed for shock troops and vanguards who need the additional mobility, assault armour cuts some of the power to shields in return for more potent servos. Assault armour does not suffer from the Cumbersome rule.

'''Heavy Armour (Armour 3, Shields 7)''': Big, heavy and slow, heavy classes of armour go the whole hog; since they need a larger generator to power the servos already, they also enhance the kinetic barriers. The Cumbersome rule also penalises Initiative for a wearer of heavy armour.

'''Heavy Colossus Armour (Armour 3, Shields 9)''': The ultimate answer to the need for personal protection, short of taking a step up into the mechanised walker class of vehicles, colossus armour is slow as hell but very resilient. As well as applying the Cumbersome rule to Initiative, a wearer of colossus-class armour cannot run.

===Armour Mods===

A suit of armour can have a single armour mod, representing a tinkered upgrade, manufacturer's enhancements or bolt-on augmentation purchased separately. Armour does not need to have an armour mod, but there is no penalty for having one.

Rarely, armour can have a secondary mod. This mod is inactive and does nothing unless an Armour Subsystem Management programme from the Engineering Process talent is running, in which case the mod is given power and bestows the wearer with its benefits as well. A secondary mod cannot be the same as the regular armour mod that the suit has.

'''Advanced Systems Interface''': Reduces the Impeding penalty to Tech and Biotic power use by 1. 
'''Armour-Jets''': Provides inbuilt armour-jets for the suit, allowing the wearer to make Piloting checks for short-ranged vertical jumps and to slow descent. Dropping into combat leaves the wearer unable to act in the first round as they touch down. 
'''Cyberwarfare Defences''': Inflicts a -2 penalty on all attempts to hack the wearer's systems or to affect them with Tech Processes. 
'''Enhanced Arm Servos''': Increases the wearer's melee damage by 1. 
'''Enhanced Leg Servos''': Increases the wearer's Speed by 2. 
'''Extended Medi-Gel Reservoir''': Increases the armour's medi-gel reservoir to 4 doses. 
'''Fortified Shielding''': Increases the armour's Shield levels by 1. 
'''Full Environmental Systems''': Increases the oxygen supply to 4 hours and offers a +2 bonus to all Stamina checks to resist radiation and environmental effects. 
'''Onboard Targeting VI''': Reduces any cover penalty to ranged attack rolls by 1. 
'''Workhorse Capacity Upgrade''': Increases the number of rifle thermal clips (or equivalent) that can be carried to 9. 

==Other Equipment==

'''Medi-Gel'''

An incredible medical substance patented by the Sirta Foundation, medi-gel skirts close to banned genetic engineering but is so useful that this is overlooked by most. Medi-gel aids with healing, seals wounds, clots blood and serves as an anaesthetic.

Medi-gel has the following applications, in amounts denoted as doses. Armour usually comes with a reservoir that can hold up to 3 doses, applying medi-gel as needed to treat injuries.

'''Continual Healing''': At a cost of 1 dose of medi-gel per week continual use of small amounts of gel, stimms and other medical fluids can bolster the body's natural healing rates. This allows a character to heal Lethal and Bashing damage at twice the normal natural healing rates, but is no help with Aggravated damage – such wounds are simply too severe and need real medical attention. 
'''Emergency Trauma Injection''': When a character is injured to such an extent that they begin dying due to having their health boxes filled with Lethal or Aggravated damage, 1 dose of medi-gel can immediately stabilise them. 
'''Rapid Biological Restoration''': Via systemative intensive treatment of injuries with 1 dose of medi-gel, a character can give up efficiency for relatively rapid repair. This heals 1 Lethal point of damage over the course of 1 hour, or 3 Bashing points of damage over the course of 15 minutes, on top of normal healing rates. Extensive overuse of this function is not recommended as it both drains medi-gel reserves rapidly and can be deleterious to long-term health unless overseen by a qualified health professional. 

'''Biotic Amps'''

Biotics require implants to be able to properly control and harness the power of the eezo nodules in their bodies, and amplifiers can be plugged into these implants for greater effectiveness. There are a great number of different biotic amps on the market, often tailored to further enhance specific Disciplines or techniques.

A biotic character can only benefit from a single biotic amp at a time. Changing from one amp to another is a relatively simple process but takes some time and requires care, so cannot be done during combat.

'''Discipline Amps''': These amplify one of the three Disciplines, offering a +1 equipment bonus to all dice pools for using powers of that Discipline. 
'''Technique Amps''': These amplify a single biotic power, offering a +2 equipment bonus to all dice pools for the use of that specific power only. 

'''Omni-Tools'''

Omni-tools are common, multi-purpose personal computational devices that serve as micro-fabrication facilities, interfacing tools and diagnostic systems. Basic models are extremely common, but more specialised versions are available for technicians, soldiers and scientists who need further functionality.

Several omni-tools have a Library Size number. This is the amount of programmes for each Tech Process that the omni-tool can hold in its data library. All omni-tools apart from the basic model provide an omni-blade facility, flash-forging a weapon with the device's fabricator to deliver a devastating melee attack.

'''Basic Omni-Tool (Library Size 0)''': A cheap, regular-quality omni-tool offers no exceptional qualities. While it lacks the sophistication to run elaborate Tech programmes, it is fitted with simple fabrication patterns and interfacing systems to make it a useful tool. A basic omni-tool gives a +1 equipment bonus to one of either Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine or Science skill rolls. 
'''Enhanced Library Omni-Tool (Library Size 8)''': A omni-tool with extensive memory banks, this tool can store a great deal of programmes for retrieval by its user for whatever situation faces them. 
'''Enhanced Processor Omni-Tool (Library Size 6)''': Sacrificing memory for high performance, this omni-tool offers a +1 equipment bonus to the use of programmes from a single Process talent. 
'''Intrusion Omni-Tool (Library Size 4)''': A kind of omni-tool used by infiltrators, assassins and criminals, this tool devotes a large proportion of its power to intrusion purposes, offering a +2 equipment bonus to all attempts to hack or to use Interfacing Process programmes. 
'''Military Omni-Tool (Library Size 0)''': A military-grade omni-tool used by soldiers includes an augmented omni-blade facility, increasing the weapon's basic damage to 2L. 

'''Other Tools'''

'''Ballistic Shield''': A ballistic shield takes one hand to hold up, and provides the user with a very resilient composite shield that provides them with some measure of cover. Making full use of a ballistic shield offers a -2 cover penalty on attack rolls against the character, but the character suffers the normal penalty from firing from cover themselves (so suffers a -1 penalty to their own ranged attack rolls). Opponents with sufficiently powerful weapons may choose to simply try and punch a hole through the shield; in this case, no cover penalty is applied to the attack roll, but the shield-bearer benefits from 2 additional points of Armour on their Shield and health levels. 
'''Drop Casing''': While armour-jets will suffice for dropping from an aircraft into combat, they are insufficient for orbital drops; equally, not all troops have armour-jets built into their suits. Drop casings are bolt-on one-shot additions designed to protect the wearer from entry into an atmosphere and to slow their descent, detaching and falling off as the trooper hits the ground. Drop casings are usually programmed with guidance systems so that no Piloting checks are required from the wearer; however, if the situation has changed then the wearer can take control and use their Piloting skill to try and make small adjustments to their trajectory and landing zone. Dropping into combat leaves the wearer unable to act in the first round as they touch down. 
'''Med-Pack''': The size of a satchel or backpack, a med-pack can carry up to five doses of medi-gel, and comes with application nozzles and ports so that it can be used on injured individuals or to top up armour reservours. 
'''Remote Drone''': A remote drone is a small bundle of circuitry and energy projection mechanisms around a mass effect generator and power source, coming to about the size of a human fist. When activated, a remote drone generates a holographic display around itself and hovers a metre above the ground. Remote drones are usually used as helpers by technicians, offering a +1 teamwork bonus to Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine or Science rolls made by the drone's user, but special programming can improve their performance. Drones have 1 point of Armour, 3 Shield points and 2 health points of directly attacked. These are not to be confused with military drones, which are sizeable unmanned attack or scout vehicles. 
'''Tactical Cloak''': With an abundance of radar and other detection systems, unaugmented attempts at stealth can be difficult in some situations. Modern stealth systems have compensated with tactical cloaks, capable of rendering the user near-invisible to most forms of detection. Using a stealth system is an instant action taking a full round, and being invisible isn't much help if hostiles are still aware of where the character is. A successful attack with any kind of weapon against a cloaked character will cause the cloak to drop on the following turn. As long as the character moves up to their normal Speed the cloak remains intact, but running or charging provides too much interference and will break the tactical cloak's stealth field. Since a cloak is usually powered by the onboard generator of a reconnaissance armour suit, it can maintain its effect for up to ten minutes, or five minutes if the character is on the move, requiring a pause of ten minutes to recharge after this period. Rare personal stealth systems that are not part of a suit of armour can generally cloak for a far shorter period of time.

[[Mass:_the_Effecting |Back to main page]]

Mass: the Effecting/Hard-Won Experience

2012-03-16T15:15:29Z

Acrozatarim: Amendments to Tech Process library size rules.

=Hard-Won Experience=

In Mass: The Effecting, your character possesses one of the six Archetype minor templates. As well as a special active and passive ability, this template gives your character a number of points to spend on Biotic, Combat Training and Tech talents, marking them out through their exceptional capabilities.

Each type of Archetype talent is distinct from the other two. Biotic talents are potent, specific uses of biotic power, draining to use but devastating in effect. Combat Training talents passively enhance a character's existing abilities or opening up new options in combat. Tech talents grant a great deal of flexibility through high-performance omni-tool programmes that augment and aid one of four skills – Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine and Science.

Each talent category is actually made up of 3 or 4 talents – so the Combat Training talents are Assault, Command, Guardian and Tactical. Your character can have up to 5 dots in a particular talent.

While your character's starting talent allocation is constrained by their Archetype, you can purchase any kind of talent for them with your character's experience points as the chronicle progresses. An Adept can acquire Combat Training talents to help them survive the battles they keep finding themselves in, and a Soldier can pick up some Tech programming tricks. However, if you wish to purchase Biotic talents with a non-Biotic Archetype, you should either make some concession to this in your starting character concept (such as the character having biotic potential but never getting the implants or training to use it) or something should have happened to enable this. Non-biotic individuals are simply unable to spontaneously start using biotic powers due to the way biotics work in the Mass Effect setting.

The experience cost for buying dots in a talent with experience points is equal to new dots x 5. If your Archetype has only one category of talent, then the cost of buying dots in that category is new dots x 3. If your Archetype has two categories of talent, then the cost of buying dots in those categories is new dots x 4.

''For example, a Soldier who wishes to increase their Command Training purchases at new dots x 3, as Command is a Combat Training talent and the Soldier Archetype only has the Combat Training category. A Vanguard who wishes to increase their Command Training or Integration Discipline talents purchases at new dots x 4, since the Vanguard Archetype has the Combat Training and Biotic categories. Both Soldier and Vanguard pay new dots x 5 for Tech talents, as neither has the Tech category.''

==Biotic Talents==

Biotics are capable of controlling mass effect fields due to nodules of element zero in their bodies. This can grant them tremendous power, but requires the use of implants and biotic amps to fully exploit. Biotic use also comes at a cost – it puts a huge drain on the user's metabolism, increasing their energy intake needs by a ferocious amount and building up static charge in their bodies to sometimes dangerous levels.

The different biotic talents are referred to as Disciplines. The three Disciplines are Distortion, Integration and Kinetics. Each point in a Discipline allows the character to pick a single power from the Discipline's list, granting the character the capability to use that power at will. These powers are picked when the dots are acquired and cannot be changed.

''Using Biotic Powers'': Using a biotic power usually involves rolling a dice pool of Resolve plus the character's dots in the relevant Discipline, with a variety of effects depending on the power in question. Using a power also requires that a cost be paid. This cost is in points of Bashing damage or Willpower, and possibly both. Points of Armour rating do not reduce the amount of damage taken from using biotic powers.

Unless otherwise noted, using a biotic power is an instant action. Biotic powers that target characters or locations other than the biotic themselves require line of sight.

Biotic powers require at least some freedom of movement to act, as biotic users are trained to use mudras to activate their implants and nervous systems in particular ways. Restraining a biotic is an effective way to prevent them from using their capabilities.

''Boosting Biotic Powers'': A biotic character can choose to boost a power, pushing themselves to the limit to empower themselves further. This increases the cost of the power, as noted in the boost's entry.

''Willpower Points and Biotic Powers'': Willpower points spent to activate or boost a biotic power do not count towards the one point of Willpower that a character can normally spend per turn to increase their dice pool or defences. A character could conceivably activate a biotic power that costs 1 point of Willpower, its boost that costs another point of Willpower and then spend their one point of Willpower per turn for a +3 bonus to the activation dice pool.

''Kinetics and Countering'': A biotic may choose to spend their turn's action countering the Kinetic abilities of another biotic within 25 yards. If they do so, they may take no other action but inflict a penalty on all Kinetic power rolls by the target equal to their own dots in the Kinetic discipline.

===Distortion===

Distortion is the Discipline of molecular agitation and the manipulation of mass to distort and warp.

'''Haze'''

This technique uses low-level distortion fields to create a shell of warped spacetime around an area, interfering with any sorts of senses or perception attempting to cross the shell's edge. To the outside world, the hazed air looks like warped, shimmering glass.

Haze affects an area centred on the biotic with a radius of Resolve x 5 yards. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Any attempts to perceive by any means (sight, hearing, radar etc) into the area covered by Haze suffer a penalty equal to the biotic's Resolve, and indeed need to make Perception or other appropriate rolls in the first place. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the effect can be placed within 50 yards instead of being centred on the biotic. 

'''Reave'''

This technique unleashes a powerful distortion field into the target's nervous or synthetic systems, causing a crippling overload.

Reave affects a single target up to 200 yards away. Roll Resolve + Distortion against an opposed roll of the target's Stamina. Success results in the target suffering wound penalties as if they had their last three health points filled with damage, with a duration of the biotic's Resolve in rounds. The penalty isn't cumulative with any existing wound penalties the target is already suffering, and can be reduced as normal by effects such as Iron Stamina. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Reave nullifies any healing from any source during its duration, and it inflicts the -3 wound penalty in addition to any existing wound penalties, regardless of any Iron Stamina or other reductions. 

'''Scramble'''

Scramble unleashes a thrashing flux of mass effect fields around the biotic, warping and distorting gravity and space.

Scramble affects an area centred on the biotic with a radius of Resolve x 3 yards. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Everyone other than the biotic in the area of effect suffers a -2 penalty to their Speed, and to any attack rolls and Athletics-based rolls that they make. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1B, the -2 penalty to attack rolls also applies to any ranged attacks made against the biotic from outside Scramble's area. 

'''Singularity'''

Singularity uses distortion to punch a gravity well into the fabric of spacetime, dragging anyone nearby towards its centre.

Choose a point within 100 yards; this is where the singularity appears, affecting an area Resolve x 5 yards in radius. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Anyone in the area of effect must succeed in a Strength + Athletics check penalised by the biotic's Resolve in order to move in any direction other than directly towards the singularity, with successes equal to the number of yards they can move in a direction they wish. On the biotic's turn every round, everyone in the area of effect gets pulled 5 yards towards the singularity. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, increase the number of yards the singularity pulls each round by the biotic's Resolve. 

'''Warp'''

Warp creates rapidly shifting mass effect fields that tear a target apart.

Warp is used as a ranged attack by the biotic, with a short range of 100 yards and no medium or long range. This power uses Resolve + Distortion as its attack pool and is affected by other situational modifiers, such as cover, just as a normal ranged attack. If Warp hits, it has a Damage rating equal to the biotic's Resolve, with added damage from successes as normal.

If the target is already under the effect of another biotic power, Warp causes a biotic explosion. This increases its' Damage rating by 1 against the target, and inflicts a 3L explosion centred on the target with a radius equal to the biotic's Resolve in yards. The pre-existing biotic power immediately ends if it is a Distortion or Kinetic power. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, Warp grants all attacks against the target Armour Piercing 1 for a number of rounds equal to Resolve. 

===Integration===

Integration is the biotic discipline of molecular integration, using mass effect fields to strengthen and control the fabric of spacetime around the user.

'''Barrier'''

Barrier protects the biotic with mass effect fields in the same way as technological kinetic barrier generators.

Barrier provides the biotic with a number of biotic Shield levels equal to Resolve. These shield levels do not stack with any existing Shield levels, but will overwrite them if existing Shield levels are lower than the biotic's Resolve. Roll Resolve + Integration, with the biotic gaining a +1 bonus to resist attempts to knock them down or move them around for each success on the dice roll, as long as Barrier is in effect. Barrier lasts one scene, or until the Shield levels are lost. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Barrier can be activated as a Reflexive action. 

'''Charge'''

Charge encases the biotic in a mass effect field and launches them forwards at high velocity, akin to the technique employed by mass relays.

Charge allows the biotic to move up to their Speed x Resolve in yards in a straight line at near-instantaneous speed. This power doesn't allow them to pass through solid obstacles but they may go straight over gaps of up to their Speed in yards without any need for jumping checks. Roll Resolve + Integration, with each success increasing the biotic's Defence by 1; this effect lasts 1 round.

The biotic may still make a melee or ranged attack after using Charge. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic does not need to Charge in a straight line and may make any number of turns along the way, they may also cover a gap of twice their Speed in yards. 

'''Smite'''

Smite uses mass effect fields to empower the biotic's unarmed strikes with immense force.

Smite is a reflexive action used to augment an unarmed attack. It increases the Damage rating of the unarmed attack by an amount equal to the biotic's Resolve, and the biotic may choose to make the damage Lethal rather than Bashing. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Smite augments all unarmed attacks the biotic makes for one additional round. 

'''Stasis'''

Stasis simply locks the target into place with integrated mass effect fields that prevent them from moving.

Choose a target within 50 yards. The target must make a Strength check, with a penalty imposed of up to the biotic's Resolve at the biotic's choice. If the target achieves no successes, they are locked in place for 1 round and are completely unable to act in any way. However, they gain additional Armour equal to the penalty that the biotic applied to their strength check, affecting all attacks whether against Shield levels or health levels, and which is cumulative with existing Armour.

''For example, a biotic with Resolve 5 chooses to apply a -3 penalty to a target's Strength check. Since the target only has Strength 3, this reduces them to a chance die. They fail, and are locked in place for 1 round. During this round, they benefit from an additional 3 points of Armour against all attacks.''

''Cost'': 1 Willpower point. 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the target gains no Armour from Stasis. 

'''Wall'''

Wall uses similar mass effect fields to Barrier and Stasis to forge a layer of integrated mass effect fields across an area.

The Wall power creates a wall of biotic force that is up to Resolve x 2 yards wide and high. The centre point of the wall's line must be within 5 yards of the biotic when created. Roll Resolve + Integration; the Wall has a number of Shield levels equal to 5 + successes rolled. The Wall can serve as cover and an obstacle, preventing any movement through it. Attackers may choose to attack the Wall directly; it has Armour equal to the Biotic's Resolve.

The Wall remains present as long as the biotic is within 5 yards of it. If he moves away, creates a new Wall, or the Wall's Shield levels are lost, it immediately ceases to exist. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower, the biotic may make a Wall that will exist even after moving 5 yards away from it, or he may turn it into a shell of up to Resolve x 2 yards radius centred on himself. 

===Kinetics===

Kinetics is the biotic discipline of directly applying force through mass effect fields.

'''Glide'''

The Glide technique involves applying kinetic mass effect fields to the biotic themselves, allowing them to defy the forces of gravity through fine biotic control.

Roll Resolve + Kinetics, with Glide lasting for a number of rounds equal to successes rolled. While Glide is in effect, the biotic can reduce the distance they fall each round to any speed including zero, and they suffer no falling damage when making contact with the ground. If they continue to have some downward velocity, they may also move sideways in any direction up to their Resolve in yards per round. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can move in any direction at all for up to their Resolve in yards per round, without any requirement to continue moving down. This allows the biotic to 'fly' upwards if they wish. 

'''Lift'''

The Lift technique uses mass effect fields to pull the target up into the air.

Choose a target within 100 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. The target is lifted a number of yards equal to successes rolled, lasting for the biotic's Resolve in rounds. A gentle drift can be applied to the target as they are lifted if desired, so they will move 1 yard per round in a particular direction.

The Lifted target is not incapacitated and may continue to try and act by firing, trying to grab hold of something, and so forth.

Lifting larger, heavier targets is more difficult. For each full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Resolve + Kinetics roll suffers an additional –2 penalty, so lifting a small car (Size 10) would inflict a -2 penalty on the roll. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Lift of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

'''Slam'''

Slam uses fine control over a rapid flux in mass effect fields to exert huge force on a target, picking them up and slamming them down again.

Choose a target within 30 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics as an attack with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. Slam is not affected by other conditional modifiers such as cover. If Slam hits, it has a Damage rating equal to the biotic's Resolve, with added damage from successes as normal. The target is also knocked prone. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Slam of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

'''Shockwave'''

The Shockwave technique unleashes a powerful mass effect field that pulses out in a crashing wave, knocking targets from their feet.

Choose which direction the Shockwave emits, resulting in an area of effect starting at the biotic that is 5 yards wide and 5 x Resolve yards long. Make a Resolve + Kinetics roll once; each target in the area must oppose this with their own Strength roll. If they lose, they are knocked prone. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point. 
''Boost'': For 1B, all targets automatically fail their Strength check. 

'''Throw'''

Throw exerts a strong mass effect field to catapult the target in a particular direction.

Choose a target within 100 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics as an attack with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. The target is hurled in a chosen direction for a distance of up to successes x 5 yards, and suffering Bashing damage in successes if they hit something. The target must make a Dexterity + Athletics roll with a penalty equal to the biotic's Resolve, or be knocked down.

This power can also be used to pick up objects and hurl them at people, inflicting Bashing damage equal to successes if the Throw can reach the target with the object. This has the benefit of most thrown objects not possessing Shield levels.

Lifting larger, heavier targets is more difficult. For each full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Resolve + Kinetics roll suffers an additional –2 penalty, so lifting a small car (Size 10) would inflict a -2 penalty on the roll. However, for every full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Damage inflicted by a thrown object increases by 2. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Throw of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

==Combat Training Talents==

Combat in the Mass Effect setting is fast, lethal and dangerous, thanks to the cutting edge technology deployed on the battlefields of the galaxy. Personal protection from armour and shields only goes so far towards securing victory – the rest comes from the training and talent of the commanders and troops themselves.

The different combat training talents are called Regimens. The four Regimens are Assault, Command, Guardian and Tactical. Each point in a Regimen allows the character to pick a single power from the Regimen's list, granting the character the benefits of that power. These powers are picked when the dots are acquired and cannot be changed.

The Command Training Regimen works slightly differently from the others, as noted in its description below.

''Using Combat Training Powers'': Most Combat Training powers grant their benefits all the time. Some allow the character to use new options in combat, such as Suppressive Fire; the character can choose when to use these options and when not to, and no cost is attached to doing so.

===Assault Training===

Assault training often covers close-quarter combat, ambushes, storming defensive positions and blitzkrieg insertion into hot zones.

