Editing Werewolf Paris/Paris (section)

==Lore of Light==

As well as the knowledge that their tutors have imparted to them, there are other pieces of knowledge, rumours, advice and the like that have been passed on.

France and Paris are both unusual in their own ways. France has far higher number of Uratha in its population that you'd expect, and this doesn't appear to be down to bloodlines or inheritance. It's ''geographical'', with immigrant groups suffering the same increase in Uratha when they come to France, and emigrants losing it in other lands. Paris itself has a very thin Gauntlet - in part due to centuries of Beshilu gnawing at it, the tumult of revolutions, the spiritual impressions of vast mass graves and the like. The Eaten Wolf implies that there is more to the Gauntlet's frailty, and that she knows why, but as yet does not reveal such secrets to Howling Phantom.

Darkness and light play a key role in the spiritual ecology of the city. Not only are the broods of light and dark very powerful, but these symbols run through the agreements, pacts and rites of the Parisian ''hisil''. Many packs have places in their territories that they must always keep lit or in darkness in order to adhere to strange Bans and laws of the Shadow. All of the mentors have made it clear that identifying the particular requirements of the local spirit ecology in terms of light and dark will be important to managing it and wielding power over it. The Lamplighters have taken their name from the belief that, unlike Zero Point, they hold up the wellbeing of the city and its Uratha.

Sometimes, in the Shadow, areas of night-time Paris have their skies ablaze with fiery, ruddy light, as if the nearby city were burning. Beware, says Vengeance-in-Silver, for it's an echo of the old revolutions and violence of the city, and danger abounds on those nights. Look for opportunity, says the Eaten Wolf, for the one who braves the flames and draws from the banquet beyond returns with a belly full of secrets. Watch for these apparitions of fiery night, says the Fishing Cat, for they are bleed-offs of the massive spiritual energies flowing into the Zero Point and indicate stresses and weak spots on the cromlech lines.

Those cromlech lines are ancient routes of spiritual power that run into the city from all manner of direction, lining up with the cromlechs of past eras in a vast grid of energy. This grid, says the Fishing Cat, is what ties Paris into the wider France as its symbolic heart, and what makes events in Paris so important to the rest of the country. The problem is that, in recent decades, possibly since the Dance of the Lights in the 1960's, the power is surging inwards uncontrollably and throwing all things out of balance. The lines come together at the Zero Point of Paris, by Notre Dame. Handling this overload is the proclaimed purpose of the Zero Point Protectorate, but the spiritual lines can have strange effects on all the territories they run through. The Eaten Wolf says that they're lines of the dead, that the cromlech are linked to the groaning grave-sites buried beneath Paris. The Fishing Cat says that one of the cromlech lines runs under Montreuil as it passes towards the Zero Point.

It is the tradition of Parisian Uratha that the resting places of noted werewolves are sacred locations, especially to the Hunters in Darkness and Bone Shadows. The proper reverence and maintenance of such sites is considered ''right behaviour'', itself a measure of honour. Those who disdain their forebears and the noble dead are living only in the moment and insulting the history of the Forsaken. The Eaten Wolf mutters about tombs as wells and sinkholes that suck down Death essence; the Fishing Cat firmly instructs that honouring the past is paramount; Vengeance-in-Silver leaves no doubt that handling such sites will affect how both spirits and Uratha look upon the pack.

The Sacre Coeur in Monmartre is sacred to both Forsaken and Pure, a place of penance and neutral ground. The humans raised up the cathedral there as a symbol of order and spirituality that would reimpose old cultural strictures upon France; it is akin to both an immense lightning rod and attennae at the same time, its structure plugging into the ''immense'' Locus that swirls and seethes beneath it. Its architect, and many of his leading workers, became Claimed by ''something'' during the construction, leading to a bloody purge by the Uratha in 1914. Even the Eaten Wolf just shakes her head when speaking of the Sacred Heart, simply advising that it is consecrated with blood and should not be disrespected.

Oh, and don't mess with the cats in the Monmartre graveyards. Just don't.