'''Agility''': Through a mixture of free-running and combat training, the character can ignore terrain penalties on their movement of an amount up to their dots in Dexterity; so a character with Dexterity 4 could ignore up to -4 in penalties. Ladders, crates, low walls and so forth are easy for this character to handle. Their speed is also increased by 1. 
'''Ambush''': The character is an expert at close, covert work. When attacking an opponent who is not aware of the character, they add a +2 bonus to the Damage rating of their attack. Perception rolls made to hear the character attacking suffer a -2 penalty. 
'''Carnage''': The character is an expert in dealing death with short-ranged weapons in close quarters. When firing at a target within the short-range of a pistol or shotgun, the character benefits from the 9-again rule, or 8-again if the weapon already has 9-again. 
'''Close Quarters Combatant''': The character possesses advanced close combat training. They ignore penalties to their Defence caused by multiple melee attackers, may choose to deal Lethal damage with their unarmed attacks, and benefit from the 9-again rule when making unarmed strikes. 
'''Combat Drop Training''': The character has been trained for rapid-deployment assaults into hot zones. When dropping into combat with armour-jets, from an aircraft or from orbit, the character is able to act on the same round they touch down and suffers no other penalties due to combat drops. They also treat all Piloting checks with armour-jets as rote actions. 
'''Hard Target''': Keeping a low profile and moving fast, the character renders themselves a hard target for attackers. If they move at least 5 yards during their turn, all ranged attacks against them suffer an additional -1 penalty on their attack pools. Running increases the penalty to -2. 
'''Shock Trooper''': The character has the training and experience of a hardened shock trooper and is used to running through hails of bullets and explosions without flinching. The character reduces all penalties suffered from the combat environment by 1, such as from suppressive fire, concealment granted by smoke grenades and so forth. They benefit from a +2 bonus to any dice pool to resist knock-downs, stuns and other disorientation effects, while their Speed is increased by 1. 
'''Slam''': Harnessing their raw strength, the character slams foes to the ground. After a successful melee attack at the end of a charge action, the target of the attack must make a Strength check. If they fail to get as many successes as the points of damage taken from the attack, they are knocked down. This technique is a favourite of Krogan. 

===Command Training===

Command training prepares a character for the rigours of commanding a team in a combat environment, whether a naval commander overseeing their crew from the bridge of a spaceship or a black ops squad leader directing their team through an intense firefight.

Command Training works differently to the other talents available in Combat Training. Rather than offering a new power with every dot, the character instead gains one additional die into the group's Command pool, a pool of dice that refreshes each scene from which the whole group of characters can benefit. These dice can be drawn on for specific purposes by any characters who are in communications-range of one of the Commanding characters.

''For example, a Soldier has Command 4, putting 4 dice into the Command pool. Another character in the group, a Vanguard, has Command 2, increasing the total dice in the Command pool to 6. At the beginning of every scene, this pool refreshes back up to 6 dice, no matter how many of the dice have been spent in the prior scene.''

As long as one of the characters with Command allows it, anyone in the group can take dice from the pool for the purposes noted below, including the characters with the Command talent themselves. A character can take up to their Wits in dice from the pool in a single turn, and can spend them all on one roll or purpose if desired.

Command dice can be:

'''Concentrate Fire''': Added directly to an attack dice pool, before rolling. 
'''Co-Ordinate Action''': Added directly to a secondary actor's teamwork dice pool to aid a primary actor with their action. 
'''Priority Target''': Added directly to the Damage rating of an attack against a target who is knocked down, held by a mass effect field, on fire, frozen, stunned or otherwise vulnerable, before rolling the attack pool. 
'''Ready For Action''': Added as a bonus to a character's Initiative score after rolling in the first round of combat, adding +1 per die used. 
'''Take Cover''': Applied as an additional penalty to an attack roll against a character who is in cover, augmenting the normal cover penalty by -1 per die used, before rolling the attack pool. 
'''Stay Alert''': Added directly to a Perception dice pool, before rolling. 

===Guardian Training===

Guardian training demands the very best of a character physically, pushing them to their limits and beyond to help them and others stay alive.

'''Bastion''': The character knows how to angle armour plating, shift their profile and minimise the damage from incoming fire. If wearing armour, the character benefits from a +1 to their Armour against any ranged attackers in front of them, as long as they haven't moved this turn. 
'''Berserker''': When taking at least one point of Lethal damage, the character may choose to enter a rage, gaining a temporary +2 bonus to Stamina and Resolve and becoming immune to penalties inflicted by suppressive fire. This does result in them gaining two health levels during the rage but, while the health levels are lost once the rage subsides, any damage taken is kept. Many Krogan enter a berserker rage in battle when wounded. 
'''Bodyguard''': The Character has the reflexes and training of a bodyguard, able to protect others with their own body. They can choose to serve as cover for allies when they are between the ally and attacker or are adjacent to that ally, inflicting a -1 cover penalty on attacks that increases to -2 if the bodyguard is carrying a ballistic shield.. This increases to -2 if the ally is willing to allow the bodyguard to drop them prone and shield the ally with their whole body, increasing again to -3 if the bodyguard is in heavy armour or is carrying a ballistic shield. 
'''Fitness''': The character is in excellent physical condition and has two permanent additional health points. 
'''Resilient''': Fists, batons, concussion grenades... Not much phases this character. They benefit from an additional point of Armour against all Bashing attacks, even when not actually wearing armour, and gain a +1 bonus to dice pools to resist stuns and knock-downs. 
'''Second Skin''': The character has the training and experience to treat armour like a second skin, entirely comfortable with its power servos and weight distribution. The character benefits from a +1 to their Defence and Speed while wearing armour. 
'''Survivor''': The character is too tough or just too damn stubborn to stay down, regardless of his injuries. He never falls unconscious as a result of having all his health boxes filled with damage, and doesn't need to succeed on a Stamina roll to do so. 
'''Vigilant''': The character is ever-vigilant for danger. If the character is or becomes aware of an attacker targeting an unaware ally, and the character is within communications range of that ally, the ally becomes aware of the impending attack immediately. The character's Initiative is also increased by 1. 

===Tactical Training===

Tactical training prepares the character for the rapidly changing environment of the battlefield, allowing them to react to new threats swiftly and to apply their own firepower with devastating effect.

'''Advancing Fire''': The character may fire when running, suffering a -3 penalty to their attack roll for doing so. 
'''Heavy Weapons Training''': The character is experienced in handling support weaponry, and ignores any penalties and restrictions from the Heavy Weapon trait. 
'''Marksman''': The character is a skilled marksman. Whenever the character takes at least one aim action with a weapon that has the 9-again trait (apart from shotguns), they benefit from the 8-again rule on the attack dice pool made with the aiming bonus. 
'''Outflank''': The character knows how the make the most of an outmanoeuvred enemy's weakness. Attacking a target in the flank or rear when an ally has engaged them from the front grants the character a +1 bonus to attack rolls. 
'''Sniper''': The character has the patience and talent of a skilled sniper. After using the aim action and firing at a target, the character does not lose his aiming bonus as long as he continues to fire at the same target and does not have his line of sight to them broken. He may even continue to take further aim actions to increase his aiming bonus, subject to the usual +3 aiming bonus cap. 
''For example, a sniper could aim once for a +1 bonus, fire, aim again for a total of +2, fire again, etc.'' 
'''Squad Reflexes''': After rolling for Initiative at the beginning of combat, but before the first round begins, the character can choose to shift their Initiative to match that of one ally within communications range. The character's Initiative is also increased by 1. 
'''Suppressive Fire''': There's a line between effective suppressive fire and just wasting shots. The character may sacrifice the bonus attack dice from autofire to apply it instead as a penalty to the ranged attack rolls of the target for one round. This can be applied to multiple targets as per the normal autofire rules, but it does incur the usual attack dice penalty – so hosing down three targets with long-burst autofire for suppressive fire applies the -3 penalty to all of them but also leaves the character with a -3 penalty on his attack rolls. Suppressive fire doesn't work against opponents who are simply unable to take cover, or are too heavily armoured or mindless to care. 
'''Weapon Drill''': Unloading, reloading and returning to the task of providing fire support is a well-oiled practice for the character. Reloading is a reflexive action as long as the replacement heat clip is to hand (such as in armour webbing or laid out within reach). 

==Tech Talents==

Advanced technology permeates the fabric of society in Mass Effect, and is a key part of life for any technician, engineer, scientist or doctor. Omni-tools are common, multi-purpose personal computational devices that serve as micro-fabrication facilities, interfacing tools and diagnostic systems. Those with the knowledge and skill can use their omni-tool to run enhanced programmes and VIs that can hack, overload or scan to great effect.

The different tech talents are called Processes. The four Processes are Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine and Science, and each is associated with the Mental skill of the same name. Each point in a Process allows the character to run a single programme of that type concurrently on their omni-tool. Unlike Disciplines and Regimens, the exact programme run in the Process slot is not permanent and can be easily changed for other programmes of a similar kind.

''Using Tech Powers'': A character's omni-tool possesses a library of stored programmes to draw upon. An omni-tool has a Library Size trait, as listed under its entry in the Elkoss Combine Catalogue; this is the number of stored programmes it can hold for ''each'' Process talent that the user has dots in. Programmes in the library are inactive until put into a Process slot.

''For example, a character with 2 dots in both the Engineering and Medicine Processes whose omni-tool has Library Size 6 can have 6 Engineering and 6 Medicine programmes stored in their library.''

The character has a number of Process slots equal to their dots in that Process; each slot can run one programme from the omni-tool's library in it.

Programmes come in two types – running and charged. Running programmes are passive, giving a bonus or opening up an option as long as they are in a slot. Charged programmes are expended when they are used, and remain expended for the rest of the scene; they rely on stored power that needs to recharge, need to take time to fabricate some complex new materials, or are otherwise unavailable. An expended charged programme remains in its Process slot.

''For example, a character with 3 dots in the Engineering Process and 1 dot in the Medicine Process could have Shield Modulation, Shield Boost and Overload in his Engineering slots and Defibrillator Pulse in his Medicine slot.''

A programme ''can'' be put into multiple Process slots, but running programmes give no benefit for doing so. In the case of a charged programme, running it in multiple slots essentially makes multiple uses available per scene.

Whenever dice rolls are called for by a tech power and refer to Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine or Science, they refer to the character's skill dots and not the dots in that Process talent.

''Swapping Programmes'': A character can swap out any programme in a slot for any other programme available in their omni-tool's library between scenes or in situations where there is no time pressure, without needing to roll.

During action or combat, swapping programmes is considerably more difficult, especially if the omni-tool's processors are already busy running a dozen other programmes at the same time. Doing so is a full action for the character's turn, wherein they must make roll Intelligence + the skill associated with the Process in question, with a penalty equal to the number of running programmes of that Process currently active. An expended programme's slot cannot be replaced in this way during a scene, but a running programme or an unexpended charged programme can be.

''For example, a character with 3 dots in the Engineering Process, 4 dots in the Engineering skill and 3 dots of Intelligence has two running programmes and a charged programme in their Process slots. During combat, they want to replace one of the running programmes with a more situation-appropriate charged programme. Doing so requires that they roll Intelligence + Engineering, a dice pool of 7, with a penalty of -2 dice for the two running programmes. This leaves them with 5 dice; any success means they have successfully swapped the running programme to the new charged programme.''

''Changing Libraries'': A character may wish to change the programmes they have available in their omni-tool's library. This requires that they either access a database with more programmes archived in it, or that they write a new programme themselves. The latter is time-consuming and very difficult, whereas the former often incurs the cost of purchasing licenses for a programme from a company. Many employers provide access to basic programmes to their staff, such as the line of Analysis programmes; getting access to a more questionable programme such as Overload is somewhat more difficult, requiring either money or military or criminal contacts.

''Scanners'': Several running programmes allow the character to use an omni-tool's facilities to replace Composure with a skill in Perception checks, for the purposes of detecting particular substances or systems. These scans can still suffer from various penalties to the Perception check and, while they can detect through some solid materials, suffer increasing degradation of signal the further they have to go.

===Engineering===

Engineering programmes focus on improving hardware and mechanical processes, whether vehicles and armour or shield modulations.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Emergency Infiltration Protocol''': This is a batch of processes with an emergency power cell for re-establishing a stealth field immediately. The character can expend the programme to activate a stealth field (if they have one) as a reflexive action instead of as an instant action. 
'''Fortification''': Through highly efficient management routines and incoming fire calculations, the power flows and fluid dynamics of armour can be momentarily reinforced. As a reflexive action, roll Wits + Engineering to increase Armour by the number of successes for 1 round. 
'''Neural Shock''': The programme discharges a pulse of electrical current that plays havoc with a target's nervous system. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Engineering versus the Stamina roll of a target within 30 yards. On a success, the target is stunned for 1 round, increased to 2 rounds on an exceptional success. 
'''Overload''': The programme discharges a carefully controlled pulse of electrical current that plays havoc with a target's shields, overloading kinetic barriers. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Engineering to deal damage to the Shield levels of a target within 50 yards – this power does no damage to health levels. If the character has multiple Overload programmes ready, they can all be expended at the same time; each Overload may affect a new target within 5 yards of the last, and the same target cannot be affected twice. 
'''Shield Boost''': The programme runs emergency power management routines to reestablish shield integrity. As a reflexive action, roll Wits + Engineering, restoring a number of lost Shield points to the character or an ally within 25 yards equal to the number of successes rolled. If the character has multiple Shield Boost programmes readied, they can all be expended at the same time; each Boost may target a new ally within 5 yards of the last target, and the same target cannot be affected twice. 
'''Shield Burst''': The programme dumps all remaining kinetic barrier energy into a controlled output. As a reflexive action, the character loses all remaining Shield points. A blast is centred on the character with a radius equal to the number of Shield points lost. Roll Wits + Engineering, dealing successes as Lethal damage to all characters within the area of effect. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Armour Subsystem Management''': Complex power management routines allow for additional energy demands to be handled. As long as this programme is running, the character can make used of a secondary armour mod, allowing them to benefit from both mods at once. 
'''Engineering Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Engineering skill checks, other than for the use of charged Engineering programmes. 
'''Engineering Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for engineering purposes. 
'''Omni-Blade Power Rerouting''': As well as fabricating a keen-edged one-use blade, the omni-tool's power systems divert additional power into the strike. This increases the Damage rating of an omni-blade by 1, and grants 9-again on attacks made with it. 
'''Rig-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced engineering assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Engineering skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Shield Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a shield emitter. The character's remote drone grants a +2 bonus to the maximum Shield points of all allies within 20 yards. 
'''Shield Modulation''': A VI's ongoing shield management processes ensure that a shield restores its integrity at a more rapid rate than normal. The character can reflexively restore 1 Shield point on their turn, as long as they have not been hit by any attacks since their last turn. 
'''Vehicle Control Subsystems''': Advanced integration programmes allow the character to enhance their control of a vehicle, granting the 9-again rule to Piloting checks. 

===Interfacing===

Interfacing programmes include routines for research, data analysis, scanning and hacking; for interfacing experts, information and its denial is the name of the game.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Comms Tap''': A rapid-fire codebreaker VI allows the character to attempt to break in to a communications channel as an instant action. Roll Intelligence + Interfacing, with successes giving the number of minutes that the character can listen in without the users being aware. Heavy-duty encryption can impose a penalty on the roll – standard military comm channels inflict a -3 penalty, with more difficult hacking targets increasing from there. 
'''Haywire''': By unleashing chaos programmes that hammer at any networked systems nearby, the character compromises equipment and armaments. Roll Intelligence + Interfacing as a reflexive action to affect an area of up to successes x 5 yards in radius. All tech devices within this area suffer a -1 penalty to rolls using them for 2 rounds, including firearms' attack dice pools. 
'''Lock-Hack''': A common (and usually illegal) programme for brute-forcing electronic locking systems, a Lock-Hack allows the character to attempt to open a lock as an extended Wits + Interfacing action with one roll representing one turn of work. The number of successes required depends on the quality of the lock in question. This is a crude electronic intrusion and will trigger alarms or alerts to the system, but it gets the job done quickly. 
'''Mask''': Careful infiltration protocols and data-masks shut down the character's network trace. Roll Wits + Interfacing as a reflexive action to immediately 'go silent' for a number of rounds equal to successes rolled, rendering the character's presence on a network untraceable by others. This also serves to render the character undetectable for the duration to any attempts to locate them with technological scans for data signals. 
'''Overheat''': Through a pre-prepared remote rapid hack VI, a weapon's heat sinks can be tampered with. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Interfacing against a target with a penalty based on the largest weapon to be overheated (-1 for a pistol, -2 for a rifle) and a -1 penalty for each additional weapon to be overheated past the first. Success results in all targeted weapons overheating, expending the full capacity of their current heat clip. This programme can even be used reflexive at the moment that a target is about to make an attack action, leaving them pulling the trigger for no effect, but suffers an additional -5 penalty for attempting the hack so fast. 
'''Subvert Synthetic''': A set of programmes that allow the character to try and hack a synthetic's systems on the fly. As an instant action, roll Wits + Interfacing opposed by the target synthetic or AI's Wits + remaining Shield points. Success give the character control of the synthetic for a number of rounds equal to successes. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Interfacing Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Interfacing skill checks, other than for the use of charged Interfacing programmes. 
'''Interfacing Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for interfacing purposes. 
'''Passive Scanning Programme''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to detect active net systems and ID them including active programmes running on omni-tools, armour and weaponry. This allows the character to use Wits + Interfacing for Perception rolls to detect these systems within a 100 yard range, or further if a signal is particularly strong. 
'''Rapid Data Analysis''': An advanced analysis VI and sifting programmes aid to rapidly identify and acquire relevant information vai the extranet or accessed databases. The character has their research times halved when attempting to acquire information via modern tech methods. If they have to actually read a set of old tomes in a pre-tech library, for example, then they're out of luck. 
'''Scout Drone''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a scout and sensor. The character's remote drone grants a +2 bonus to Perception checks, including those made via scanning programmes, and has superior sensory feedback allowing it to transmit full video feeds and readouts as long as it is within communications range of the character. 
'''Secure Routines''': Reactive defensive VI programmes inflict a penalty equal to the character's Interfacing skill on attempts to hack the equipment or systems that the character controls. 
'''Vehicle Interface Programming''': Advanced integration routines augment the character's interfacing with vehicular sensor suites. Perception checks made via a vehicle's sensors and scanners benefit from the 9-again rule. 
'''Sys-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced systems assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Interfacing skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 

===Medicine===

Medical programmes largely focus on subsystems for monitoring patients, administering emergency assistance and aiding with recovery from injuries and sickness; they also augment medical and biological analysis facilities.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Defibrillator Pulse''': The omni-tool discharges a pulse of energy into the patient to jolt them back to awareness. As a reflexive action, the character can target an unconscious character within 5 yards, rolling Intelligence + Medicine. Success brings the target back round to consciousness, unless they are unable to do so due to being drugged, for example. The pulse can be combined together with an Emergency Medi-Gel Application programme into one reflexive action on a single target. 
'''Emergency Medi-Gel Application''': Emergency medical management systems kick into action, allowing the character to direct the treatment to where it will be most effective. As a reflexive action, the character can target themselves or an ally within 5 yards with the programme, rolling Intelligence + Medicine with a penalty equal to any wound penalties that the target is currently suffering. On a success, expend one of the target's medi-gel doses for an immediate healing effect of 1L or 3B. 
'''Hypodermic Dart''': The onboard fabrication systems forge a hypodermic sliver of metal, loaded with carefully tailored toxins. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 30 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Medicine but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. The dart has a Damage rating of 1L with additional damage added from successes as normal but, if it inflicts any points of damage to the target's health points, it applies a Toxicity 2 poison dealing Bashing damage that forces the target to succeed at a Stamina check or fall unconscious. 
'''Medical Threat Analysis''': A diagnostic VI interfaces with the omni-tools sensors to quickly assess any medical hazards present. As a reflexive action, the character can roll Intelligence + Medicine for a near-instantaneous analysis of any chemical, biological or radioactive hazards present in the environment, the character, or a target within 5 yards – so it can identify if a character has been poisoned, or what the local radioactivity levels are. 
'''Stimulant Injection System''': Biological monitoring programmes aid with calculating precisely the right levels of stimulants to be injected into the body. As a reflexive action, the character may increase their Dexterity score by 1, lasting a number of rounds equal to their number of Medicine skill dots. This also affects all allies linked in via a Biological Monitor programme. 
'''Toxic Cleansing Programme''': Rapid assessment of hazardous toxins affecting the body allows for a tailored chemical response to be quickly deployed into the bloodstream. As an instant action, the character may roll Intelligence + Medicine versus a roll of the Toxicity of a poison affecting themselves or a character within 5 yards. Success results in the poison being neutralised. Extremely exotic or totally unknown toxins may inflict a further penalty on the roll. 
'''Toxic Materials Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a round containing a dangerous cocktail of toxic materials, hurling them away via a magnetic pulse. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Medicine but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. The attack deals no damage but fills an area around the target of 10 yards radius with caustic fumes for a number of rounds equal to the character's Medicine skill dots. This acts as a Toxicity 4 poison dealing Lethal damage via inhalation. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Background Toxicity Monitor''': A background monitoring VI handles automated countermeasures against toxic factors. The character benefits from a +2 bonus to all rolls to resist disease, poison, infection and other biological or chemical agents. This also affects all allies linked in via a Biological Monitor programme. 
'''Biological Monitor''': A suite of readouts and diagnostics provide unparalleled information on the life-signs of networked allies. The character always knows the exact health levels of all allies within communications range, and can apply Medicine programmes to allies without needing to worry about normal range or line of sight restrictions – they can even undertake a regular Medicine first aid roll from a distance. 
'''Bioscanner''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to detect nearby life-signs and traces of organic matter. This allows the character to use Wits + Medicine for Perception rolls to detect living organisms or organic matter within a 100 yard range. 
'''Decoy-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a decoy drone. Through complex bio-mimicry, the drone projects both a holographic decoy of the character, combined with realistic life-sign emissions that can fool basic scans and senses. The character can set the decoy on a basic 'idle' animation, can pre-record up to 5 minutes of voice and movement (including triggers to activate recorded speech), or can directly steer the decoy-drone's projection on a realtime basis. Observers must pass a Perception check with a penalty equal to the character's Medicine skill dots to note that something is off about the decoy; physically interacting with the decoy will immediately show it to be a holographic projection with a drone at its heart, as will other actions that show its nature.
'''Med-Drone Programming'': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced medical assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Medicine skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Medi-Gel Overseer''': A continually running VI programme monitors and adjusts the application of medi-gel to deal with injuries. Whenever the character uses a charge of medi-gel for healing purposes, either on themselves or others, they may roll Intelligence + Medicine. If they achieve as many or more successes as the target has injured health points, the total Bashing or Lethal health points healed is increased by 1. 
'''Medical Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Medicine skill checks, other than for the use of charged Medicine programmes. 
'''Medical Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for medical purposes. 

===Science===

Scientific programmes are often complex systems and containment routines for fabricating, mixing and handling unstable or exotic materials, as well as suites of assessment programmes to analyse the results.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Cryo-Material Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a round containing a mixture of chemicals that will undergo a cryogenic reaction when deployed. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Science but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. Should the attack hit, it deals no damage but douses the target in the freezing gases, inflicting a -2 penalty on all physical action rolls (including attacks) and reducing their Speed by 5 for 1 round. 
'''Hyperscan''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to emit a pulse that can detect nearby unusual or intense energy signatures and matter concentrations. This allows the character to use Intelligence + Science for a Perception roll to detect and identify strong energy emissions or unusual matter within a 100 yard range. 
'''Incendiary Material Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a plasma round containing a mixture of chemicals that will undergo a n incendiary reaction when deployed. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Science but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. Should the attack hit, it deals no damage but douses the target and an area around them of 5 yard radius in flammable materials that immediately start burning with fierce intensity, and will continue to do so for a number of rounds equal to the character's Science skill dots. The fire inflicts 3L per turn, reduced by Armour as normal, but also grants all other attacks against a burning target Armour Piercing 1. As long as a burning target is able to remove themselves from the area of effect, they can put out the fire as a reflexive action on their turn. 
'''Pattern Recognition Algorithms''': A simple VI meshed with pattern recognition programming can perform a high-speed resource-intensive analysis. As an instant action, the character may make an Intelligence + Science roll to identify significant patterns in a set of available data or information. 
'''Rapid Matter Analysis''': A set of scanning programmes quickly analyse a sample of matter to provide a complete breakdown of its composition. As an instant action, the character may roll Intelligence + Science to get a full analysis of some sample matter, including chemical composition and properties. 
'''Unstable Materials''': A set of safety-boundary-pushing programmes allow the character to to increase the operational margins of instability in deployable materials. The character may expend this programme at the same time as an Incendiary, Cryo- or Toxic Materials Deployment programme to increase the radius of effect by 10 yards. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Energy Drone''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to direct energies into an attack. The character's remote drone gains the ability to make a 2L ranged attack at targets up to 15 yards away, using the character's Wits + Science as an attack pool. The remote drone may also serve as the origination of any Incendiary, Cryo- or Toxic Materials Deployment instead of the character. 
'''Energy Projection Modulation''': Advanced energy handling routines increase the omni-tool's output available for emission purposes. The character gains a +1 bonus to any attacks made with Tech Process programmes. 
'''Environmental Shielding''': A monitoring VI keeps vigilant watch over environmental diagnostics, adjusting and augmenting existing protective measures. The character adds their Science skill dots as a bonus to rolls to resist environmental effects such as extreme heat, cold or causticity, and adds 1 point of Armour to their Shield points against any direct attacks of these kinds. 
'''Full Spectrum Sensory Suite''': A top-of-the-range set of analytical and sensory programmes aid the character with close investigation. When they have the time to carefully go over a location, the character benefits from the 9-again rule on Perception and Investigation checks. 
'''Lab-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced lab assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Science skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Mass Shielding Matrix''': Subtle distortion emissions are carefully controlled to interfere with any biotic attacks on the character. Biotic attacks that target the character, even if only due to them being in the area of effect, suffer an additional -1 penalty. 
'''Scientific Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Science skill checks, other than for the use of charged Science programmes. 
'''Scientific Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for scientific purposes. 

[[Mass:_the_Effecting |Back to main page]]

Mass: the Effecting/Hard-Won Experience

2012-03-14T23:18:13Z

Acrozatarim:

=Hard-Won Experience=

In Mass: The Effecting, your character possesses one of the six Archetype minor templates. As well as a special active and passive ability, this template gives your character a number of points to spend on Biotic, Combat Training and Tech talents, marking them out through their exceptional capabilities.

Each type of Archetype talent is distinct from the other two. Biotic talents are potent, specific uses of biotic power, draining to use but devastating in effect. Combat Training talents passively enhance a character's existing abilities or opening up new options in combat. Tech talents grant a great deal of flexibility through high-performance omni-tool programmes that augment and aid one of four skills – Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine and Science.

Each talent category is actually made up of 3 or 4 talents – so the Combat Training talents are Assault, Command, Guardian and Tactical. Your character can have up to 5 dots in a particular talent.

While your character's starting talent allocation is constrained by their Archetype, you can purchase any kind of talent for them with your character's experience points as the chronicle progresses. An Adept can acquire Combat Training talents to help them survive the battles they keep finding themselves in, and a Soldier can pick up some Tech programming tricks. However, if you wish to purchase Biotic talents with a non-Biotic Archetype, you should either make some concession to this in your starting character concept (such as the character having biotic potential but never getting the implants or training to use it) or something should have happened to enable this. Non-biotic individuals are simply unable to spontaneously start using biotic powers due to the way biotics work in the Mass Effect setting.

The experience cost for buying dots in a talent with experience points is equal to new dots x 5. If your Archetype has only one category of talent, then the cost of buying dots in that category is new dots x 3. If your Archetype has two categories of talent, then the cost of buying dots in those categories is new dots x 4.

''For example, a Soldier who wishes to increase their Command Training purchases at new dots x 3, as Commant is a Combat Training talent and the Soldier Archetype only has the Combat Training category. A Vanguard who wishes to increase their Command Training or Integration Discipline talents purchases at new dots x 4, since the Vanguard Archetype has the Combat Training and Biotic categories. Both Soldier and Vanguard pay new dots x 5 for Tech talents, as neither has the Tech category.''

==Biotic Talents==

Biotics are capable of controlling mass effect fields due to nodules of element zero in their bodies. This can grant them tremendous power, but requires the use of implants and biotic amps to fully exploit. Biotic use also comes at a cost – it puts a huge drain on the user's metabolism, increasing their energy intake needs by a ferocious amount and building up static charge in their bodies to sometimes dangerous levels.

The different biotic talents are referred to as Disciplines. The three Disciplines are Distortion, Integration and Kinetics. Each point in a Discipline allows the character to pick a single power from the Discipline's list, granting the character the capability to use that power at will. These powers are picked when the dots are acquired and cannot be changed.

''Using Biotic Powers'': Using a biotic power usually involves rolling a dice pool of Resolve plus the character's dots in the relevant Discipline, with a variety of effects depending on the power in question. Using a power also requires that a cost be paid. This cost is in points of Bashing damage or Willpower, and possibly both. Points of Armour rating do not reduce the amount of damage taken from using biotic powers.

Unless otherwise noted, using a biotic power is an instant action. Biotic powers that target characters or locations other than the biotic themselves require line of sight.

Biotic powers require at least some freedom of movement to act, as biotic users are trained to use mudras to activate their implants and nervous systems in particular ways. Restraining a biotic is an effective way to prevent them from using their capabilities.

''Boosting Biotic Powers'': A biotic character can choose to boost a power, pushing themselves to the limit to empower themselves further. This increases the cost of the power, as noted in the boost's entry.

''Willpower Points and Biotic Powers'': Willpower points spent to activate or boost a biotic power do not count towards the one point of Willpower that a character can normally spend per turn to increase their dice pool or defences. A character could conceivably activate a biotic power that costs 1 point of Willpower, its boost that costs another point of Willpower and then spend their one point of Willpower per turn for a +3 bonus to the activation dice pool.

''Kinetics and Countering'': A biotic may choose to spend their turn's action countering the Kinetic abilities of another biotic within 25 yards. If they do so, they may take no other action but inflict a penalty on all Kinetic power rolls by the target equal to their own dots in the Kinetic discipline.

===Distortion===

Distortion is the Discipline of molecular agitation and the manipulation of mass to distort and warp.

'''Haze'''

This technique uses low-level distortion fields to create a shell of warped spacetime around an area, interfering with any sorts of senses or perception attempting to cross the shell's edge. To the outside world, the hazed air looks like warped, shimmering glass.

Haze affects an area centred on the biotic with a radius of Resolve x 5 yards. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Any attempts to perceive by any means (sight, hearing, radar etc) into the area covered by Haze suffer a penalty equal to the biotic's Resolve, and indeed need to make Perception or other appropriate rolls in the first place. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the effect can be placed within 50 yards instead of being centred on the biotic. 

'''Reave'''

This technique unleashes a powerful distortion field into the target's nervous or synthetic systems, causing a crippling overload.

Reave affects a single target up to 200 yards away. Roll Resolve + Distortion against an opposed roll of the target's Stamina. Success results in the target suffering wound penalties as if they had their last three health points filled with damage, with a duration of the biotic's Resolve in rounds. The penalty isn't cumulative with any existing wound penalties the target is already suffering, and can be reduced as normal by effects such as Iron Stamina. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Reave nullifies any healing from any source during its duration, and it inflicts the -3 wound penalty in addition to any existing wound penalties, regardless of any Iron Stamina or other reductions. 

'''Scramble'''

Scramble unleashes a thrashing flux of mass effect fields around the biotic, warping and distorting gravity and space.

Scramble affects an area centred on the biotic with a radius of Resolve x 3 yards. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Everyone other than the biotic in the area of effect suffers a -2 penalty to their Speed, and to any attack rolls and Athletics-based rolls that they make. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1B, the -2 penalty to attack rolls also applies to any ranged attacks made against the biotic from outside Scramble's area. 

'''Singularity'''

Singularity uses distortion to punch a gravity well into the fabric of spacetime, dragging anyone nearby towards its centre.

Choose a point within 100 yards; this is where the singularity appears, affecting an area Resolve x 5 yards in radius. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Anyone in the area of effect must succeed in a Strength + Athletics check penalised by the biotic's Resolve in order to move in any direction other than directly towards the singularity, with successes equal to the number of yards they can move in a direction they wish. On the biotic's turn every round, everyone in the area of effect gets pulled 5 yards towards the singularity. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, increase the number of yards the singularity pulls each round by the biotic's Resolve. 

'''Warp'''

Warp creates rapidly shifting mass effect fields that tear a target apart.

Warp is used as a ranged attack by the biotic, with a short range of 100 yards and no medium or long range. This power uses Resolve + Distortion as its attack pool and is affected by other situational modifiers, such as cover, just as a normal ranged attack. If Warp hits, it has a Damage rating equal to the biotic's Resolve, with added damage from successes as normal.

If the target is already under the effect of another biotic power, Warp causes a biotic explosion. This increases its' Damage rating by 1 against the target, and inflicts a 3L explosion centred on the target with a radius equal to the biotic's Resolve in yards. The pre-existing biotic power immediately ends if it is a Distortion or Kinetic power. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, Warp grants all attacks against the target Armour Piercing 1 for a number of rounds equal to Resolve. 

===Integration===

Integration is the biotic discipline of molecular integration, using mass effect fields to strengthen and control the fabric of spacetime around the user.

'''Barrier'''

Barrier protects the biotic with mass effect fields in the same way as technological kinetic barrier generators.

Barrier provides the biotic with a number of biotic Shield levels equal to Resolve. These shield levels do not stack with any existing Shield levels, but will overwrite them if existing Shield levels are lower than the biotic's Resolve. Roll Resolve + Integration, with the biotic gaining a +1 bonus to resist attempts to knock them down or move them around for each success on the dice roll, as long as Barrier is in effect. Barrier lasts one scene, or until the Shield levels are lost. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Barrier can be activated as a Reflexive action. 

'''Charge'''

Charge encases the biotic in a mass effect field and launches them forwards at high velocity, akin to the technique employed by mass relays.

Charge allows the biotic to move up to their Speed x Resolve in yards in a straight line at near-instantaneous speed. This power doesn't allow them to pass through solid obstacles but they may go straight over gaps of up to their Speed in yards without any need for jumping checks. Roll Resolve + Integration, with each success increasing the biotic's Defence by 1; this effect lasts 1 round.

The biotic may still make a melee or ranged attack after using Charge. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic does not need to Charge in a straight line and may make any number of turns along the way, they may also cover a gap of twice their Speed in yards. 

'''Smite'''

Smite uses mass effect fields to empower the biotic's unarmed strikes with immense force.

Smite is a reflexive action used to augment an unarmed attack. It increases the Damage rating of the unarmed attack by an amount equal to the biotic's Resolve, and the biotic may choose to make the damage Lethal rather than Bashing. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Smite augments all unarmed attacks the biotic makes for one additional round. 

'''Stasis'''

Stasis simply locks the target into place with integrated mass effect fields that prevent them from moving.

Choose a target within 50 yards. The target must make a Strength check, with a penalty imposed of up to the biotic's Resolve at the biotic's choice. If the target achieves no successes, they are locked in place for 1 round and are completely unable to act in any way. However, they gain additional Armour equal to the penalty that the biotic applied to their strength check, affecting all attacks whether against Shield levels or health levels, and which is cumulative with existing Armour.

''For example, a biotic with Resolve 5 chooses to apply a -3 penalty to a target's Strength check. Since the target only has Strength 3, this reduces them to a chance die. They fail, and are locked in place for 1 round. During this round, they benefit from an additional 3 points of Armour against all attacks.''

''Cost'': 1 Willpower point. 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the target gains no Armour from Stasis. 

'''Wall'''

Wall uses similar mass effect fields to Barrier and Stasis to forge a layer of integrated mass effect fields across an area.

The Wall power creates a wall of biotic force that is up to Resolve x 2 yards wide and high. The centre point of the wall's line must be within 5 yards of the biotic when created. Roll Resolve + Integration; the Wall has a number of Shield levels equal to 5 + successes rolled. The Wall can serve as cover and an obstacle, preventing any movement through it. Attackers may choose to attack the Wall directly; it has Armour equal to the Biotic's Resolve.

The Wall remains present as long as the biotic is within 5 yards of it. If he moves away, creates a new Wall, or the Wall's Shield levels are lost, it immediately ceases to exist. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower, the biotic may make a Wall that will exist even after moving 5 yards away from it, or he may turn it into a shell of up to Resolve x 2 yards radius centred on himself. 

===Kinetics===

Kinetics is the biotic discipline of directly applying force through mass effect fields.

'''Glide'''

The Glide technique involves applying kinetic mass effect fields to the biotic themselves, allowing them to defy the forces of gravity through fine biotic control.

Roll Resolve + Kinetics, with Glide lasting for a number of rounds equal to successes rolled. While Glide is in effect, the biotic can reduce the distance they fall each round to any speed including zero, and they suffer no falling damage when making contact with the ground. If they continue to have some downward velocity, they may also move sideways in any direction up to their Resolve in yards per round. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can move in any direction at all for up to their Resolve in yards per round, without any requirement to continue moving down. This allows the biotic to 'fly' upwards if they wish. 

'''Lift'''

The Lift technique uses mass effect fields to pull the target up into the air.

Choose a target within 100 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. The target is lifted a number of yards equal to successes rolled, lasting for the biotic's Resolve in rounds. A gentle drift can be applied to the target as they are lifted if desired, so they will move 1 yard per round in a particular direction.

The Lifted target is not incapacitated and may continue to try and act by firing, trying to grab hold of something, and so forth.

Lifting larger, heavier targets is more difficult. For each full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Resolve + Kinetics roll suffers an additional –2 penalty, so lifting a small car (Size 10) would inflict a -2 penalty on the roll. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Lift of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

'''Slam'''

Slam uses fine control over a rapid flux in mass effect fields to exert huge force on a target, picking them up and slamming them down again.

Choose a target within 30 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics as an attack with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. Slam is not affected by other conditional modifiers such as cover. If Slam hits, it has a Damage rating equal to the biotic's Resolve, with added damage from successes as normal. The target is also knocked prone. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Slam of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

'''Shockwave'''

The Shockwave technique unleashes a powerful mass effect field that pulses out in a crashing wave, knocking targets from their feet.

Choose which direction the Shockwave emits, resulting in an area of effect starting at the biotic that is 5 yards wide and 5 x Resolve yards long. Make a Resolve + Kinetics roll once; each target in the area must oppose this with their own Strength roll. If they lose, they are knocked prone. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point. 
''Boost'': For 1B, all targets automatically fail their Strength check. 

'''Throw'''

Throw exerts a strong mass effect field to catapult the target in a particular direction.

Choose a target within 100 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics as an attack with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. The target is hurled in a chosen direction for a distance of up to successes x 5 yards, and suffering Bashing damage in successes if they hit something. The target must make a Dexterity + Athletics roll with a penalty equal to the biotic's Resolve, or be knocked down.

This power can also be used to pick up objects and hurl them at people, inflicting Bashing damage equal to successes if the Throw can reach the target with the object. This has the benefit of most thrown objects not possessing Shield levels.

Lifting larger, heavier targets is more difficult. For each full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Resolve + Kinetics roll suffers an additional –2 penalty, so lifting a small car (Size 10) would inflict a -2 penalty on the roll. However, for every full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Damage inflicted by a thrown object increases by 2. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Throw of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

==Combat Training Talents==

Combat in the Mass Effect setting is fast, lethal and dangerous, thanks to the cutting edge technology deployed on the battlefields of the galaxy. Personal protection from armour and shields only goes so far towards securing victory – the rest comes from the training and talent of the commanders and troops themselves.

The different combat training talents are called Regimens. The four Regimens are Assault, Command, Guardian and Tactical. Each point in a Regimen allows the character to pick a single power from the Regimen's list, granting the character the benefits of that power. These powers are picked when the dots are acquired and cannot be changed.

The Command Training Regimen works slightly differently from the others, as noted in its description below.

''Using Combat Training Powers'': Most Combat Training powers grant their benefits all the time. Some allow the character to use new options in combat, such as Suppressive Fire; the character can choose when to use these options and when not to, and no cost is attached to doing so.

===Assault Training===

Assault training often covers close-quarter combat, ambushes, storming defensive positions and blitzkrieg insertion into hot zones.

'''Agility''': Through a mixture of free-running and combat training, the character can ignore terrain penalties on their movement of an amount up to their dots in Dexterity; so a character with Dexterity 4 could ignore up to -4 in penalties. Ladders, crates, low walls and so forth are easy for this character to handle. Their speed is also increased by 1. 
'''Ambush''': The character is an expert at close, covert work. When attacking an opponent who is not aware of the character, they add a +2 bonus to the Damage rating of their attack. Perception rolls made to hear the character attacking suffer a -2 penalty. 
'''Carnage''': The character is an expert in dealing death with short-ranged weapons in close quarters. When firing at a target within the short-range of a pistol or shotgun, the character benefits from the 9-again rule, or 8-again if the weapon already has 9-again. 
'''Close Quarters Combatant''': The character possesses advanced close combat training. They ignore penalties to their Defence caused by multiple melee attackers, may choose to deal Lethal damage with their unarmed attacks, and benefit from the 9-again rule when making unarmed strikes. 
'''Combat Drop Training''': The character has been trained for rapid-deployment assaults into hot zones. When dropping into combat with armour-jets, from an aircraft or from orbit, the character is able to act on the same round they touch down and suffers no other penalties due to combat drops. They also treat all Piloting checks with armour-jets as rote actions. 
'''Hard Target''': Keeping a low profile and moving fast, the character renders themselves a hard target for attackers. If they move at least 5 yards during their turn, all ranged attacks against them suffer an additional -1 penalty on their attack pools. Running increases the penalty to -2. 
'''Shock Trooper''': The character has the training and experience of a hardened shock trooper and is used to running through hails of bullets and explosions without flinching. The character reduces all penalties suffered from the combat environment by 1, such as from suppressive fire, concealment granted by smoke grenades and so forth. They benefit from a +2 bonus to any dice pool to resist knock-downs, stuns and other disorientation effects, while their Speed is increased by 1. 
'''Slam''': Harnessing their raw strength, the character slams foes to the ground. After a successful melee attack at the end of a charge action, the target of the attack must make a Strength check. If they fail to get as many successes as the points of damage taken from the attack, they are knocked down. This technique is a favourite of Krogan. 

===Command Training===

Command training prepares a character for the rigours of commanding a team in a combat environment, whether a naval commander overseeing their crew from the bridge of a spaceship or a black ops squad leader directing their team through an intense firefight.

Command Training works differently to the other talents available in Combat Training. Rather than offering a new power with every dot, the character instead gains one additional die into the group's Command pool, a pool of dice that refreshes each scene from which the whole group of characters can benefit. These dice can be drawn on for specific purposes by any characters who are in communications-range of one of the Commanding characters.

''For example, a Soldier has Command 4, putting 4 dice into the Command pool. Another character in the group, a Vanguard, has Command 2, increasing the total dice in the Command pool to 6. At the beginning of every scene, this pool refreshes back up to 6 dice, no matter how many of the dice have been spent in the prior scene.''

As long as one of the characters with Command allows it, anyone in the group can take dice from the pool for the purposes noted below, including the characters with the Command talent themselves. A character can take up to their Wits in dice from the pool in a single turn, and can spend them all on one roll or purpose if desired.

Command dice can be:

'''Concentrate Fire''': Added directly to an attack dice pool, before rolling. 
'''Co-Ordinate Action''': Added directly to a secondary actor's teamwork dice pool to aid a primary actor with their action. 
'''Priority Target''': Added directly to the Damage rating of an attack against a target who is knocked down, held by a mass effect field, on fire, frozen, stunned or otherwise vulnerable, before rolling the attack pool. 
'''Ready For Action''': Added as a bonus to a character's Initiative score after rolling in the first round of combat, adding +1 per die used. 
'''Take Cover''': Applied as an additional penalty to an attack roll against a character who is in cover, augmenting the normal cover penalty by -1 per die used, before rolling the attack pool. 
'''Stay Alert''': Added directly to a Perception dice pool, before rolling. 

===Guardian Training===

Guardian training demands the very best of a character physically, pushing them to their limits and beyond to help them and others stay alive.

'''Bastion''': The character knows how to angle armour plating, shift their profile and minimise the damage from incoming fire. If wearing armour, the character benefits from a +1 to their Armour against any ranged attackers in front of them, as long as they haven't moved this turn. 
'''Berserker''': When taking at least one point of Lethal damage, the character may choose to enter a rage, gaining a temporary +2 bonus to Stamina and Resolve and becoming immune to penalties inflicted by suppressive fire. This does result in them gaining two health levels during the rage but, while the health levels are lost once the rage subsides, any damage taken is kept. Many Krogan enter a berserker rage in battle when wounded. 
'''Bodyguard''': The Character has the reflexes and training of a bodyguard, able to protect others with their own body. They can choose to serve as cover for allies when they are between the ally and attacker or are adjacent to that ally, inflicting a -1 cover penalty on attacks that increases to -2 if the bodyguard is carrying a ballistic shield.. This increases to -2 if the ally is willing to allow the bodyguard to drop them prone and shield the ally with their whole body, increasing again to -3 if the bodyguard is in heavy armour or is carrying a ballistic shield. 
'''Fitness''': The character is in excellent physical condition and has two permanent additional health points. 
'''Resilient''': Fists, batons, concussion grenades... Not much phases this character. They benefit from an additional point of Armour against all Bashing attacks, even when not actually wearing armour, and gain a +1 bonus to dice pools to resist stuns and knock-downs. 
'''Second Skin''': The character has the training and experience to treat armour like a second skin, entirely comfortable with its power servos and weight distribution. The character benefits from a +1 to their Defence and Speed while wearing armour. 
'''Survivor''': The character is too tough or just too damn stubborn to stay down, regardless of his injuries. He never falls unconscious as a result of having all his health boxes filled with damage, and doesn't need to succeed on a Stamina roll to do so. 
'''Vigilant''': The character is ever-vigilant for danger. If the character is or becomes aware of an attacker targeting an unaware ally, and the character is within communications range of that ally, the ally becomes aware of the impending attack immediately. The character's Initiative is also increased by 1. 

===Tactical Training===

Tactical training prepares the character for the rapidly changing environment of the battlefield, allowing them to react to new threats swiftly and to apply their own firepower with devastating effect.

'''Advancing Fire''': The character may fire when running, suffering a -3 penalty to their attack roll for doing so. 
'''Heavy Weapons Training''': The character is experienced in handling support weaponry, and ignores any penalties and restrictions from the Heavy Weapon trait. 
'''Marksman''': The character is a skilled marksman. Whenever the character takes at least one aim action with a weapon that has the 9-again trait (apart from shotguns), they benefit from the 8-again rule on the attack dice pool made with the aiming bonus. 
'''Outflank''': The character knows how the make the most of an outmanoeuvred enemy's weakness. Attacking a target in the flank or rear when an ally has engaged them from the front grants the character a +1 bonus to attack rolls. 
'''Sniper''': The character has the patience and talent of a skilled sniper. After using the aim action and firing at a target, the character does not lose his aiming bonus as long as he continues to fire at the same target and does not have his line of sight to them broken. He may even continue to take further aim actions to increase his aiming bonus, subject to the usual +3 aiming bonus cap. 
''For example, a sniper could aim once for a +1 bonus, fire, aim again for a total of +2, fire again, etc.'' 
'''Squad Reflexes''': After rolling for Initiative at the beginning of combat, but before the first round begins, the character can choose to shift their Initiative to match that of one ally within communications range. The character's Initiative is also increased by 1. 
'''Suppressive Fire''': There's a line between effective suppressive fire and just wasting shots. The character may sacrifice the bonus attack dice from autofire to apply it instead as a penalty to the ranged attack rolls of the target for one round. This can be applied to multiple targets as per the normal autofire rules, but it does incur the usual attack dice penalty – so hosing down three targets with long-burst autofire for suppressive fire applies the -3 penalty to all of them but also leaves the character with a -3 penalty on his attack rolls. Suppressive fire doesn't work against opponents who are simply unable to take cover, or are too heavily armoured or mindless to care. 
'''Weapon Drill''': Unloading, reloading and returning to the task of providing fire support is a well-oiled practice for the character. Reloading is a reflexive action as long as the replacement heat clip is to hand (such as in armour webbing or laid out within reach). 

==Tech Talents==

Advanced technology permeates the fabric of society in Mass Effect, and is a key part of life for any technician, engineer, scientist or doctor. Omni-tools are common, multi-purpose personal computational devices that serve as micro-fabrication facilities, interfacing tools and diagnostic systems. Those with the knowledge and skill can use their omni-tool to run enhanced programmes and VIs that can hack, overload or scan to great effect.

The different tech talents are called Processes. The four Processes are Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine and Science, and each is associated with the Mental skill of the same name. Each point in a Process allows the character to run a single programme of that type concurrently on their omni-tool. Unlike Disciplines and Regimens, the exact programme run in the Process slot is not permanent and can be easily changed for other programmes of a similar kind.

''Using Tech Powers'': A character's omni-tool can have a number of programmes for each type of Process stored in its library, as listed under the omni-tool's entry in the Elkoss Combine Catalogue. The character has a number of Process slots equal to their dots in that Process; each slot can run one programme in it.

Programmes come in two types – running and charged. Running programmes are passive, giving a bonus or opening up an option as long as they are in a slot. Charged programmes are expended when they are used, and remain expended for the rest of the scene; they rely on stored power that needs to recharge, need to take time to fabricate some complex new materials, or are otherwise unavailable.

''For example, a character with 3 dots in the Engineering Process and 1 dot in the Medicine Process could have Shield Modulation, Shield Boost and Overload in his Engineering slots and Defibrillator Pulse in his Medicine slot.''

Whenever dice rolls are called for by a tech power and refer to Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine or Science, they refer to the character's skill dots and not the dots in that Process talent.

''Swapping Programmes'': A character can swap out any programme for any other programme available in their omni-tool's library between scenes or in situations where there is no time pressure, without needing to roll. A programme can be selected multiple times, but running programmes give no benefit for doing so. In the case of a charged programme, running it in multiple slots makes multiple uses available per scene.

During action or combat, swapping programmes is considerably more difficult, especially if the omni-tools processors are already busy running a dozen other programmes at the same time. Doing so is a full action for the character's turn, wherein they must make roll Intelligence + the skill associated with the Process in question, with a penalty equal to the number of running programmes of that Process currently active. An expended programme's slot cannot be replaced in this way during a scene, but a running programme or an unused charged programme can be.

''For example, a character with 3 dots in the Engineering Process, 4 dots in the Engineering skill and 3 dots of Intelligence has two running programmes and a charged programme in their Process slots. During combat, they want to replace one of the running programmes with a more situation-appropriate charged programme. Doing so requires that they roll Intelligence + Engineering, a dice pool of 7, with a penalty of -2 dice for the two running programmes. This leaves them with 5 dice; any success means they have successfully swapped the running programme to the new charged programme.''

''Changing Libraries'': A character may wish to change the programmes they have available in their omni-tool's library. This requires that they either access a database with more programmes archived in it, or that they write a new programme themselves. The latter is time-consuming and very difficult, whereas the former often incurs the cost of purchasing licenses for a programme from a company. Many employers provide access to basic programmes to their staff, such as the line of Analysis programmes; getting access to a more questionable programme such as Overload is somewhat more difficult, requiring either money or military or criminal contacts.

''Scanners'': Several running programmes allow the character to use an omni-tool's facilities to replace Composure with a skill in Perception checks, for the purposes of detecting particular substances or systems. These scans can still suffer from various penalties to the Perception check and, while they can detect through some solid materials, suffer increasing degradation of signal the further they have to go.

===Engineering===

Engineering programmes focus on improving hardware and mechanical processes, whether vehicles and armour or shield modulations.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Emergency Infiltration Protocol''': This is a batch of processes with an emergency power cell for re-establishing a stealth field immediately. The character can expend the programme to activate a stealth field (if they have one) as a reflexive action instead of as an instant action. 
'''Fortification''': Through highly efficient management routines and incoming fire calculations, the power flows and fluid dynamics of armour can be momentarily reinforced. As a reflexive action, roll Wits + Engineering to increase Armour by the number of successes for 1 round. 
'''Neural Shock''': The programme discharges a pulse of electrical current that plays havoc with a target's nervous system. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Engineering versus the Stamina roll of a target within 30 yards. On a success, the target is stunned for 1 round, increased to 2 rounds on an exceptional success. 
'''Overload''': The programme discharges a carefully controlled pulse of electrical current that plays havoc with a target's shields, overloading kinetic barriers. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Engineering to deal damage to the Shield levels of a target within 50 yards – this power does no damage to health levels. If the character has multiple Overload programmes ready, they can all be expended at the same time; each Overload may affect a new target within 5 yards of the last, and the same target cannot be affected twice. 
'''Shield Boost''': The programme runs emergency power management routines to reestablish shield integrity. As a reflexive action, roll Wits + Engineering, restoring a number of lost Shield points to the character or an ally within 25 yards equal to the number of successes rolled. If the character has multiple Shield Boost programmes readied, they can all be expended at the same time; each Boost may target a new ally within 5 yards of the last target, and the same target cannot be affected twice. 
'''Shield Burst''': The programme dumps all remaining kinetic barrier energy into a controlled output. As a reflexive action, the character loses all remaining Shield points. A blast is centred on the character with a radius equal to the number of Shield points lost. Roll Wits + Engineering, dealing successes as Lethal damage to all characters within the area of effect. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Armour Subsystem Management''': Complex power management routines allow for additional energy demands to be handled. As long as this programme is running, the character can make used of a secondary armour mod, allowing them to benefit from both mods at once. 
'''Engineering Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Engineering skill checks, other than for the use of charged Engineering programmes. 
'''Engineering Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for engineering purposes. 
'''Omni-Blade Power Rerouting''': As well as fabricating a keen-edged one-use blade, the omni-tool's power systems divert additional power into the strike. This increases the Damage rating of an omni-blade by 1, and grants 9-again on attacks made with it. 
'''Rig-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced engineering assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Engineering skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Shield Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a shield emitter. The character's remote drone grants a +2 bonus to the maximum Shield points of all allies within 20 yards. 
'''Shield Modulation''': A VI's ongoing shield management processes ensure that a shield restores its integrity at a more rapid rate than normal. The character can reflexively restore 1 Shield point on their turn, as long as they have not been hit by any attacks since their last turn. 
'''Vehicle Control Subsystems''': Advanced integration programmes allow the character to enhance their control of a vehicle, granting the 9-again rule to Piloting checks. 

===Interfacing===

Interfacing programmes include routines for research, data analysis, scanning and hacking; for interfacing experts, information and its denial is the name of the game.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Comms Tap''': A rapid-fire codebreaker VI allows the character to attempt to break in to a communications channel as an instant action. Roll Intelligence + Interfacing, with successes giving the number of minutes that the character can listen in without the users being aware. Heavy-duty encryption can impose a penalty on the roll – standard military comm channels inflict a -3 penalty, with more difficult hacking targets increasing from there. 
'''Haywire''': By unleashing chaos programmes that hammer at any networked systems nearby, the character compromises equipment and armaments. Roll Intelligence + Interfacing as a reflexive action to affect an area of up to successes x 5 yards in radius. All tech devices within this area suffer a -1 penalty to rolls using them for 2 rounds, including firearms' attack dice pools. 
'''Lock-Hack''': A common (and usually illegal) programme for brute-forcing electronic locking systems, a Lock-Hack allows the character to attempt to open a lock as an extended Wits + Interfacing action with one roll representing one turn of work. The number of successes required depends on the quality of the lock in question. This is a crude electronic intrusion and will trigger alarms or alerts to the system, but it gets the job done quickly. 
'''Mask''': Careful infiltration protocols and data-masks shut down the character's network trace. Roll Wits + Interfacing as a reflexive action to immediately 'go silent' for a number of rounds equal to successes rolled, rendering the character's presence on a network untraceable by others. This also serves to render the character undetectable for the duration to any attempts to locate them with technological scans for data signals. 
'''Overheat''': Through a pre-prepared remote rapid hack VI, a weapon's heat sinks can be tampered with. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Interfacing against a target with a penalty based on the largest weapon to be overheated (-1 for a pistol, -2 for a rifle) and a -1 penalty for each additional weapon to be overheated past the first. Success results in all targeted weapons overheating, expending the full capacity of their current heat clip. This programme can even be used reflexive at the moment that a target is about to make an attack action, leaving them pulling the trigger for no effect, but suffers an additional -5 penalty for attempting the hack so fast. 
'''Subvert Synthetic''': A set of programmes that allow the character to try and hack a synthetic's systems on the fly. As an instant action, roll Wits + Interfacing opposed by the target synthetic or AI's Wits + remaining Shield points. Success give the character control of the synthetic for a number of rounds equal to successes. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Interfacing Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Interfacing skill checks, other than for the use of charged Interfacing programmes. 
'''Interfacing Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for interfacing purposes. 
'''Passive Scanning Programme''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to detect active net systems and ID them including active programmes running on omni-tools, armour and weaponry. This allows the character to use Wits + Interfacing for Perception rolls to detect these systems within a 100 yard range, or further if a signal is particularly strong. 
'''Rapid Data Analysis''': An advanced analysis VI and sifting programmes aid to rapidly identify and acquire relevant information vai the extranet or accessed databases. The character has their research times halved when attempting to acquire information via modern tech methods. If they have to actually read a set of old tomes in a pre-tech library, for example, then they're out of luck. 
'''Scout Drone''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a scout and sensor. The character's remote drone grants a +2 bonus to Perception checks, including those made via scanning programmes, and has superior sensory feedback allowing it to transmit full video feeds and readouts as long as it is within communications range of the character. 
'''Secure Routines''': Reactive defensive VI programmes inflict a penalty equal to the character's Interfacing skill on attempts to hack the equipment or systems that the character controls. 
'''Vehicle Interface Programming''': Advanced integration routines augment the character's interfacing with vehicular sensor suites. Perception checks made via a vehicle's sensors and scanners benefit from the 9-again rule. 
'''Sys-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced systems assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Interfacing skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 

===Medicine===

Medical programmes largely focus on subsystems for monitoring patients, administering emergency assistance and aiding with recovery from injuries and sickness; they also augment medical and biological analysis facilities.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Defibrillator Pulse''': The omni-tool discharges a pulse of energy into the patient to jolt them back to awareness. As a reflexive action, the character can target an unconscious character within 5 yards, rolling Intelligence + Medicine. Success brings the target back round to consciousness, unless they are unable to do so due to being drugged, for example. The pulse can be combined together with an Emergency Medi-Gel Application programme into one reflexive action on a single target. 
'''Emergency Medi-Gel Application''': Emergency medical management systems kick into action, allowing the character to direct the treatment to where it will be most effective. As a reflexive action, the character can target themselves or an ally within 5 yards with the programme, rolling Intelligence + Medicine with a penalty equal to any wound penalties that the target is currently suffering. On a success, expend one of the target's medi-gel doses for an immediate healing effect of 1L or 3B. 
'''Hypodermic Dart''': The onboard fabrication systems forge a hypodermic sliver of metal, loaded with carefully tailored toxins. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 30 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Medicine but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. The dart has a Damage rating of 1L with additional damage added from successes as normal but, if it inflicts any points of damage to the target's health points, it applies a Toxicity 2 poison dealing Bashing damage that forces the target to succeed at a Stamina check or fall unconscious. 
'''Medical Threat Analysis''': A diagnostic VI interfaces with the omni-tools sensors to quickly assess any medical hazards present. As a reflexive action, the character can roll Intelligence + Medicine for a near-instantaneous analysis of any chemical, biological or radioactive hazards present in the environment, the character, or a target within 5 yards – so it can identify if a character has been poisoned, or what the local radioactivity levels are. 
'''Stimulant Injection System''': Biological monitoring programmes aid with calculating precisely the right levels of stimulants to be injected into the body. As a reflexive action, the character may increase their Dexterity score by 1, lasting a number of rounds equal to their number of Medicine skill dots. This also affects all allies linked in via a Biological Monitor programme. 
'''Toxic Cleansing Programme''': Rapid assessment of hazardous toxins affecting the body allows for a tailored chemical response to be quickly deployed into the bloodstream. As an instant action, the character may roll Intelligence + Medicine versus a roll of the Toxicity of a poison affecting themselves or a character within 5 yards. Success results in the poison being neutralised. Extremely exotic or totally unknown toxins may inflict a further penalty on the roll. 
'''Toxic Materials Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a round containing a dangerous cocktail of toxic materials, hurling them away via a magnetic pulse. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Medicine but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. The attack deals no damage but fills an area around the target of 10 yards radius with caustic fumes for a number of rounds equal to the character's Medicine skill dots. This acts as a Toxicity 4 poison dealing Lethal damage via inhalation. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Background Toxicity Monitor''': A background monitoring VI handles automated countermeasures against toxic factors. The character benefits from a +2 bonus to all rolls to resist disease, poison, infection and other biological or chemical agents. This also affects all allies linked in via a Biological Monitor programme. 
'''Biological Monitor''': A suite of readouts and diagnostics provide unparalleled information on the life-signs of networked allies. The character always knows the exact health levels of all allies within communications range, and can apply Medicine programmes to allies without needing to worry about normal range or line of sight restrictions – they can even undertake a regular Medicine first aid roll from a distance. 
'''Bioscanner''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to detect nearby life-signs and traces of organic matter. This allows the character to use Wits + Medicine for Perception rolls to detect living organisms or organic matter within a 100 yard range. 
'''Decoy-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a decoy drone. Through complex bio-mimicry, the drone projects both a holographic decoy of the character, combined with realistic life-sign emissions that can fool basic scans and senses. The character can set the decoy on a basic 'idle' animation, can pre-record up to 5 minutes of voice and movement (including triggers to activate recorded speech), or can directly steer the decoy-drone's projection on a realtime basis. Observers must pass a Perception check with a penalty equal to the character's Medicine skill dots to note that something is off about the decoy; physically interacting with the decoy will immediately show it to be a holographic projection with a drone at its heart, as will other actions that show its nature.
'''Med-Drone Programming'': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced medical assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Medicine skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Medi-Gel Overseer''': A continually running VI programme monitors and adjusts the application of medi-gel to deal with injuries. Whenever the character uses a charge of medi-gel for healing purposes, either on themselves or others, they may roll Intelligence + Medicine. If they achieve as many or more successes as the target has injured health points, the total Bashing or Lethal health points healed is increased by 1. 
'''Medical Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Medicine skill checks, other than for the use of charged Medicine programmes. 
'''Medical Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for medical purposes. 

===Science===

Scientific programmes are often complex systems and containment routines for fabricating, mixing and handling unstable or exotic materials, as well as suites of assessment programmes to analyse the results.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Cryo-Material Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a round containing a mixture of chemicals that will undergo a cryogenic reaction when deployed. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Science but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. Should the attack hit, it deals no damage but douses the target in the freezing gases, inflicting a -2 penalty on all physical action rolls (including attacks) and reducing their Speed by 5 for 1 round. 
'''Hyperscan''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to emit a pulse that can detect nearby unusual or intense energy signatures and matter concentrations. This allows the character to use Intelligence + Science for a Perception roll to detect and identify strong energy emissions or unusual matter within a 100 yard range. 
'''Incendiary Material Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a plasma round containing a mixture of chemicals that will undergo a n incendiary reaction when deployed. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Science but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. Should the attack hit, it deals no damage but douses the target and an area around them of 5 yard radius in flammable materials that immediately start burning with fierce intensity, and will continue to do so for a number of rounds equal to the character's Science skill dots. The fire inflicts 3L per turn, reduced by Armour as normal, but also grants all other attacks against a burning target Armour Piercing 1. As long as a burning target is able to remove themselves from the area of effect, they can put out the fire as a reflexive action on their turn. 
'''Pattern Recognition Algorithms''': A simple VI meshed with pattern recognition programming can perform a high-speed resource-intensive analysis. As an instant action, the character may make an Intelligence + Science roll to identify significant patterns in a set of available data or information. 
'''Rapid Matter Analysis''': A set of scanning programmes quickly analyse a sample of matter to provide a complete breakdown of its composition. As an instant action, the character may roll Intelligence + Science to get a full analysis of some sample matter, including chemical composition and properties. 
'''Unstable Materials''': A set of safety-boundary-pushing programmes allow the character to to increase the operational margins of instability in deployable materials. The character may expend this programme at the same time as an Incendiary, Cryo- or Toxic Materials Deployment programme to increase the radius of effect by 10 yards. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Energy Drone''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to direct energies into an attack. The character's remote drone gains the ability to make a 2L ranged attack at targets up to 15 yards away, using the character's Wits + Science as an attack pool. The remote drone may also serve as the origination of any Incendiary, Cryo- or Toxic Materials Deployment instead of the character. 
'''Energy Projection Modulation''': Advanced energy handling routines increase the omni-tool's output available for emission purposes. The character gains a +1 bonus to any attacks made with Tech Process programmes. 
'''Environmental Shielding''': A monitoring VI keeps vigilant watch over environmental diagnostics, adjusting and augmenting existing protective measures. The character adds their Science skill dots as a bonus to rolls to resist environmental effects such as extreme heat, cold or causticity, and adds 1 point of Armour to their Shield points against any direct attacks of these kinds. 
'''Full Spectrum Sensory Suite''': A top-of-the-range set of analytical and sensory programmes aid the character with close investigation. When they have the time to carefully go over a location, the character benefits from the 9-again rule on Perception and Investigation checks. 
'''Lab-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced lab assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Science skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Mass Shielding Matrix''': Subtle distortion emissions are carefully controlled to interfere with any biotic attacks on the character. Biotic attacks that target the character, even if only due to them being in the area of effect, suffer an additional -1 penalty. 
'''Scientific Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Science skill checks, other than for the use of charged Science programmes. 
'''Scientific Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for scientific purposes. 

[[Mass:_the_Effecting |Back to main page]]

Mass: the Effecting/Hard-Won Experience

2012-03-14T23:16:20Z

Acrozatarim:

=Hard-Won Experience=

In Mass: The Effecting, your character possesses one of the six Archetype minor templates. As well as a special active and passive ability, this template gives your character a number of points to spend on Biotic, Combat Training and Tech talents, marking them out through their exceptional capabilities.

Each type of Archetype talent is distinct from the other two. Biotic talents are potent, specific uses of biotic power, draining to use but devastating in effect. Combat Training talents passively enhance a character's existing abilities or opening up new options in combat. Tech talents grant a great deal of flexibility through high-performance omni-tool programmes that augment and aid one of four skills – Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine and Science.

Each talent category is actually made up of 3 or 4 talents – so the Combat Training talents are Assault, Command, Guardian and Tactical. Your character can have up to 5 dots in a particular talent.

While your character's starting talent allocation is constrained by their Archetype, you can purchase any kind of talent for them with your character's experience points as the chronicle progresses. An Adept can acquire Combat Training talents to help them survive the battles they keep finding themselves in, and a Soldier can pick up some Tech programming tricks. However, if you wish to purchase Biotic talents with a non-Biotic Archetype, you should either make some concession to this in your starting character concept (such as the character having biotic potential but never getting the implants or training to use it) or something should have happened to enable this. Non-biotic individuals are simply unable to spontaneously start using biotic powers due to the way biotics work in the Mass Effect setting.

The experience cost for buying dots in a talent with experience points is equal to new dots x 5. If your Archetype has only one category of talent, then the cost of buying dots in that category is new dots x 3. If your Archetype has two categories of talent, then the cost of buying dots in those categories is new dots x 4.

''For example, a Soldier who wishes to increase their Command Training purchases at new dots x 3, as Commant is a Combat Training talent and the Soldier Archetype only has the Combat Training category. A Vanguard who wishes to increase their Command Training or Integration Discipline talents purchases at new dots x 4, since the Vanguard Archetype has the Combat Training and Biotic categories. Both Soldier and Vanguard pay new dots x 5 for Tech talents, as neither has the Tech category.''

==Biotic Talents==

Biotics are capable of controlling mass effect fields due to nodules of element zero in their bodies. This can grant them tremendous power, but requires the use of implants and biotic amps to fully exploit. Biotic use also comes at a cost – it puts a huge drain on the user's metabolism, increasing their energy intake needs by a ferocious amount and building up static charge in their bodies to sometimes dangerous levels.

The different biotic talents are referred to as Disciplines. The three Disciplines are Distortion, Integration and Kinetics. Each point in a Discipline allows the character to pick a single power from the Discipline's list, granting the character the capability to use that power at will. These powers are picked when the dots are acquired and cannot be changed.

''Using Biotic Powers'': Using a biotic power usually involves rolling a dice pool of Resolve plus the character's dots in the relevant Discipline, with a variety of effects depending on the power in question. Using a power also requires that a cost be paid. This cost is in points of Bashing damage or Willpower, and possibly both. Points of Armour rating do not reduce the amount of damage taken from using biotic powers.

Unless otherwise noted, using a biotic power is an instant action. Biotic powers that target characters or locations other than the biotic themselves require line of sight.

Biotic powers require at least some freedom of movement to act, as biotic users are trained to use mudras to activate their implants and nervous systems in particular ways. Restraining a biotic is an effective way to prevent them from using their capabilities.

''Boosting Biotic Powers'': A biotic character can choose to boost a power, pushing themselves to the limit to empower themselves further. This increases the cost of the power, as noted in the boost's entry.

''Willpower Points and Biotic Powers'': Willpower points spent to activate or boost a biotic power do not count towards the one point of Willpower that a character can normally spend per turn to increase their dice pool or defences. A character could conceivably activate a biotic power that costs 1 point of Willpower, its boost that costs another point of Willpower and then spend their one point of Willpower per turn for a +3 bonus to the activation dice pool.

''Kinetics and Countering'': A biotic may choose to spend their turn's action countering the Kinetic abilities of another biotic within 25 yards. If they do so, they may take no other action but inflict a penalty on all Kinetic power rolls by the target equal to their own dots in the Kinetic discipline.

===Distortion===

Distortion is the Discipline of molecular agitation and the manipulation of mass to distort and warp.

'''Haze'''

This technique uses low-level distortion fields to create a shell of warped spacetime around an area, interfering with any sorts of senses or perception attempting to cross the shell's edge. To the outside world, the hazed air looks like warped, shimmering glass.

Haze affects an area centred on the biotic with a radius of Resolve x 5 yards. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Any attempts to perceive by any means (sight, hearing, radar etc) into the area covered by Haze suffer a penalty equal to the biotic's Resolve, and indeed need to make Perception or other appropriate rolls in the first place. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the effect can be placed within 50 yards instead of being centred on the biotic. 

'''Reave'''

This technique unleashes a powerful distortion field into the target's nervous or synthetic systems, causing a crippling overload.

Reave affects a single target up to 200 yards away. Roll Resolve + Distortion against an opposed roll of the target's Stamina. Success results in the target suffering wound penalties as if they had their last three health points filled with damage, with a duration of the biotic's Resolve in rounds. The penalty isn't cumulative with any existing wound penalties the target is already suffering, and can be reduced as normal by effects such as Iron Stamina. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Reave nullifies any healing from any source during its duration, and it inflicts the -3 wound penalty in addition to any existing wound penalties, regardless of any Iron Stamina or other reductions. 

'''Scramble'''

Scramble unleashes a thrashing flux of mass effect fields around the biotic, warping and distorting gravity and space.

Scramble affects an area centred on the biotic with a radius of Resolve x 3 yards. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Everyone other than the biotic in the area of effect suffers a -2 penalty to their Speed, and to any attack rolls and Athletics-based rolls that they make. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1B, the -2 penalty to attack rolls also applies to any ranged attacks made against the biotic from outside Scramble's area. 

'''Singularity'''

Singularity uses distortion to punch a gravity well into the fabric of spacetime, dragging anyone nearby towards its centre.

Choose a point within 100 yards; this is where the singularity appears, affecting an area Resolve x 5 yards in radius. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Anyone in the area of effect must succeed in a Strength + Athletics check penalised by the biotic's Resolve in order to move in any direction other than directly towards the singularity, with successes equal to the number of yards they can move in a direction they wish. On the biotic's turn every round, everyone in the area of effect gets pulled 5 yards towards the singularity. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, increase the number of yards the singularity pulls each round by the biotic's Resolve. 

'''Warp'''

Warp creates rapidly shifting mass effect fields that tear a target apart.

Warp is used as a ranged attack by the biotic, with a short range of 100 yards and no medium or long range. This power uses Resolve + Distortion as its attack pool and is affected by other situational modifiers, such as cover, just as a normal ranged attack. If Warp hits, it has a Damage rating equal to the biotic's Resolve, with added damage from successes as normal.

If the target is already under the effect of another biotic power, Warp causes a biotic explosion. This increases its' Damage rating by 1 against the target, and inflicts a 3L explosion centred on the target with a radius equal to the biotic's Resolve in yards. The pre-existing biotic power immediately ends if it is a Distortion or Kinetic power. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, Warp grants all attacks against the target Armour Piercing 1 for a number of rounds equal to Resolve. 

===Integration===

Integration is the biotic discipline of molecular integration, using mass effect fields to strengthen and control the fabric of spacetime around the user.

'''Barrier'''

Barrier protects the biotic with mass effect fields in the same way as technological kinetic barrier generators.

Barrier provides the biotic with a number of biotic Shield levels equal to Resolve. These shield levels do not stack with any existing Shield levels, but will overwrite them if existing Shield levels are lower than the biotic's Resolve. Roll Resolve + Integration, with the biotic gaining a +1 bonus to resist attempts to knock them down or move them around for each success on the dice roll, as long as Barrier is in effect. Barrier lasts one scene, or until the Shield levels are lost. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Barrier can be activated as a Reflexive action. 

'''Charge'''

Charge encases the biotic in a mass effect field and launches them forwards at high velocity, akin to the technique employed by mass relays.

Charge allows the biotic to move up to their Speed x Resolve in yards in a straight line at near-instantaneous speed. This power doesn't allow them to pass through solid obstacles but they may go straight over gaps of up to their Speed in yards without any need for jumping checks. Roll Resolve + Integration, with each success increasing the biotic's Defence by 1; this effect lasts 1 round.

The biotic may still make a melee or ranged attack after using Charge. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic does not need to Charge in a straight line and may make any number of turns along the way, they may also cover a gap of twice their Speed in yards. 

'''Smite'''

Smite uses mass effect fields to empower the biotic's unarmed strikes with immense force.

Smite is a reflexive action used to augment an unarmed attack. It increases the Damage rating of the unarmed attack by an amount equal to the biotic's Resolve, and the biotic may choose to make the damage Lethal rather than Bashing. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Smite augments all unarmed attacks the biotic makes for one additional round. 

'''Stasis'''

Stasis simply locks the target into place with integrated mass effect fields that prevent them from moving.

Choose a target within 50 yards. The target must make a Strength check, with a penalty imposed of up to the biotic's Resolve at the biotic's choice. If the target achieves no successes, they are locked in place for 1 round and are completely unable to act in any way. However, they gain additional Armour equal to the penalty that the biotic applied to their strength check, affecting all attacks whether against Shield levels or health levels, and which is cumulative with existing Armour.

''For example, a biotic with Resolve 5 chooses to apply a -3 penalty to a target's Strength check. Since the target only has Strength 3, this reduces them to a chance die. They fail, and are locked in place for 1 round. During this round, they benefit from an additional 3 points of Armour against all attacks.''

''Cost'': 1 Willpower point. 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the target gains no Armour from Stasis. 

'''Wall'''

Wall uses similar mass effect fields to Barrier and Stasis to forge a layer of integrated mass effect fields across an area.

The Wall power creates a wall of biotic force that is up to Resolve x 2 yards wide and high. The centre point of the wall's line must be within 5 yards of the biotic when created. Roll Resolve + Integration; the Wall has a number of Shield levels equal to 5 + successes rolled. The Wall can serve as cover and an obstacle, preventing any movement through it. Attackers may choose to attack the Wall directly; it has Armour equal to the Biotic's Resolve.

The Wall remains present as long as the biotic is within 5 yards of it. If he moves away, creates a new Wall, or the Wall's Shield levels are lost, it immediately ceases to exist. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower, the biotic may make a Wall that will exist even after moving 5 yards away from it, or he may turn it into a shell of up to Resolve x 2 yards radius centred on himself. 

===Kinetics===

Kinetics is the biotic discipline of directly applying force through mass effect fields.

'''Glide'''

The Glide technique involves applying kinetic mass effect fields to the biotic themselves, allowing them to defy the forces of gravity through fine biotic control.

Roll Resolve + Kinetics, with Glide lasting for a number of rounds equal to successes rolled. While Glide is in effect, the biotic can reduce the distance they fall each round to any speed including zero, and they suffer no falling damage when making contact with the ground. If they continue to have some downward velocity, they may also move sideways in any direction up to their Resolve in yards per round. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can move in any direction at all for up to their Resolve in yards per round, without any requirement to continue moving down. This allows the biotic to 'fly' upwards if they wish. 

'''Lift'''

The Lift technique uses mass effect fields to pull the target up into the air.

Choose a target within 100 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. The target is lifted a number of yards equal to successes rolled, lasting for the biotic's Resolve in rounds. A gentle drift can be applied to the target as they are lifted if desired, so they will move 1 yard per round in a particular direction.

The Lifted target is not incapacitated and may continue to try and act by firing, trying to grab hold of something, and so forth.

Lifting larger, heavier targets is more difficult. For each full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Resolve + Kinetics roll suffers an additional –2 penalty, so lifting a small car (Size 10) would inflict a -2 penalty on the roll. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Lift of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

'''Slam'''

Slam uses fine control over a rapid flux in mass effect fields to exert huge force on a target, picking them up and slamming them down again.

Choose a target within 30 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics as an attack with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. Slam is not affected by other conditional modifiers such as cover. If Slam hits, it has a Damage rating equal to the biotic's Resolve, with added damage from successes as normal. The target is also knocked prone. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Slam of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

'''Shockwave'''

The Shockwave technique unleashes a powerful mass effect field that pulses out in a crashing wave, knocking targets from their feet.

Choose which direction the Shockwave emits, resulting in an area of effect starting at the biotic that is 5 yards wide and 5 x Resolve yards long. Make a Resolve + Kinetics roll once; each target in the area must oppose this with their own Strength roll. If they lose, they are knocked prone. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point. 
''Boost'': For 1B, all targets automatically fail their Strength check. 

'''Throw'''

Throw exerts a strong mass effect field to catapult the target in a particular direction.

Choose a target within 100 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics as an attack with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. The target is hurled in a chosen direction for a distance of up to successes x 5 yards, and suffering Bashing damage in successes if they hit something. The target must make a Dexterity + Athletics roll with a penalty equal to the biotic's Resolve, or be knocked down.

This power can also be used to pick up objects and hurl them at people, inflicting Bashing damage equal to successes if the Throw can reach the target with the object. This has the benefit of most thrown objects not possessing Shield levels.

Lifting larger, heavier targets is more difficult. For each full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Resolve + Kinetics roll suffers an additional –2 penalty, so lifting a small car (Size 10) would inflict a -2 penalty on the roll. However, for every full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Damage inflicted by a thrown object increases by 2. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Throw of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

==Combat Training Talents==

Combat in the Mass Effect setting is fast, lethal and dangerous, thanks to the cutting edge technology deployed on the battlefields of the galaxy. Personal protection from armour and shields only goes so far towards securing victory – the rest comes from the training and talent of the commanders and troops themselves.

The different combat training talents are called Regimens. The four Regimens are Assault, Command, Guardian and Tactical. Each point in a Regimen allows the character to pick a single power from the Regimen's list, granting the character the benefits of that power. These powers are picked when the dots are acquired and cannot be changed.

The Command Training Regimen works slightly differently from the others, as noted in its description below.

''Using Combat Training Powers'': Most Combat Training powers grant their benefits all the time. Some allow the character to use new options in combat, such as Suppressive Fire; the character can choose when to use these options and when not to, and no cost is attached to doing so.

===Assault Training===

Assault training often covers close-quarter combat, ambushes, storming defensive positions and blitzkrieg insertion into hot zones.

'''Agility''': Through a mixture of free-running and combat training, the character can ignore terrain penalties on their movement of an amount up to their dots in Dexterity; so a character with Dexterity 4 could ignore up to -4 in penalties. Ladders, crates, low walls and so forth are easy for this character to handle. Their speed is also increased by 1. 
'''Ambush''': The character is an expert at close, covert work. When attacking an opponent who is not aware of the character, they add a +2 bonus to the Damage rating of their attack. Perception rolls made to hear the character attacking suffer a -2 penalty. 
'''Carnage''': The character is an expert in dealing death with short-ranged weapons in close quarters. When firing at a target within the short-range of a pistol or shotgun, the character benefits from the 9-again rule, or 8-again if the weapon already has 9-again. 
'''Close Quarters Combatant''': The character possesses advanced close combat training. They ignore penalties to their Defence caused by multiple melee attackers, may choose to deal Lethal damage with their unarmed attacks, and benefit from the 9-again rule when making unarmed strikes. 
'''Combat Drop Training''': The character has been trained for rapid-deployment assaults into hot zones. When dropping into combat with armour-jets, from an aircraft or from orbit, the character is able to act on the same round they touch down and suffers no other penalties due to combat drops. They also treat all Piloting checks with armour-jets as rote actions. 
'''Hard Target''': Keeping a low profile and moving fast, the character renders themselves a hard target for attackers. If they move at least 5 yards during their turn, all ranged attacks against them suffer an additional -1 penalty on their attack pools. Running increases the penalty to -2. 
'''Shock Trooper''': The character has the training and experience of a hardened shock trooper and is used to running through hails of bullets and explosions without flinching. The character reduces all penalties suffered from the combat environment by 1, such as from suppressive fire, concealment granted by smoke grenades and so forth. They benefit from a +2 bonus to any dice pool to resist knock-downs, stuns and other disorientation effects, while their Speed is increased by 1. 
'''Slam''': Harnessing their raw strength, the character slams foes to the ground. After a successful melee attack at the end of a charge action, the target of the attack must make a Strength check. If they fail to get as many successes as the points of damage taken from the attack, they are knocked down. This technique is a favourite of Krogan. 

===Command Training===

Command training prepares a character for the rigours of commanding a team in a combat environment, whether a naval commander overseeing their crew from the bridge of a spaceship or a black ops squad leader directing their team through an intense firefight.

Command Training works differently to the other talents available in Combat Training. Rather than offering a new power with every dot, the character instead gains one additional die into the group's Command pool, a pool of dice that refreshes each scene from which the whole group of characters can benefit. These dice can be drawn on for specific purposes by any characters who are in communications-range of one of the Commanding characters.

''For example, a Soldier has Command 4, putting 4 dice into the Command pool. Another character in the group, a Vanguard, has Command 2, increasing the total dice in the Command pool to 6. At the beginning of every scene, this pool refreshes back up to 6 dice, no matter how many of the dice have been spent in the prior scene.''

As long as one of the characters with Command allows it, anyone in the group can take dice from the pool for the purposes noted below, including the characters with the Command talent themselves. A character can take up to their Wits in dice from the pool in a single turn, and can spend them all on one roll or purpose if desired.

Command dice can be:

'''Concentrate Fire''': Added directly to an attack dice pool, before rolling. 
'''Co-Ordinate Action''': Added directly to a secondary actor's teamwork dice pool to aid a primary actor with their action. 
'''Priority Target''': Added directly to the Damage rating of an attack against a target who is knocked down, held by a mass effect field, on fire, frozen, stunned or otherwise vulnerable, before rolling the attack pool. 
'''Ready For Action''': Added as a bonus to a character's Initiative score after rolling in the first round of combat, adding +1 per die used. 
'''Take Cover''': Applied as an additional penalty to an attack roll against a character who is in cover, augmenting the normal cover penalty by -1 per die used, before rolling the attack pool. 
'''Stay Alert''': Added directly to a Perception dice pool, before rolling. 

===Guardian Training===

Guardian training demands the very best of a character physically, pushing them to their limits and beyond to help them and others stay alive.

'''Bastion''': The character knows how to angle armour plating, shift their profile and minimise the damage from incoming fire. If wearing armour, the character benefits from a +1 to their Armour against any ranged attackers in front of them, as long as they haven't moved this turn. 
'''Berserker''': When taking at least one point of Lethal damage, the character may choose to enter a rage, gaining a temporary +2 bonus to Stamina and Resolve and becoming immune to penalties inflicted by suppressive fire. This does result in them gaining two health levels during the rage but, while the health levels are lost once the rage subsides, any damage taken is kept. Many Krogan enter a berserker rage in battle when wounded. 
'''Bodyguard''': The Character has the reflexes and training of a bodyguard, able to protect others with their own body. They can choose to serve as cover for allies when they are between the ally and attacker or are adjacent to that ally, inflicting a -1 cover penalty on attacks that increases to -2 if the bodyguard is carrying a ballistic shield.. This increases to -2 if the ally is willing to allow the bodyguard to drop them prone and shield the ally with their whole body, increasing again to -3 if the bodyguard is in heavy armour or is carrying a ballistic shield. 
'''Fitness''': The character is in excellent physical condition and has two permanent additional health points. 
'''Resilient''': Fists, batons, concussion grenades... Not much phases this character. They benefit from an additional point of Armour against all Bashing attacks, even when not actually wearing armour, and gain a +1 bonus to dice pools to resist stuns and knock-downs. 
'''Second Skin''': The character has the training and experience to treat armour like a second skin, entirely comfortable with its power servos and weight distribution. The character benefits from a +1 to their Defence and Speed while wearing armour. 
'''Survivor''': The character is too tough or just too damn stubborn to stay down, regardless of his injuries. He never falls unconscious as a result of having all his health boxes filled with damage, and doesn't need to succeed on a Stamina roll to do so. 
'''Vigilant''': The character is ever-vigilant for danger. If the character is or becomes aware of an attacker targeting an unaware ally, and the character is within communications range of that ally, the ally becomes aware of the impending attack immediately. The character's Initiative is also increased by 1. 

===Tactical Training===

Tactical training prepares the character for the rapidly changing environment of the battlefield, allowing them to react to new threats swiftly and to apply their own firepower with devastating effect.

'''Advancing Fire''': The character may fire when running, suffering a -3 penalty to their attack roll for doing so. 
'''Heavy Weapons Training''': The character is experienced in handling support weaponry, and ignores any penalties and restrictions from the Heavy Weapon trait. 
'''Marksman''': The character is a skilled marksman. Whenever the character takes at least one aim action with a weapon that has the 9-again trait (apart from shotguns), they benefit from the 8-again rule on the attack dice pool made with the aiming bonus. 
'''Outflank''': The character knows how the make the most of an outmanoeuvred enemy's weakness. Attacking a target in the flank or rear when an ally has engaged them from the front grants the character a +1 bonus to attack rolls. 
'''Sniper''': The character has the patience and talent of a skilled sniper. After using the aim action and firing at a target, the character does not lose his aiming bonus as long as he continues to fire at the same target and does not have his line of sight to them broken. He may even continue to take further aim actions to increase his aiming bonus, subject to the usual +3 aiming bonus cap. 
''For example, a sniper could aim once for a +1 bonus, fire, aim again for a total of +2, fire again, etc.'' 
'''Squad Reflexes''': After rolling for Initiative at the beginning of combat, but before the first round begins, the character can choose to shift their Initiative to match that of one ally within communications range. The character's Initiative is also increased by 1. 
'''Suppressive Fire''': There's a line between effective suppressive fire and just wasting shots. The character may sacrifice the bonus attack dice from autofire to apply it instead as a penalty to the ranged attack rolls of the target for one round. This can be applied to multiple targets as per the normal autofire rules, but it does incur the usual attack dice penalty – so hosing down three targets with long-burst autofire for suppressive fire applies the -3 penalty to all of them but also leaves the character with a -3 penalty on his attack rolls. Suppressive fire doesn't work against opponents who are simply unable to take cover, or are too heavily armoured or mindless to care. 
'''Weapon Drill''': Unloading, reloading and returning to the task of providing fire support is a well-oiled practice for the character. Reloading is a reflexive action as long as the replacement heat clip is to hand (such as in armour webbing or laid out within reach). 

==Tech Talents==

Advanced technology permeates the fabric of society in Mass Effect, and is a key part of life for any technician, engineer, scientist or doctor. Omni-tools are common, multi-purpose personal computational devices that serve as micro-fabrication facilities, interfacing tools and diagnostic systems. Those with the knowledge and skill can use their omni-tool to run enhanced programmes and VIs that can hack, overload or scan to great effect.

The different tech talents are called Processes. The four Processes are Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine and Science, and each is associated with the Mental skill of the same name. Each point in a Process allows the character to run a single programme of that type concurrently on their omni-tool. Unlike Disciplines and Regimens, the exact programme run in the Process slot is not permanent and can be easily changed for other programmes of a similar kind.

''Using Tech Powers'': A character's omni-tool can have a number of programmes for each type of Process stored in its library, as listed under the omni-tool's entry in the Elkoss Combine Catalogue. The character has a number of Process slots equal to their dots in that Process; each slot can run one programme in it.

Programmes come in two types – running and charged. Running programmes are passive, giving a bonus or opening up an option as long as they are in a slot. Charged programmes are expended when they are used, and remain expended for the rest of the scene; they rely on stored power that needs to recharge, need to take time to fabricate some complex new materials, or are otherwise unavailable.

''For example, a character with 3 dots in the Engineering Process and 1 dot in the Medicine Process could have Shield Modulation, Shield Boost and Overload in his Engineering slots and Defibrillator Pulse in his Medicine slot.''

Whenever dice rolls are called for by a tech power and refer to Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine or Science, they refer to the character's skill dots and not the dots in that Process talent.

''Swapping Programmes'': A character can swap out any programme for any other programme available in their omni-tool's library between scenes or in situations where there is no time pressure, without needing to roll. A programme can be selected multiple times, but running programmes give no benefit for doing so. In the case of a charged programme, running it in multiple slots makes multiple uses available per scene.

During action or combat, swapping programmes is considerably more difficult, especially if the omni-tools processors are already busy running a dozen other programmes at the same time. Doing so is a full action for the character's turn, wherein they must make roll Intelligence + the skill associated with the Process in question, with a penalty equal to the number of running programmes of that Process currently active. An expended programme's slot cannot be replaced in this way during a scene, but a running programme or an unused charged programme can be.

''For example, a character with 3 dots in the Engineering Process, 4 dots in the Engineering skill and 3 dots of Intelligence has two running programmes and a charged programme in their Process slots. During combat, they want to replace one of the running programmes with a more situation-appropriate charged programme. Doing so requires that they roll Intelligence + Engineering, a dice pool of 7, with a penalty of -2 dice for the two running programmes. This leaves them with 5 dice; any success means they have successfully swapped the running programme to the new charged programme.''

''Changing Libraries'': A character may wish to change the programmes they have available in their omni-tool's library. This requires that they either access a database with more programmes archived in it, or that they write a new programme themselves. The latter is time-consuming and very difficult, whereas the former often incurs the cost of purchasing licenses for a programme from a company. Many employers provide access to basic programmes to their staff, such as the line of Analysis programmes; getting access to a more questionable programme such as Overload is somewhat more difficult, requiring either money or military or criminal contacts.

''Scanners'': Several running programmes allow the character to use an omni-tool's facilities to replace Composure with a skill in Perception checks, for the purposes of detecting particular substances or systems. These scans can still suffer from various penalties to the Perception check and, while they can detect through some solid materials, suffer increasing degradation of signal the further they have to go.

===Engineering===

Engineering programmes focus on improving hardware and mechanical processes, whether vehicles and armour or shield modulations.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Emergency Infiltration Protocol''': This is a batch of processes with an emergency power cell for re-establishing a stealth field immediately. The character can expend the programme to activate a stealth field (if they have one) as a reflexive action instead of as an instant action. 
'''Fortification''': Through highly efficient management routines and incoming fire calculations, the power flows and fluid dynamics of armour can be momentarily reinforced. As a reflexive action, roll Wits + Engineering to increase Armour by the number of successes for 1 round. 
'''Neural Shock''': The programme discharges a pulse of electrical current that plays havoc with a target's nervous system. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Engineering versus the Stamina roll of a target within 30 yards. On a success, the target is stunned for 1 round, increased to 2 rounds on an exceptional success. 
'''Overload''': The programme discharges a carefully controlled pulse of electrical current that plays havoc with a target's shields, overloading kinetic barriers. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Engineering to deal damage to the Shield levels of a target within 50 yards – this power does no damage to health levels. If the character has multiple Overload programmes ready, they can all be expended at the same time; each Overload may affect a new target within 5 yards of the last, and the same target cannot be affected twice. 
'''Shield Boost''': The programme runs emergency power management routines to reestablish shield integrity. As a reflexive action, roll Wits + Engineering, restoring a number of lost Shield points to the character or an ally within 25 yards equal to the number of successes rolled. If the character has multiple Shield Boost programmes readied, they can all be expended at the same time; each Boost may target a new ally within 5 yards of the last target, and the same target cannot be affected twice. 
'''Shield Burst''': The programme dumps all remaining kinetic barrier energy into a controlled output. As a reflexive action, the character loses all remaining Shield points. A blast is centred on the character with a radius equal to the number of Shield points lost. Roll Wits + Engineering, dealing successes as Lethal damage to all characters within the area of effect. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Armour Subsystem Management''': Complex power management routines allow for additional energy demands to be handled. As long as this programme is running, the character can make used of a secondary armour mod, allowing them to benefit from both mods at once. 
'''Engineering Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Engineering skill checks, other than for the use of charged Engineering programmes. 
'''Engineering Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for engineering purposes. 
'''Omni-Blade Power Rerouting''': As well as fabricating a keen-edged one-use blade, the omni-tool's power systems divert additional power into the strike. This increases the Damage rating of an omni-blade by 1, and grants 9-again on attacks made with it. 
'''Rig-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced engineering assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Engineering skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Shield Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a shield emitter. The character's remote drone grants a +2 bonus to the maximum Shield points of all allies within 20 yards. 
'''Shield Modulation''': A VI's ongoing shield management processes ensure that a shield restores its integrity at a more rapid rate than normal. The character can reflexively restore 1 Shield point on their turn, as long as they have not been hit by any attacks since their last turn. 
'''Vehicle Control Subsystems''': Advanced integration programmes allow the character to enhance their control of a vehicle, granting the 9-again rule to Piloting checks. 

===Interfacing===

Interfacing programmes include routines for research, data analysis, scanning and hacking; for interfacing experts, information and its denial is the name of the game.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Comms Tap''': A rapid-fire codebreaker VI allows the character to attempt to break in to a communications channel as an instant action. Roll Intelligence + Interfacing, with successes giving the number of minutes that the character can listen in without the users being aware. Heavy-duty encryption can impose a penalty on the roll – standard military comm channels inflict a -3 penalty, with more difficult hacking targets increasing from there. 
'''Haywire''': By unleashing chaos programmes that hammer at any networked systems nearby, the character compromises equipment and armaments. Roll Intelligence + Interfacing as a reflexive action to affect an area of up to successes x 5 yards in radius. All tech devices within this area suffer a -1 penalty to rolls using them for 2 rounds, including firearms' attack dice pools. 
'''Lock-Hack''': A common (and usually illegal) programme for brute-forcing electronic locking systems, a Lock-Hack allows the character to attempt to open a lock as an extended Wits + Interfacing action with one roll representing one turn of work. The number of successes required depends on the quality of the lock in question. This is a crude electronic intrusion and will trigger alarms or alerts to the system, but it gets the job done quickly. 
'''Mask''': Careful infiltration protocols and data-masks shut down the character's network trace. Roll Wits + Interfacing as a reflexive action to immediately 'go silent' for a number of rounds equal to successes rolled, rendering the character's presence on a network untraceable by others. This also serves to render the character undetectable for the duration to any attempts to locate them with technological scans for data signals. 
'''Overheat'': Through a pre-prepared remote rapid hack VI, a weapon's heat sinks can be tampered with. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Interfacing against a target with a penalty based on the largest weapon to be overheated (-1 for a pistol, -2 for a rifle) and a -1 penalty for each additional weapon to be overheated past the first. Success results in all targeted weapons overheating, expending the full capacity of their current heat clip. This programme can even be used reflexive at the moment that a target is about to make an attack action, leaving them pulling the trigger for no effect, but suffers an additional -5 penalty for attempting the hack so fast. 
'''Subvert Synthetic''': A set of programmes that allow the character to try and hack a synthetic's systems on the fly. As an instant action, roll Wits + Interfacing opposed by the target synthetic or AI's Wits + remaining Shield points. Success give the character control of the synthetic for a number of rounds equal to successes. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Interfacing Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Interfacing skill checks, other than for the use of charged Interfacing programmes. 
'''Interfacing Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for interfacing purposes. 
'''Passive Scanning Programme''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to detect active net systems and ID them including active programmes running on omni-tools, armour and weaponry. This allows the character to use Wits + Interfacing for Perception rolls to detect these systems within a 100 yard range, or further if a signal is particularly strong. 
'''Rapid Data Analysis''': An advanced analysis VI and sifting programmes aid to rapidly identify and acquire relevant information vai the extranet or accessed databases. The character has their research times halved when attempting to acquire information via modern tech methods. If they have to actually read a set of old tomes in a pre-tech library, for example, then they're out of luck. 
'''Scout Drone''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a scout and sensor. The character's remote drone grants a +2 bonus to Perception checks, including those made via scanning programmes, and has superior sensory feedback allowing it to transmit full video feeds and readouts as long as it is within communications range of the character. 
'''Secure Routines''': Reactive defensive VI programmes inflict a penalty equal to the character's Interfacing skill on attempts to hack the equipment or systems that the character controls. 
'''Vehicle Interface Programming''': Advanced integration routines augment the character's interfacing with vehicular sensor suites. Perception checks made via a vehicle's sensors and scanners benefit from the 9-again rule. 
'''Sys-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced systems assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Interfacing skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 

===Medicine===

Medical programmes largely focus on subsystems for monitoring patients, administering emergency assistance and aiding with recovery from injuries and sickness; they also augment medical and biological analysis facilities.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Defibrillator Pulse''': The omni-tool discharges a pulse of energy into the patient to jolt them back to awareness. As a reflexive action, the character can target an unconscious character within 5 yards, rolling Intelligence + Medicine. Success brings the target back round to consciousness, unless they are unable to do so due to being drugged, for example. The pulse can be combined together with an Emergency Medi-Gel Application programme into one reflexive action on a single target. 
'''Emergency Medi-Gel Application''': Emergency medical management systems kick into action, allowing the character to direct the treatment to where it will be most effective. As a reflexive action, the character can target themselves or an ally within 5 yards with the programme, rolling Intelligence + Medicine with a penalty equal to any wound penalties that the target is currently suffering. On a success, expend one of the target's medi-gel doses for an immediate healing effect of 1L or 3B. 
'''Hypodermic Dart''': The onboard fabrication systems forge a hypodermic sliver of metal, loaded with carefully tailored toxins. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 30 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Medicine but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. The dart has a Damage rating of 1L with additional damage added from successes as normal but, if it inflicts any points of damage to the target's health points, it applies a Toxicity 2 poison dealing Bashing damage that forces the target to succeed at a Stamina check or fall unconscious. 
'''Medical Threat Analysis''': A diagnostic VI interfaces with the omni-tools sensors to quickly assess any medical hazards present. As a reflexive action, the character can roll Intelligence + Medicine for a near-instantaneous analysis of any chemical, biological or radioactive hazards present in the environment, the character, or a target within 5 yards – so it can identify if a character has been poisoned, or what the local radioactivity levels are. 
'''Stimulant Injection System''': Biological monitoring programmes aid with calculating precisely the right levels of stimulants to be injected into the body. As a reflexive action, the character may increase their Dexterity score by 1, lasting a number of rounds equal to their number of Medicine skill dots. This also affects all allies linked in via a Biological Monitor programme. 
'''Toxic Cleansing Programme''': Rapid assessment of hazardous toxins affecting the body allows for a tailored chemical response to be quickly deployed into the bloodstream. As an instant action, the character may roll Intelligence + Medicine versus a roll of the Toxicity of a poison affecting themselves or a character within 5 yards. Success results in the poison being neutralised. Extremely exotic or totally unknown toxins may inflict a further penalty on the roll. 
'''Toxic Materials Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a round containing a dangerous cocktail of toxic materials, hurling them away via a magnetic pulse. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Medicine but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. The attack deals no damage but fills an area around the target of 10 yards radius with caustic fumes for a number of rounds equal to the character's Medicine skill dots. This acts as a Toxicity 4 poison dealing Lethal damage via inhalation. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Background Toxicity Monitor''': A background monitoring VI handles automated countermeasures against toxic factors. The character benefits from a +2 bonus to all rolls to resist disease, poison, infection and other biological or chemical agents. This also affects all allies linked in via a Biological Monitor programme. 
'''Biological Monitor''': A suite of readouts and diagnostics provide unparalleled information on the life-signs of networked allies. The character always knows the exact health levels of all allies within communications range, and can apply Medicine programmes to allies without needing to worry about normal range or line of sight restrictions – they can even undertake a regular Medicine first aid roll from a distance. 
'''Bioscanner''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to detect nearby life-signs and traces of organic matter. This allows the character to use Wits + Medicine for Perception rolls to detect living organisms or organic matter within a 100 yard range. 
'''Decoy-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a decoy drone. Through complex bio-mimicry, the drone projects both a holographic decoy of the character, combined with realistic life-sign emissions that can fool basic scans and senses. The character can set the decoy on a basic 'idle' animation, can pre-record up to 5 minutes of voice and movement (including triggers to activate recorded speech), or can directly steer the decoy-drone's projection on a realtime basis. Observers must pass a Perception check with a penalty equal to the character's Medicine skill dots to note that something is off about the decoy; physically interacting with the decoy will immediately show it to be a holographic projection with a drone at its heart, as will other actions that show its nature.
'''Med-Drone Programming'': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced medical assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Medicine skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Medi-Gel Overseer''': A continually running VI programme monitors and adjusts the application of medi-gel to deal with injuries. Whenever the character uses a charge of medi-gel for healing purposes, either on themselves or others, they may roll Intelligence + Medicine. If they achieve as many or more successes as the target has injured health points, the total Bashing or Lethal health points healed is increased by 1. 
'''Medical Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Medicine skill checks, other than for the use of charged Medicine programmes. 
'''Medical Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for medical purposes. 

===Science===

Scientific programmes are often complex systems and containment routines for fabricating, mixing and handling unstable or exotic materials, as well as suites of assessment programmes to analyse the results.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Cryo-Material Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a round containing a mixture of chemicals that will undergo a cryogenic reaction when deployed. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Science but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. Should the attack hit, it deals no damage but douses the target in the freezing gases, inflicting a -2 penalty on all physical action rolls (including attacks) and reducing their Speed by 5 for 1 round. 
'''Hyperscan''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to emit a pulse that can detect nearby unusual or intense energy signatures and matter concentrations. This allows the character to use Intelligence + Science for a Perception roll to detect and identify strong energy emissions or unusual matter within a 100 yard range. 
'''Incendiary Material Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a plasma round containing a mixture of chemicals that will undergo a n incendiary reaction when deployed. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Science but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. Should the attack hit, it deals no damage but douses the target and an area around them of 5 yard radius in flammable materials that immediately start burning with fierce intensity, and will continue to do so for a number of rounds equal to the character's Science skill dots. The fire inflicts 3L per turn, reduced by Armour as normal, but also grants all other attacks against a burning target Armour Piercing 1. As long as a burning target is able to remove themselves from the area of effect, they can put out the fire as a reflexive action on their turn. 
'''Pattern Recognition Algorithms''': A simple VI meshed with pattern recognition programming can perform a high-speed resource-intensive analysis. As an instant action, the character may make an Intelligence + Science roll to identify significant patterns in a set of available data or information. 
'''Rapid Matter Analysis''': A set of scanning programmes quickly analyse a sample of matter to provide a complete breakdown of its composition. As an instant action, the character may roll Intelligence + Science to get a full analysis of some sample matter, including chemical composition and properties. 
'''Unstable Materials''': A set of safety-boundary-pushing programmes allow the character to to increase the operational margins of instability in deployable materials. The character may expend this programme at the same time as an Incendiary, Cryo- or Toxic Materials Deployment programme to increase the radius of effect by 10 yards. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Energy Drone''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to direct energies into an attack. The character's remote drone gains the ability to make a 2L ranged attack at targets up to 15 yards away, using the character's Wits + Science as an attack pool. The remote drone may also serve as the origination of any Incendiary, Cryo- or Toxic Materials Deployment instead of the character. 
'''Energy Projection Modulation''': Advanced energy handling routines increase the omni-tool's output available for emission purposes. The character gains a +1 bonus to any attacks made with Tech Process programmes. 
'''Environmental Shielding''': A monitoring VI keeps vigilant watch over environmental diagnostics, adjusting and augmenting existing protective measures. The character adds their Science skill dots as a bonus to rolls to resist environmental effects such as extreme heat, cold or causticity, and adds 1 point of Armour to their Shield points against any direct attacks of these kinds. 
'''Full Spectrum Sensory Suite''': A top-of-the-range set of analytical and sensory programmes aid the character with close investigation. When they have the time to carefully go over a location, the character benefits from the 9-again rule on Perception and Investigation checks. 
'''Lab-Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced lab assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Science skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Mass Shielding Matrix''': Subtle distortion emissions are carefully controlled to interfere with any biotic attacks on the character. Biotic attacks that target the character, even if only due to them being in the area of effect, suffer an additional -1 penalty. 
'''Scientific Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Science skill checks, other than for the use of charged Science programmes. 
'''Scientific Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for scientific purposes. 

[[Mass:_the_Effecting |Back to main page]]

Mass: the Effecting/Hard-Won Experience

2012-03-14T23:13:32Z

Acrozatarim:

=Hard-Won Experience=

In Mass: The Effecting, your character possesses one of the six Archetype minor templates. As well as a special active and passive ability, this template gives your character a number of points to spend on Biotic, Combat Training and Tech talents, marking them out through their exceptional capabilities.

Each type of Archetype talent is distinct from the other two. Biotic talents are potent, specific uses of biotic power, draining to use but devastating in effect. Combat Training talents passively enhance a character's existing abilities or opening up new options in combat. Tech talents grant a great deal of flexibility through high-performance omni-tool programmes that augment and aid one of four skills – Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine and Science.

Each talent category is actually made up of 3 or 4 talents – so the Combat Training talents are Assault, Command, Guardian and Tactical. Your character can have up to 5 dots in a particular talent.

While your character's starting talent allocation is constrained by their Archetype, you can purchase any kind of talent for them with your character's experience points as the chronicle progresses. An Adept can acquire Combat Training talents to help them survive the battles they keep finding themselves in, and a Soldier can pick up some Tech programming tricks. However, if you wish to purchase Biotic talents with a non-Biotic Archetype, you should either make some concession to this in your starting character concept (such as the character having biotic potential but never getting the implants or training to use it) or something should have happened to enable this. Non-biotic individuals are simply unable to spontaneously start using biotic powers due to the way biotics work in the Mass Effect setting.

The experience cost for buying dots in a talent with experience points is equal to new dots x 5. If your Archetype has only one category of talent, then the cost of buying dots in that category is new dots x 3. If your Archetype has two categories of talent, then the cost of buying dots in those categories is new dots x 4.

''For example, a Soldier who wishes to increase their Command Training purchases at new dots x 3, as Commant is a Combat Training talent and the Soldier Archetype only has the Combat Training category. A Vanguard who wishes to increase their Command Training or Integration Discipline talents purchases at new dots x 4, since the Vanguard Archetype has the Combat Training and Biotic categories. Both Soldier and Vanguard pay new dots x 5 for Tech talents, as neither has the Tech category.''

==Biotic Talents==

Biotics are capable of controlling mass effect fields due to nodules of element zero in their bodies. This can grant them tremendous power, but requires the use of implants and biotic amps to fully exploit. Biotic use also comes at a cost – it puts a huge drain on the user's metabolism, increasing their energy intake needs by a ferocious amount and building up static charge in their bodies to sometimes dangerous levels.

The different biotic talents are referred to as Disciplines. The three Disciplines are Distortion, Integration and Kinetics. Each point in a Discipline allows the character to pick a single power from the Discipline's list, granting the character the capability to use that power at will. These powers are picked when the dots are acquired and cannot be changed.

''Using Biotic Powers'': Using a biotic power usually involves rolling a dice pool of Resolve plus the character's dots in the relevant Discipline, with a variety of effects depending on the power in question. Using a power also requires that a cost be paid. This cost is in points of Bashing damage or Willpower, and possibly both. Points of Armour rating do not reduce the amount of damage taken from using biotic powers.

Unless otherwise noted, using a biotic power is an instant action. Biotic powers that target characters or locations other than the biotic themselves require line of sight.

Biotic powers require at least some freedom of movement to act, as biotic users are trained to use mudras to activate their implants and nervous systems in particular ways. Restraining a biotic is an effective way to prevent them from using their capabilities.

''Boosting Biotic Powers'': A biotic character can choose to boost a power, pushing themselves to the limit to empower themselves further. This increases the cost of the power, as noted in the boost's entry.

''Willpower Points and Biotic Powers'': Willpower points spent to activate or boost a biotic power do not count towards the one point of Willpower that a character can normally spend per turn to increase their dice pool or defences. A character could conceivably activate a biotic power that costs 1 point of Willpower, its boost that costs another point of Willpower and then spend their one point of Willpower per turn for a +3 bonus to the activation dice pool.

''Kinetics and Countering'': A biotic may choose to spend their turn's action countering the Kinetic abilities of another biotic within 25 yards. If they do so, they may take no other action but inflict a penalty on all Kinetic power rolls by the target equal to their own dots in the Kinetic discipline.

===Distortion===

Distortion is the Discipline of molecular agitation and the manipulation of mass to distort and warp.

'''Haze'''

This technique uses low-level distortion fields to create a shell of warped spacetime around an area, interfering with any sorts of senses or perception attempting to cross the shell's edge. To the outside world, the hazed air looks like warped, shimmering glass.

Haze affects an area centred on the biotic with a radius of Resolve x 5 yards. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Any attempts to perceive by any means (sight, hearing, radar etc) into the area covered by Haze suffer a penalty equal to the biotic's Resolve, and indeed need to make Perception or other appropriate rolls in the first place. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the effect can be placed within 50 yards instead of being centred on the biotic. 

'''Reave'''

This technique unleashes a powerful distortion field into the target's nervous or synthetic systems, causing a crippling overload.

Reave affects a single target up to 200 yards away. Roll Resolve + Distortion against an opposed roll of the target's Stamina. Success results in the target suffering wound penalties as if they had their last three health points filled with damage, with a duration of the biotic's Resolve in rounds. The penalty isn't cumulative with any existing wound penalties the target is already suffering, and can be reduced as normal by effects such as Iron Stamina. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Reave nullifies any healing from any source during its duration, and it inflicts the -3 wound penalty in addition to any existing wound penalties, regardless of any Iron Stamina or other reductions. 

'''Scramble'''

Scramble unleashes a thrashing flux of mass effect fields around the biotic, warping and distorting gravity and space.

Scramble affects an area centred on the biotic with a radius of Resolve x 3 yards. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Everyone other than the biotic in the area of effect suffers a -2 penalty to their Speed, and to any attack rolls and Athletics-based rolls that they make. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1B, the -2 penalty to attack rolls also applies to any ranged attacks made against the biotic from outside Scramble's area. 

'''Singularity'''

Singularity uses distortion to punch a gravity well into the fabric of spacetime, dragging anyone nearby towards its centre.

Choose a point within 100 yards; this is where the singularity appears, affecting an area Resolve x 5 yards in radius. Roll Resolve + Distortion, with the power's duration in rounds equal to the number of successes. Anyone in the area of effect must succeed in a Strength + Athletics check penalised by the biotic's Resolve in order to move in any direction other than directly towards the singularity, with successes equal to the number of yards they can move in a direction they wish. On the biotic's turn every round, everyone in the area of effect gets pulled 5 yards towards the singularity. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, increase the number of yards the singularity pulls each round by the biotic's Resolve. 

'''Warp'''

Warp creates rapidly shifting mass effect fields that tear a target apart.

Warp is used as a ranged attack by the biotic, with a short range of 100 yards and no medium or long range. This power uses Resolve + Distortion as its attack pool and is affected by other situational modifiers, such as cover, just as a normal ranged attack. If Warp hits, it has a Damage rating equal to the biotic's Resolve, with added damage from successes as normal.

If the target is already under the effect of another biotic power, Warp causes a biotic explosion. This increases its' Damage rating by 1 against the target, and inflicts a 3L explosion centred on the target with a radius equal to the biotic's Resolve in yards. The pre-existing biotic power immediately ends if it is a Distortion or Kinetic power. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1B, Warp grants all attacks against the target Armour Piercing 1 for a number of rounds equal to Resolve. 

===Integration===

Integration is the biotic discipline of molecular integration, using mass effect fields to strengthen and control the fabric of spacetime around the user.

'''Barrier'''

Barrier protects the biotic with mass effect fields in the same way as technological kinetic barrier generators.

Barrier provides the biotic with a number of biotic Shield levels equal to Resolve. These shield levels do not stack with any existing Shield levels, but will overwrite them if existing Shield levels are lower than the biotic's Resolve. Roll Resolve + Integration, with the biotic gaining a +1 bonus to resist attempts to knock them down or move them around for each success on the dice roll, as long as Barrier is in effect. Barrier lasts one scene, or until the Shield levels are lost. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Barrier can be activated as a Reflexive action. 

'''Charge'''

Charge encases the biotic in a mass effect field and launches them forwards at high velocity, akin to the technique employed by mass relays.

Charge allows the biotic to move up to their Speed x Resolve in yards in a straight line at near-instantaneous speed. This power doesn't allow them to pass through solid obstacles but they may go straight over gaps of up to their Speed in yards without any need for jumping checks. Roll Resolve + Integration, with each success increasing the biotic's Defence by 1; this effect lasts 1 round.

The biotic may still make a melee or ranged attack after using Charge. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic does not need to Charge in a straight line and may make any number of turns along the way, they may also cover a gap of twice their Speed in yards. 

'''Smite'''

Smite uses mass effect fields to empower the biotic's unarmed strikes with immense force.

Smite is a reflexive action used to augment an unarmed attack. It increases the Damage rating of the unarmed attack by an amount equal to the biotic's Resolve, and the biotic may choose to make the damage Lethal rather than Bashing. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, Smite augments all unarmed attacks the biotic makes for one additional round. 

'''Stasis'''

Stasis simply locks the target into place with integrated mass effect fields that prevent them from moving.

Choose a target within 50 yards. The target must make a Strength check, with a penalty imposed of up to the biotic's Resolve at the biotic's choice. If the target achieves no successes, they are locked in place for 1 round and are completely unable to act in any way. However, they gain additional Armour equal to the penalty that the biotic applied to their strength check, affecting all attacks whether against Shield levels or health levels, and which is cumulative with existing Armour.

''For example, a biotic with Resolve 5 chooses to apply a -3 penalty to a target's Strength check. Since the target only has Strength 3, this reduces them to a chance die. They fail, and are locked in place for 1 round. During this round, they benefit from an additional 3 points of Armour against all attacks.''

''Cost'': 1 Willpower point. 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the target gains no Armour from Stasis. 

'''Wall'''

Wall uses similar mass effect fields to Barrier and Stasis to forge a layer of integrated mass effect fields across an area.

The Wall power creates a wall of biotic force that is up to Resolve x 2 yards wide and high. The centre point of the wall's line must be within 5 yards of the biotic when created. Roll Resolve + Integration; the Wall has a number of Shield levels equal to 5 + successes rolled. The Wall can serve as cover and an obstacle, preventing any movement through it. Attackers may choose to attack the Wall directly; it has Armour equal to the Biotic's Resolve.

The Wall remains present as long as the biotic is within 5 yards of it. If he moves away, creates a new Wall, or the Wall's Shield levels are lost, it immediately ceases to exist. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower, the biotic may make a Wall that will exist even after moving 5 yards away from it, or he may turn it into a shell of up to Resolve x 2 yards radius centred on himself. 

===Kinetics===

Kinetics is the biotic discipline of directly applying force through mass effect fields.

'''Glide'''

The Glide technique involves applying kinetic mass effect fields to the biotic themselves, allowing them to defy the forces of gravity through fine biotic control.

Roll Resolve + Kinetics, with Glide lasting for a number of rounds equal to successes rolled. While Glide is in effect, the biotic can reduce the distance they fall each round to any speed including zero, and they suffer no falling damage when making contact with the ground. If they continue to have some downward velocity, they may also move sideways in any direction up to their Resolve in yards per round. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can move in any direction at all for up to their Resolve in yards per round, without any requirement to continue moving down. This allows the biotic to 'fly' upwards if they wish. 

'''Lift'''

The Lift technique uses mass effect fields to pull the target up into the air.

Choose a target within 100 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. The target is lifted a number of yards equal to successes rolled, lasting for the biotic's Resolve in rounds. A gentle drift can be applied to the target as they are lifted if desired, so they will move 1 yard per round in a particular direction.

The Lifted target is not incapacitated and may continue to try and act by firing, trying to grab hold of something, and so forth.

Lifting larger, heavier targets is more difficult. For each full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Resolve + Kinetics roll suffers an additional –2 penalty, so lifting a small car (Size 10) would inflict a -2 penalty on the roll. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Lift of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

'''Slam'''

Slam uses fine control over a rapid flux in mass effect fields to exert huge force on a target, picking them up and slamming them down again.

Choose a target within 30 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics as an attack with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. Slam is not affected by other conditional modifiers such as cover. If Slam hits, it has a Damage rating equal to the biotic's Resolve, with added damage from successes as normal. The target is also knocked prone. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Slam of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

'''Shockwave'''

The Shockwave technique unleashes a powerful mass effect field that pulses out in a crashing wave, knocking targets from their feet.

Choose which direction the Shockwave emits, resulting in an area of effect starting at the biotic that is 5 yards wide and 5 x Resolve yards long. Make a Resolve + Kinetics roll once; each target in the area must oppose this with their own Strength roll. If they lose, they are knocked prone. 
''Cost'': 1 Willpower point. 
''Boost'': For 1B, all targets automatically fail their Strength check. 

'''Throw'''

Throw exerts a strong mass effect field to catapult the target in a particular direction.

Choose a target within 100 yards, and roll Resolve + Kinetics as an attack with a penalty equal to the number of remaining Shield levels the target has. The target is hurled in a chosen direction for a distance of up to successes x 5 yards, and suffering Bashing damage in successes if they hit something. The target must make a Dexterity + Athletics roll with a penalty equal to the biotic's Resolve, or be knocked down.

This power can also be used to pick up objects and hurl them at people, inflicting Bashing damage equal to successes if the Throw can reach the target with the object. This has the benefit of most thrown objects not possessing Shield levels.

Lifting larger, heavier targets is more difficult. For each full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Resolve + Kinetics roll suffers an additional –2 penalty, so lifting a small car (Size 10) would inflict a -2 penalty on the roll. However, for every full 5 points of Size above Size 5, the Damage inflicted by a thrown object increases by 2. 
''Cost'': 1B 
''Boost'': For 1 Willpower point, the biotic can add an area of effect to Throw of Resolve in yards, resulting in multiple Resolve + Kinetics rolls made if several targets are caught. 

==Combat Training Talents==

Combat in the Mass Effect setting is fast, lethal and dangerous, thanks to the cutting edge technology deployed on the battlefields of the galaxy. Personal protection from armour and shields only goes so far towards securing victory – the rest comes from the training and talent of the commanders and troops themselves.

The different combat training talents are called Regimens. The four Regimens are Assault, Command, Guardian and Tactical. Each point in a Regimen allows the character to pick a single power from the Regimen's list, granting the character the benefits of that power. These powers are picked when the dots are acquired and cannot be changed.

The Command Training Regimen works slightly differently from the others, as noted in its description below.

''Using Combat Training Powers'': Most Combat Training powers grant their benefits all the time. Some allow the character to use new options in combat, such as Suppressive Fire; the character can choose when to use these options and when not to, and no cost is attached to doing so.

===Assault Training===

Assault training often covers close-quarter combat, ambushes, storming defensive positions and blitzkrieg insertion into hot zones.

'''Agility''': Through a mixture of free-running and combat training, the character can ignore terrain penalties on their movement of an amount up to their dots in Dexterity; so a character with Dexterity 4 could ignore up to -4 in penalties. Ladders, crates, low walls and so forth are easy for this character to handle. Their speed is also increased by 1. 
'''Ambush''': The character is an expert at close, covert work. When attacking an opponent who is not aware of the character, they add a +2 bonus to the Damage rating of their attack. Perception rolls made to hear the character attacking suffer a -2 penalty. 
'''Carnage''': The character is an expert in dealing death with short-ranged weapons in close quarters. When firing at a target within the short-range of a pistol or shotgun, the character benefits from the 9-again rule, or 8-again if the weapon already has 9-again. 
'''Close Quarters Combatant''': The character possesses advanced close combat training. They ignore penalties to their Defence caused by multiple melee attackers, may choose to deal Lethal damage with their unarmed attacks, and benefit from the 9-again rule when making unarmed strikes. 
'''Combat Drop Training''': The character has been trained for rapid-deployment assaults into hot zones. When dropping into combat with armour-jets, from an aircraft or from orbit, the character is able to act on the same round they touch down and suffers no other penalties due to combat drops. They also treat all Piloting checks with armour-jets as rote actions. 
'''Hard Target''': Keeping a low profile and moving fast, the character renders themselves a hard target for attackers. If they move at least 5 yards during their turn, all ranged attacks against them suffer an additional -1 penalty on their attack pools. Running increases the penalty to -2. 
'''Shock Trooper''': The character has the training and experience of a hardened shock trooper and is used to running through hails of bullets and explosions without flinching. The character reduces all penalties suffered from the combat environment by 1, such as from suppressive fire, concealment granted by smoke grenades and so forth. They benefit from a +2 bonus to any dice pool to resist knock-downs, stuns and other disorientation effects, while their Speed is increased by 1. 
'''Slam''': Harnessing their raw strength, the character slams foes to the ground. After a successful melee attack at the end of a charge action, the target of the attack must make a Strength check. If they fail to get as many successes as the points of damage taken from the attack, they are knocked down. This technique is a favourite of Krogan. 

===Command Training===

Command training prepares a character for the rigours of commanding a team in a combat environment, whether a naval commander overseeing their crew from the bridge of a spaceship or a black ops squad leader directing their team through an intense firefight.

Command Training works differently to the other talents available in Combat Training. Rather than offering a new power with every dot, the character instead gains one additional die into the group's Command pool, a pool of dice that refreshes each scene from which the whole group of characters can benefit. These dice can be drawn on for specific purposes by any characters who are in communications-range of one of the Commanding characters.

''For example, a Soldier has Command 4, putting 4 dice into the Command pool. Another character in the group, a Vanguard, has Command 2, increasing the total dice in the Command pool to 6. At the beginning of every scene, this pool refreshes back up to 6 dice, no matter how many of the dice have been spent in the prior scene.''

As long as one of the characters with Command allows it, anyone in the group can take dice from the pool for the purposes noted below, including the characters with the Command talent themselves. A character can take up to their Wits in dice from the pool in a single turn, and can spend them all on one roll or purpose if desired.

Command dice can be:

'''Concentrate Fire''': Added directly to an attack dice pool, before rolling. 
'''Co-Ordinate Action''': Added directly to a secondary actor's teamwork dice pool to aid a primary actor with their action. 
'''Priority Target''': Added directly to the Damage rating of an attack against a target who is knocked down, held by a mass effect field, on fire, frozen, stunned or otherwise vulnerable, before rolling the attack pool. 
'''Ready For Action''': Added as a bonus to a character's Initiative score after rolling in the first round of combat, adding +1 per die used. 
'''Take Cover''': Applied as an additional penalty to an attack roll against a character who is in cover, augmenting the normal cover penalty by -1 per die used, before rolling the attack pool. 
'''Stay Alert''': Added directly to a Perception dice pool, before rolling. 

===Guardian Training===

Guardian training demands the very best of a character physically, pushing them to their limits and beyond to help them and others stay alive.

'''Bastion''': The character knows how to angle armour plating, shift their profile and minimise the damage from incoming fire. If wearing armour, the character benefits from a +1 to their Armour against any ranged attackers in front of them, as long as they haven't moved this turn. 
'''Berserker''': When taking at least one point of Lethal damage, the character may choose to enter a rage, gaining a temporary +2 bonus to Stamina and Resolve and becoming immune to penalties inflicted by suppressive fire. This does result in them gaining two health levels during the rage but, while the health levels are lost once the rage subsides, any damage taken is kept. Many Krogan enter a berserker rage in battle when wounded. 
'''Bodyguard''': The Character has the reflexes and training of a bodyguard, able to protect others with their own body. They can choose to serve as cover for allies when they are between the ally and attacker or are adjacent to that ally, inflicting a -1 cover penalty on attacks that increases to -2 if the bodyguard is carrying a ballistic shield.. This increases to -2 if the ally is willing to allow the bodyguard to drop them prone and shield the ally with their whole body, increasing again to -3 if the bodyguard is in heavy armour or is carrying a ballistic shield. 
'''Fitness''': The character is in excellent physical condition and has two permanent additional health points. 
'''Resilient''': Fists, batons, concussion grenades... Not much phases this character. They benefit from an additional point of Armour against all Bashing attacks, even when not actually wearing armour, and gain a +1 bonus to dice pools to resist stuns and knock-downs. 
'''Second Skin''': The character has the training and experience to treat armour like a second skin, entirely comfortable with its power servos and weight distribution. The character benefits from a +1 to their Defence and Speed while wearing armour. 
'''Survivor''': The character is too tough or just too damn stubborn to stay down, regardless of his injuries. He never falls unconscious as a result of having all his health boxes filled with damage, and doesn't need to succeed on a Stamina roll to do so. 
'''Vigilant''': The character is ever-vigilant for danger. If the character is or becomes aware of an attacker targeting an unaware ally, and the character is within communications range of that ally, the ally becomes aware of the impending attack immediately. The character's Initiative is also increased by 1. 

===Tactical Training===

Tactical training prepares the character for the rapidly changing environment of the battlefield, allowing them to react to new threats swiftly and to apply their own firepower with devastating effect.

'''Advancing Fire''': The character may fire when running, suffering a -3 penalty to their attack roll for doing so. 
'''Heavy Weapons Training''': The character is experienced in handling support weaponry, and ignores any penalties and restrictions from the Heavy Weapon trait. 
'''Marksman''': The character is a skilled marksman. Whenever the character takes at least one aim action with a weapon that has the 9-again trait (apart from shotguns), they benefit from the 8-again rule on the attack dice pool made with the aiming bonus. 
'''Outflank''': The character knows how the make the most of an outmanoeuvred enemy's weakness. Attacking a target in the flank or rear when an ally has engaged them from the front grants the character a +1 bonus to attack rolls. 
'''Sniper''': The character has the patience and talent of a skilled sniper. After using the aim action and firing at a target, the character does not lose his aiming bonus as long as he continues to fire at the same target and does not have his line of sight to them broken. He may even continue to take further aim actions to increase his aiming bonus, subject to the usual +3 aiming bonus cap. 
''For example, a sniper could aim once for a +1 bonus, fire, aim again for a total of +2, fire again, etc.'' 
'''Squad Reflexes''': After rolling for Initiative at the beginning of combat, but before the first round begins, the character can choose to shift their Initiative to match that of one ally within communications range. The character's Initiative is also increased by 1. 
'''Suppressive Fire''': There's a line between effective suppressive fire and just wasting shots. The character may sacrifice the bonus attack dice from autofire to apply it instead as a penalty to the ranged attack rolls of the target for one round. This can be applied to multiple targets as per the normal autofire rules, but it does incur the usual attack dice penalty – so hosing down three targets with long-burst autofire for suppressive fire applies the -3 penalty to all of them but also leaves the character with a -3 penalty on his attack rolls. Suppressive fire doesn't work against opponents who are simply unable to take cover, or are too heavily armoured or mindless to care. 
'''Weapon Drill''': Unloading, reloading and returning to the task of providing fire support is a well-oiled practice for the character. Reloading is a reflexive action as long as the replacement heat clip is to hand (such as in armour webbing or laid out within reach). 

==Tech Talents==

Advanced technology permeates the fabric of society in Mass Effect, and is a key part of life for any technician, engineer, scientist or doctor. Omni-tools are common, multi-purpose personal computational devices that serve as micro-fabrication facilities, interfacing tools and diagnostic systems. Those with the knowledge and skill can use their omni-tool to run enhanced programmes and VIs that can hack, overload or scan to great effect.

The different tech talents are called Processes. The four Processes are Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine and Science, and each is associated with the Mental skill of the same name. Each point in a Process allows the character to run a single programme of that type concurrently on their omni-tool. Unlike Disciplines and Regimens, the exact programme run in the Process slot is not permanent and can be easily changed for other programmes of a similar kind.

''Using Tech Powers'': A character's omni-tool can have a number of programmes for each type of Process stored in its library, as listed under the omni-tool's entry in the Elkoss Combine Catalogue. The character has a number of Process slots equal to their dots in that Process; each slot can run one programme in it.

Programmes come in two types – running and charged. Running programmes are passive, giving a bonus or opening up an option as long as they are in a slot. Charged programmes are expended when they are used, and remain expended for the rest of the scene; they rely on stored power that needs to recharge, need to take time to fabricate some complex new materials, or are otherwise unavailable.

''For example, a character with 3 dots in the Engineering Process and 1 dot in the Medicine Process could have Shield Modulation, Shield Boost and Overload in his Engineering slots and Defibrillator Pulse in his Medicine slot.''

Whenever dice rolls are called for by a tech power and refer to Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine or Science, they refer to the character's skill dots and not the dots in that Process talent.

''Swapping Programmes'': A character can swap out any programme for any other programme available in their omni-tool's library between scenes or in situations where there is no time pressure, without needing to roll. A programme can be selected multiple times, but running programmes give no benefit for doing so. In the case of a charged programme, running it in multiple slots makes multiple uses available per scene.

During action or combat, swapping programmes is considerably more difficult, especially if the omni-tools processors are already busy running a dozen other programmes at the same time. Doing so is a full action for the character's turn, wherein they must make roll Intelligence + the skill associated with the Process in question, with a penalty equal to the number of running programmes of that Process currently active. An expended programme's slot cannot be replaced in this way during a scene, but a running programme or an unused charged programme can be.

''For example, a character with 3 dots in the Engineering Process, 4 dots in the Engineering skill and 3 dots of Intelligence has two running programmes and a charged programme in their Process slots. During combat, they want to replace one of the running programmes with a more situation-appropriate charged programme. Doing so requires that they roll Intelligence + Engineering, a dice pool of 7, with a penalty of -2 dice for the two running programmes. This leaves them with 5 dice; any success means they have successfully swapped the running programme to the new charged programme.''

''Changing Libraries'': A character may wish to change the programmes they have available in their omni-tool's library. This requires that they either access a database with more programmes archived in it, or that they write a new programme themselves. The latter is time-consuming and very difficult, whereas the former often incurs the cost of purchasing licenses for a programme from a company. Many employers provide access to basic programmes to their staff, such as the line of Analysis programmes; getting access to a more questionable programme such as Overload is somewhat more difficult, requiring either money or military or criminal contacts.

''Scanners'': Several running programmes allow the character to use an omni-tool's facilities to replace Composure with a skill in Perception checks, for the purposes of detecting particular substances or systems. These scans can still suffer from various penalties to the Perception check and, while they can detect through some solid materials, suffer increasing degradation of signal the further they have to go.

===Engineering===

Engineering programmes focus on improving hardware and mechanical processes, whether vehicles and armour or shield modulations.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Emergency Infiltration Protocol''': This is a batch of processes with an emergency power cell for re-establishing a stealth field immediately. The character can expend the programme to activate a stealth field (if they have one) as a reflexive action instead of as an instant action. 
'''Fortification''': Through highly efficient management routines and incoming fire calculations, the power flows and fluid dynamics of armour can be momentarily reinforced. As a reflexive action, roll Wits + Engineering to increase Armour by the number of successes for 1 round. 
'''Neural Shock''': The programme discharges a pulse of electrical current that plays havoc with a target's nervous system. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Engineering versus the Stamina roll of a target within 30 yards. On a success, the target is stunned for 1 round, increased to 2 rounds on an exceptional success. 
'''Overload''': The programme discharges a carefully controlled pulse of electrical current that plays havoc with a target's shields, overloading kinetic barriers. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Engineering to deal damage to the Shield levels of a target within 50 yards – this power does no damage to health levels. If the character has multiple Overload programmes ready, they can all be expended at the same time; each Overload may affect a new target within 5 yards of the last, and the same target cannot be affected twice. 
'''Shield Boost''': The programme runs emergency power management routines to reestablish shield integrity. As a reflexive action, roll Wits + Engineering, restoring a number of lost Shield points to the character or an ally within 25 yards equal to the number of successes rolled. If the character has multiple Shield Boost programmes readied, they can all be expended at the same time; each Boost may target a new ally within 5 yards of the last target, and the same target cannot be affected twice. 
'''Shield Burst''': The programme dumps all remaining kinetic barrier energy into a controlled output. As a reflexive action, the character loses all remaining Shield points. A blast is centred on the character with a radius equal to the number of Shield points lost. Roll Wits + Engineering, dealing successes as Lethal damage to all characters within the area of effect. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Armour Subsystem Management''': Complex power management routines allow for additional energy demands to be handled. As long as this programme is running, the character can make used of a secondary armour mod, allowing them to benefit from both mods at once. 
'''Engineering Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Engineering skill checks, other than for the use of charged Engineering programmes. 
'''Engineering Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for engineering purposes. 
'''Omni-Blade Power Rerouting''': As well as fabricating a keen-edged one-use blade, the omni-tool's power systems divert additional power into the strike. This increases the Damage rating of an omni-blade by 1, and grants 9-again on attacks made with it. 
'''Rig-Drone Programming'': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced engineering assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Engineering skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Shield Drone Programming''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a shield emitter. The character's remote drone grants a +2 bonus to the maximum Shield points of all allies within 20 yards. 
'''Shield Modulation''': A VI's ongoing shield management processes ensure that a shield restores its integrity at a more rapid rate than normal. The character can reflexively restore 1 Shield point on their turn, as long as they have not been hit by any attacks since their last turn. 
'''Vehicle Control Subsystems''': Advanced integration programmes allow the character to enhance their control of a vehicle, granting the 9-again rule to Piloting checks. 

===Interfacing===

Interfacing programmes include routines for research, data analysis, scanning and hacking; for interfacing experts, information and its denial is the name of the game.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Comms Tap''': A rapid-fire codebreaker VI allows the character to attempt to break in to a communications channel as an instant action. Roll Intelligence + Interfacing, with successes giving the number of minutes that the character can listen in without the users being aware. Heavy-duty encryption can impose a penalty on the roll – standard military comm channels inflict a -3 penalty, with more difficult hacking targets increasing from there. 
'''Haywire''': By unleashing chaos programmes that hammer at any networked systems nearby, the character compromises equipment and armaments. Roll Intelligence + Interfacing as a reflexive action to affect an area of up to successes x 5 yards in radius. All tech devices within this area suffer a -1 penalty to rolls using them for 2 rounds, including firearms' attack dice pools. 
'''Lock-Hack''': A common (and usually illegal) programme for brute-forcing electronic locking systems, a Lock-Hack allows the character to attempt to open a lock as an extended Wits + Interfacing action with one roll representing one turn of work. The number of successes required depends on the quality of the lock in question. This is a crude electronic intrusion and will trigger alarms or alerts to the system, but it gets the job done quickly. 
'''Mask''': Careful infiltration protocols and data-masks shut down the character's network trace. Roll Wits + Interfacing as a reflexive action to immediately 'go silent' for a number of rounds equal to successes rolled, rendering the character's presence on a network untraceable by others. This also serves to render the character undetectable for the duration to any attempts to locate them with technological scans for data signals. 
'''Overheat'': Through a pre-prepared remote rapid hack VI, a weapon's heat sinks can be tampered with. As a reflexive action, roll Intelligence + Interfacing against a target with a penalty based on the largest weapon to be overheated (-1 for a pistol, -2 for a rifle) and a -1 penalty for each additional weapon to be overheated past the first. Success results in all targeted weapons overheating, expending the full capacity of their current heat clip. This programme can even be used reflexive at the moment that a target is about to make an attack action, leaving them pulling the trigger for no effect, but suffers an additional -5 penalty for attempting the hack so fast. 
'''Subvert Synthetic''': A set of programmes that allow the character to try and hack a synthetic's systems on the fly. As an instant action, roll Wits + Interfacing opposed by the target synthetic or AI's Wits + remaining Shield points. Success give the character control of the synthetic for a number of rounds equal to successes. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Interfacing Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Interfacing skill checks, other than for the use of charged Interfacing programmes. 
'''Interfacing Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for interfacing purposes. 
'''Passive Scanning Programme''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to detect active net systems and ID them including active programmes running on omni-tools, armour and weaponry. This allows the character to use Wits + Interfacing for Perception rolls to detect these systems within a 100 yard range, or further if a signal is particularly strong. 
'''Rapid Data Analysis''': An advanced analysis VI and sifting programmes aid to rapidly identify and acquire relevant information vai the extranet or accessed databases. The character has their research times halved when attempting to acquire information via modern tech methods. If they have to actually read a set of old tomes in a pre-tech library, for example, then they're out of luck. 
'''Scout Drone''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a scout and sensor. The character's remote drone grants a +2 bonus to Perception checks, including those made via scanning programmes, and has superior sensory feedback allowing it to transmit full video feeds and readouts as long as it is within communications range of the character. 
'''Secure Routines''': Reactive defensive VI programmes inflict a penalty equal to the character's Interfacing skill on attempts to hack the equipment or systems that the character controls. 
'''Vehicle Interface Programming''': Advanced integration routines augment the character's interfacing with vehicular sensor suites. Perception checks made via a vehicle's sensors and scanners benefit from the 9-again rule. 
'''Sys-Drone Programming'': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced systems assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Interfacing skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 

===Medicine===

Medical programmes largely focus on subsystems for monitoring patients, administering emergency assistance and aiding with recovery from injuries and sickness; they also augment medical and biological analysis facilities.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Defibrillator Pulse''': The omni-tool discharges a pulse of energy into the patient to jolt them back to awareness. As a reflexive action, the character can target an unconscious character within 5 yards, rolling Intelligence + Medicine. Success brings the target back round to consciousness, unless they are unable to do so due to being drugged, for example. The pulse can be combined together with an Emergency Medi-Gel Application programme into one reflexive action on a single target. 
'''Emergency Medi-Gel Application''': Emergency medical management systems kick into action, allowing the character to direct the treatment to where it will be most effective. As a reflexive action, the character can target themselves or an ally within 5 yards with the programme, rolling Intelligence + Medicine with a penalty equal to any wound penalties that the target is currently suffering. On a success, expend one of the target's medi-gel doses for an immediate healing effect of 1L or 3B. 
'''Hypodermic Dart''': The onboard fabrication systems forge a hypodermic sliver of metal, loaded with carefully tailored toxins. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 30 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Medicine but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. The dart has a Damage rating of 1L with additional damage added from successes as normal but, if it inflicts any points of damage to the target's health points, it applies a Toxicity 2 poison dealing Bashing damage that forces the target to succeed at a Stamina check or fall unconscious. 
'''Medical Threat Analysis''': A diagnostic VI interfaces with the omni-tools sensors to quickly assess any medical hazards present. As a reflexive action, the character can roll Intelligence + Medicine for a near-instantaneous analysis of any chemical, biological or radioactive hazards present in the environment, the character, or a target within 5 yards – so it can identify if a character has been poisoned, or what the local radioactivity levels are. 
'''Stimulant Injection System''': Biological monitoring programmes aid with calculating precisely the right levels of stimulants to be injected into the body. As a reflexive action, the character may increase their Dexterity score by 1, lasting a number of rounds equal to their number of Medicine skill dots. This also affects all allies linked in via a Biological Monitor programme. 
'''Toxic Cleansing Programme''': Rapid assessment of hazardous toxins affecting the body allows for a tailored chemical response to be quickly deployed into the bloodstream. As an instant action, the character may roll Intelligence + Medicine versus a roll of the Toxicity of a poison affecting themselves or a character within 5 yards. Success results in the poison being neutralised. Extremely exotic or totally unknown toxins may inflict a further penalty on the roll. 
'''Toxic Materials Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a round containing a dangerous cocktail of toxic materials, hurling them away via a magnetic pulse. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Medicine but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. The attack deals no damage but fills an area around the target of 10 yards radius with caustic fumes for a number of rounds equal to the character's Medicine skill dots. This acts as a Toxicity 4 poison dealing Lethal damage via inhalation. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Background Toxicity Monitor''': A background monitoring VI handles automated countermeasures against toxic factors. The character benefits from a +2 bonus to all rolls to resist disease, poison, infection and other biological or chemical agents. This also affects all allies linked in via a Biological Monitor programme. 
'''Biological Monitor''': A suite of readouts and diagnostics provide unparalleled information on the life-signs of networked allies. The character always knows the exact health levels of all allies within communications range, and can apply Medicine programmes to allies without needing to worry about normal range or line of sight restrictions – they can even undertake a regular Medicine first aid roll from a distance. 
'''Bioscanner''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to detect nearby life-signs and traces of organic matter. This allows the character to use Wits + Medicine for Perception rolls to detect living organisms or organic matter within a 100 yard range. 
'''Decoy-Drone Programming'': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as a decoy drone. Through complex bio-mimicry, the drone projects both a holographic decoy of the character, combined with realistic life-sign emissions that can fool basic scans and senses. The character can set the decoy on a basic 'idle' animation, can pre-record up to 5 minutes of voice and movement (including triggers to activate recorded speech), or can directly steer the decoy-drone's projection on a realtime basis. Observers must pass a Perception check with a penalty equal to the character's Medicine skill dots to note that something is off about the decoy; physically interacting with the decoy will immediately show it to be a holographic projection with a drone at its heart, as will other actions that show its nature.
'''Med-Drone Programming'': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced medical assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Medicine skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Medi-Gel Overseer''': A continually running VI programme monitors and adjusts the application of medi-gel to deal with injuries. Whenever the character uses a charge of medi-gel for healing purposes, either on themselves or others, they may roll Intelligence + Medicine. If they achieve as many or more successes as the target has injured health points, the total Bashing or Lethal health points healed is increased by 1. 
'''Medical Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Medicine skill checks, other than for the use of charged Medicine programmes. 
'''Medical Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for medical purposes. 

===Science===

Scientific programmes are often complex systems and containment routines for fabricating, mixing and handling unstable or exotic materials, as well as suites of assessment programmes to analyse the results.

''Charged Programmes''

'''Cryo-Material Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a round containing a mixture of chemicals that will undergo a cryogenic reaction when deployed. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Science but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. Should the attack hit, it deals no damage but douses the target in the freezing gases, inflicting a -2 penalty on all physical action rolls (including attacks) and reducing their Speed by 5 for 1 round. 
'''Hyperscan''': The onboard scanning and sensory routines of the omni-tool allow the character to emit a pulse that can detect nearby unusual or intense energy signatures and matter concentrations. This allows the character to use Intelligence + Science for a Perception roll to detect and identify strong energy emissions or unusual matter within a 100 yard range. 
'''Incendiary Material Deployment''': The omni-tool fabricates a plasma round containing a mixture of chemicals that will undergo a n incendiary reaction when deployed. As a reflexive action on the character's turn, they may make a ranged attack against a target within 50 yards. The attack pool is the character's Wits + Science but is affected by factors such as cover, concealment and so forth. Should the attack hit, it deals no damage but douses the target and an area around them of 5 yard radius in flammable materials that immediately start burning with fierce intensity, and will continue to do so for a number of rounds equal to the character's Science skill dots. The fire inflicts 3L per turn, reduced by Armour as normal, but also grants all other attacks against a burning target Armour Piercing 1. As long as a burning target is able to remove themselves from the area of effect, they can put out the fire as a reflexive action on their turn. 
'''Pattern Recognition Algorithms''': A simple VI meshed with pattern recognition programming can perform a high-speed resource-intensive analysis. As an instant action, the character may make an Intelligence + Science roll to identify significant patterns in a set of available data or information. 
'''Rapid Matter Analysis''': A set of scanning programmes quickly analyse a sample of matter to provide a complete breakdown of its composition. As an instant action, the character may roll Intelligence + Science to get a full analysis of some sample matter, including chemical composition and properties. 
'''Unstable Materials''': A set of safety-boundary-pushing programmes allow the character to to increase the operational margins of instability in deployable materials. The character may expend this programme at the same time as an Incendiary, Cryo- or Toxic Materials Deployment programme to increase the radius of effect by 10 yards. 

''Running Programmes''

'''Energy Drone''': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to direct energies into an attack. The character's remote drone gains the ability to make a 2L ranged attack at targets up to 15 yards away, using the character's Wits + Science as an attack pool. The remote drone may also serve as the origination of any Incendiary, Cryo- or Toxic Materials Deployment instead of the character. 
'''Energy Projection Modulation''': Advanced energy handling routines increase the omni-tool's output available for emission purposes. The character gains a +1 bonus to any attacks made with Tech Process programmes. 
'''Environmental Shielding''': A monitoring VI keeps vigilant watch over environmental diagnostics, adjusting and augmenting existing protective measures. The character adds their Science skill dots as a bonus to rolls to resist environmental effects such as extreme heat, cold or causticity, and adds 1 point of Armour to their Shield points against any direct attacks of these kinds. 
'''Full Spectrum Sensory Suite''': A top-of-the-range set of analytical and sensory programmes aid the character with close investigation. When they have the time to carefully go over a location, the character benefits from the 9-again rule on Perception and Investigation checks. 
'''Lab-Drone Programming'': A package of advanced drone management routines allows it to serve as an advanced lab assistant. The character's remote drone grants an increased +2 teamwork bonus to Science skill rolls, rather than the usual +1. 
'''Mass Shielding Matrix''': Subtle distortion emissions are carefully controlled to interfere with any biotic attacks on the character. Biotic attacks that target the character, even if only due to them being in the area of effect, suffer an additional -1 penalty. 
'''Scientific Analysis''': Advanced VI diagnostic routines grant the 9-again rule to all Science skill checks, other than for the use of charged Science programmes. 
'''Scientific Fabrication Patterns''': The omni-tool's fabrication facility benefits from a full range of tool patterns, so the character always has a tool with a +1 equipment bonus for scientific purposes. 

[[Mass:_the_Effecting |Back to main page]]

Mass: the Effecting/Elkoss Combine Catalogue

2012-03-14T22:59:48Z

Acrozatarim:

=The Elkoss Combine Catalogue=

In Mass: The Effecting, characters can make use of a veritable bounty of high-tech devices, armaments and protections available. With many competing corporations, designers and fabrication facilities all battling for the custom of a galaxy's worth of different species and vocations, there's a near-unfathomable selection of tools of the trade available on the market.

Mass: The Effecting doesn't attempt to chart all of these different implements, VI interfaces, software programmes and vehicles; nor does it attempt to differentiate between products from, say, Devlon Industries and Rosenkov Materials. Instead, you'll find entries for broad categories of key items of equipment, particularly weapons, armour, omni-tools and biotic amps.

==Weaponry==

In the Mass Effect setting, ranged weaponry makes use of mass effect fields to shave slivers of metal off an ammunition block and launch them at high velocity. This creates a great deal of heat, resulting in the need for thermal clips – disposable heat sinks that serve a similar function to old-style ammunition clips.

The weapons detailed here replace the weapons available in the core nWoD system.

'''Autofire''': In Mass: The Effecting, many weapons are capable of autofiring to some extent; however, not all of these weapons can necessarily use all of the options of long, medium and short bursts. A weapon noted as S (semi-automatic) is capable of firing single shots; a weapon noted as BF (burst fire) can fire short bursts; and a weapon noted as A (automatic) can fire medium and long bursts. A weapon can only fire in the modes noted – so a weapon noted as BF/A has to fire short, medium or long bursts but cannot fire single shots.

'''Clips & Ammunition''': Weapons of the same category can share thermal clips with one another; thermal clips for a pistol-sized weapon can be used for a light pistol, heavy pistol or SMG, for example. Support weapons disobey this rule; all support weapons have unique ammunition types that only they can use.

'''Heavy Weapons''': Some weapons are noted as having the Heavy Weapon trait. These impose a -3 penalty on any attempts to fire them while moving; additionally, a character cannot take aim actions with a Heavy Weapon.

'''Unwieldy''': Some weapons are designed for snipers and long-range targeting, becoming cumbersome or unwieldy to use against close-range targets. When fired at a moving target within its short range band, an Unwieldy weapon levies a -2 penalty to attack rolls; at point-blank range this is increased to -4.

'''Sidearms'''

<pre>
Pistols Damage Range Clip ROF Special
----------------------------------------------------------
Light Pistol 1L 20/40/80 10 S/BF
Heavy Pistol 2L 20/40/80 10 S 9-again
SMG 1L 25/50/100 20 S/BF/A
Stun Pistol 0B 5/10/20 5 S Stun</pre>

''Stun Pistol'': A stun pistol discharges a jolt of power that can leave a target reeling. An opponent hit with a stun pistol's shot must pass a Stamina check or be stunned for 1 round.

'''Longarms'''

<pre>
Rifles Damage Range Clip ROF Special
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Assault Rifle 2L 150/300/600 40 S/BF/A
Battle Rifle 3L 200/400/800 30 S 9-again
Light Machine Gun 3L 150/300/600 50 BF/A Heavy Weapon
Light Sniper Rifle 3L 250/500/1000 12 S/BF Unwieldy
Heavy Sniper Rifle 4L 250/500/1000 5 S Unwieldy, 9-again
Light Shotgun 3L 20/40/80 12 S/BF 9-again at short range
Assault Shotgun 4L 20/40/80 6 S/BF 9-again at short range</pre>

'''Support Weapons'''

<pre>
Support Weapons Damage Range Clip ROF Special
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Entrenched Machine Gun 4L 150/300/600 100 A
One-Shot Rocket Launcher 6L 200/400/600 1 S 8-again, AP 3, Blast 5
Light Rocket Launcher 4L 150/300/600 3 S 9-again, AP1
Grenade Launcher 3L 50/100/150 6 S/BF Blast 10
Flame-Thrower 5L 10/20/30 30 BF/A 8-again
Arc Projector 3B 100/200/300 5 S 9-again, Stun
Anti-Materiel Rifle 5L 250/500/1000 1 S Unwieldy, 9-again</pre>

All support weapons have the Heavy Weapon trait.

''One-Shot Rocket Launcher & Light Rocket Launcher'': Rockets use onboard guidance systems to lock on and home in, adding 2 dice to the attack pool if at least one aim action is taken. 
''Flame-Thrower'': Flame-throwers spew blazing torrents of chemical fire, and will ignite flammable materials. An exceptional success on an attack against a character wielding a flame-thrower when they no longer have Shield levels results in the fuel tanks detonating, setting the character ablaze. 
''Arc Projector'': Arc projector weapons discharge high-voltage electrical attacks. If the first target is hit, an arc jumps to the closest target within 10 yards, and finally to a third closest target within 10 yards; the jumping arcs will never strike the same target twice, however. All targets struck must also make pass a Stamina check or be stunned for 1 round. 

'''Grenades'''

<pre>
Grenades Damage Special
-----------------------------------------------------------
Concussive Grenade 2B Blast 5, Knock-Down
Frag Grenade 2L Blast 5
Inferno Grenade 1L Blast 5, Inferno
Lift Grenade None Blast 5, Lift
Smoke Grenade None Blast 5, Smoke
Stun Grenade None Blast 5, Stun</pre>

''Concussive Grenade'': A target hit by a concussive grenade must make a Dexterity + Athetics check, with a penalty equal to the amount of health points damaged by the attack. Failure results in the target being knocked down. 
''Inferno Grenade'': Inferno grenades burn with a fiercely corrosive chemical flame. All other attacks against targets that are doused in an inferno grenade's flame benefit from Armour Piercing 1 for the single turn the grenade's effects last. 
''Lift Grenade'': A lift grenade deals no damage; instead, targets within its area of effect are hauled 2 yards from the ground for 1 round by a mass effect field. 
''Smoke Grenade'': A smoke grenade deals no damage; instead, it spews out a plume of thick smoke where it lands. The smoke covers an area of 5 yard radius for 5 rounds, providing a -3 concealment penalty to all attack rolls made against targets within it. A Perception check with a -3 penalty is necessary to make out targets beyond the smoke cloud if it blocks line of sight from the attacker, and even on a success the targets still benefit from the smoke's concealment. 
''Stun Grenade'': A stun grenade uses an intense pulse of light, sound and disorientating force to incapacitate targets, forcing them to succeed at a Stamina roll or be stunned for 1 round. 

'''Melee Weapons'''

<pre>
Melee Weapons Damage Special
------------------------------------------------
Unarmed Attack 0B Increases to 1B if wearing heavy armour
Assault Baton 2B
Improvised Club 1B
Knife 1L
Omni-Blade 2L
Stun Baton 1B Stun</pre>

''Stun Baton'': A stun baton is a standard policing and suppression implement, discharging a stun charge whenever it strikes a target. An opponent hit with a stun baton must succeed at a Stamina check or be stunned for 1 round.

==Armour==

In the Mass Effect setting, personal protection comes in two main forms – armour and kinetic barriers. Modern technology has resulted in armour plating that can hold off small arms fire with some success, while biotics and shield generators both provide effective barriers that can absorb incoming attacks.

Armour suits are still heavy, however, due to the bulk of the plating and the kinetic barrier generators that they need to carry, and can impede the fine control that technical experts and biotic users require to get the best out of their talents.

'''Cumbersome''': A suit of armour inflicts a penalty to the wearer's Defence and Speed equal to the Armour rating of the suit worn.

'''Impeding''': All rolls to use Tech Processes and Biotic Disciplines suffer a penalty equal to the Armour value of the suit worn.

'''Medi-Gel''': Armour has a standard reservoir of 3 doses of medi-gel that the wearer can use on themselves. Onboard systems will automatically apply a dose for medi-gel's Emergency Trauma Injection use if the wearer has all their health boxes filled with Lethal damage.

'''Onboard Systems''': As per standard, armour comes with a set of onboard systems. This includes a comm-link, a high powered torch, a HUD, target recognition systems and a short-range radar (50 yards), and light amplification systems that can negate up to a -2 penalty on ranged attack rolls due to low-light conditions. It also includes an onboard oxygen supply good for 2 hours, and an environmental filtration system that grants a +4 bonus to Stamina-based rolls to resist inhaled toxins and poisons.

'''Webbing''': Most suits of armour come with enough webbing and pouches to hold up to six thermal clips for a rifle-sized weapon. Alternatively, a single thermal clip can be exchanged for a grenade or two clips for a pistol-sized weapon. Two thermal clips can be exchanged for a clip for a support weapon.

''Personal Shield Generator (Shields 3/5/8)'': A relatively small personal barrier generator allows unarmoured individuals to benefit from protection. The version of this device that offers 3 Shield points is the most common; the version that offers 5 Shield points is very rare, an example of cutting edge technology or powered by an unwieldy generator back-pack. Finally, the version that offers Shields 8 is nearly unheard of, the kind of personal protection that a Councillor might carry. Personal shield generators lack the medi-gel reservoirs and onboard systems of true armour.

''Light Armour (Armour 1, Shields 6)'': Common light armour offers little encumbrance but still has the power for a potent kinetic barrier.

''Reconnaissance Armour (Armour 1, Shields 3)'': Specialised light armour designed for infiltrators and scouts, recon armour features a stealth field which puts a heavy drain on the generator. Due to its construction, recon armour does not suffer from the Cumbersome rule.

''Medium Armour (Armour 2, Shields 6)'': Sacrificing speed and mobility for additional armour plating, medium armour is the standard level of protection worn by dedicated combat troops.

''Medium Assault Armour (Armour 2, Shields 5)'': Specialised medium armour designed for shock troops and vanguards who need the additional mobility, assault armour cuts some of the power to shields in return for more potent servos. Assault armour does not suffer from the Cumbersome rule.

''Heavy Armour (Armour 3, Shields 7)'': Big, heavy and slow, heavy classes of armour go the whole hog; since they need a larger generator to power the servos already, they also enhance the kinetic barriers. The Cumbersome rule also penalises Initiative for a wearer of heavy armour.

''Heavy Colossus Armour (Armour 3, Shields 9)'': The ultimate answer to the need for personal protection, short of taking a step up into the mechanised walker class of vehicles, colossus armour is slow as hell but very resilient. As well as applying the Cumbersome rule to Initiative, a wearer of colossus-class armour cannot run.

===Armour Mods===

A suit of armour can have a single armour mod, representing a tinkered upgrade, manufacturer's enhancements or bolt-on augmentation purchased separately. Armour does not need to have an armour mod, but there is no penalty for having one.

Rarely, armour can have a secondary mod. This mod is inactive and does nothing unless an Armour Subsystem Management programme from the Engineering Process talent is running, in which case the mod is given power and bestows the wearer with its benefits as well. A secondary mod cannot be the same as the regular armour mod that the suit has.

'''Advanced Systems Interface''': Reduces the Impeding penalty to Tech and Biotic power use by 1. 
'''Armour-Jets''': Provides inbuilt armour-jets for the suit, allowing the wearer to make Piloting checks for short-ranged vertical jumps and to slow descent. Dropping into combat leaves the wearer unable to act in the first round as they touch down. 
'''Cyberwarfare Defences''': Inflicts a -2 penalty on all attempts to hack the wearer's systems or to affect them with Tech Processes. 
'''Enhanced Arm Servos''': Increases the wearer's melee damage by 1. 
'''Enhanced Leg Servos''': Increases the wearer's Speed by 2. 
'''Extended Medi-Gel Reservoir''': Increases the armour's medi-gel reservoir to 4 doses. 
'''Fortified Shielding''': Increases the armour's Shield levels by 1. 
'''Full Environmental Systems''': Increases the oxygen supply to 4 hours and offers a +2 bonus to all Stamina checks to resist radiation and environmental effects. 
'''Onboard Targeting VI''': Reduces any cover penalty to ranged attack rolls by 1. 
'''Workhorse Capacity Upgrade''': Increases the number of rifle thermal clips (or equivalent) that can be carried to 9. 

==Other Equipment==

'''Medi-Gel'''

An incredible medical substance patented by the Sirta Foundation, medi-gel skirts close to banned genetic engineering but is so useful that this is overlooked by most. Medi-gel aids with healing, seals wounds, clots blood and serves as an anaesthetic.

Medi-gel has the following applications, in amounts denoted as doses. Armour usually comes with a reservoir that can hold up to 3 doses, applying medi-gel as needed to treat injuries.

'''Continual Healing''': At a cost of 1 dose of medi-gel per week continual use of small amounts of gel, stimms and other medical fluids can bolster the body's natural healing rates. This allows a character to heal Lethal and Bashing damage at twice the normal natural healing rates, but is no help with Aggravated damage – such wounds are simply too severe and need real medical attention. 
'''Emergency Trauma Injection''': When a character is injured to such an extent that they begin dying due to having their health boxes filled with Lethal or Aggravated damage, 1 dose of medi-gel can immediately stabilise them. 
'''Rapid Biological Restoration''': Via systemative intensive treatment of injuries with 1 dose of medi-gel, a character can give up efficiency for relatively rapid repair. This heals 1 Lethal point of damage over the course of 1 hour, or 3 Bashing points of damage over the course of 15 minutes, on top of normal healing rates. Extensive overuse of this function is not recommended as it both drains medi-gel reserves rapidly and can be deleterious to long-term health unless overseen by a qualified health professional. 

'''Biotic Amps'''

Biotics require implants to be able to properly control and harness the power of the eezo nodules in their bodies, and amplifiers can be plugged into these implants for greater effectiveness. There are a great number of different biotic amps on the market, often tailored to further enhance specific Disciplines or techniques.

A biotic character can only benefit from a single biotic amp at a time. Changing from one amp to another is a relatively simple process but takes some time and requires care, so cannot be done during combat.

'''Discipline Amps''': These amplify one of the three Disciplines, offering a +1 equipment bonus to all dice pools for using powers of that Discipline. 
'''Technique Amps''': These amplify a single biotic power, offering a +2 equipment bonus to all dice pools for the use of that specific power only. 

'''Omni-Tools'''

Omni-tools are common, multi-purpose personal computational devices that serve as micro-fabrication facilities, interfacing tools and diagnostic systems. Basic models are extremely common, but more specialised versions are available for technicians, soldiers and scientists who need further functionality.

All omni-tools have a Library Size number. This is the amount of programmes that the omni-tool can hold in its data library. All omni-tools apart from the basic model provide an omni-blade facility, flash-forging a weapon with the device's fabricator to deliver a devastating melee attack.

'''Basic Omni-Tool (Library Size 5)''': A regular-quality omni-tool holds enough memory to store a number of useful programmes in its library, but offers no exceptional qualities. 
'''Enhanced Library Omni-Tool (Library Size 20)''': A omni-tool with extensive memory banks, this tool can store a great deal of programmes for retrieval by its user for whatever situation faces them. 
'''Enhanced Processor Omni-Tool (Library Size 12)''': Sacrificing memory for high performance, this omni-tool offers a +1 equipment bonus to the use of programmes from a single Process talent. 
'''Intrusion Omni-Tool (Library Size 8)''': A kind of omni-tool used by infiltrators, assassins and criminals, this tool devotes a large proportion of its power to intrusion purposes, offering a +2 equipment bonus to all attempts to hack or to use Interfacing Process programmes. 
'''Military Omni-Tool (Library Size 6)''': A military-grade omni-tool used by soldiers includes an augmented omni-blade facility, increasing the weapon's basic damage to 3L. 

'''Other Tools'''

'''Ballistic Shield''': A ballistic shield takes one hand to hold up, and provides the user with a very resilient composite shield that provides them with some measure of cover. Making full use of a ballistic shield offers a -2 cover penalty on attack rolls against the character, but the character suffers the normal penalty from firing from cover themselves (so suffers a -1 penalty to their own ranged attack rolls). Opponents with sufficiently powerful weapons may choose to simply try and punch a hole through the shield; in this case, no cover penalty is applied to the attack roll, but the shield-bearer benefits from 2 additional points of Armour on their Shield and health levels. 
'''Drop Casing''': While armour-jets will suffice for dropping from an aircraft into combat, they are insufficient for orbital drops; equally, not all troops have armour-jets built into their suits. Drop casings are bolt-on one-shot additions designed to protect the wearer from entry into an atmosphere and to slow their descent, detaching and falling off as the trooper hits the ground. Drop casings are usually programmed with guidance systems so that no Piloting checks are required from the wearer; however, if the situation has changed then the wearer can take control and use their Piloting skill to try and make small adjustments to their trajectory and landing zone. Dropping into combat leaves the wearer unable to act in the first round as they touch down. 
'''Med-Pack''': The size of a satchel or backpack, a med-pack can carry up to five doses of medi-gel, and comes with application nozzles and ports so that it can be used on injured individuals or to top up armour reservours. 
'''Remote Drone''': A remote drone is a small bundle of circuitry and energy projection mechanisms around a mass effect generator and power source, coming to about the size of a human fist. When activated, a remote drone generates a holographic display around itself and hovers a metre above the ground. Remote drones are usually used as helpers by technicians, offering a +1 teamwork bonus to Engineering, Interfacing, Medicine or Science rolls made by the drone's user, but special programming can improve their performance. Drones have 1 point of Armour, 3 Shield points and 2 health points of directly attacked. These are not to be confused with military drones, which are sizeable unmanned attack or scout vehicles. 
'''Tactical Cloak''': With an abundance of radar and other detection systems, unaugmented attempts at stealth can be difficult in some situations. Modern stealth systems have compensated with tactical cloaks, capable of rendering the user near-invisible to most forms of detection. Using a stealth system is an instant action taking a full round, and being invisible isn't much help if hostiles are still aware of where the character is. A successful attack with any kind of weapon against a cloaked character will cause the cloak to drop on the following turn. As long as the character moves up to their normal Speed the cloak remains intact, but running or charging provides too much interference and will break the tactical cloak's stealth field. Since a cloak is usually powered by the onboard generator of a reconnaissance armour suit, it can maintain its effect for up to ten minutes, or five minutes if the character is on the move, requiring a pause of ten minutes to recharge after this period. Rare personal stealth systems that are not part of a suit of armour can generally cloak for a far shorter period of time.

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