Everything

First Teams

The fomori bred by Magadon are the most potent to be found anywhere in the world. They are legendary among both Pentex and the Garou for their ferocity, power, and top-notch training. Magadon specially engi­ neers these creatures for use in Pentex First Teams, the crack squads deployed by Pentex on the most dangerous and vital missions. First, to do battle with the hated Garou, First Teams build themselves up to withstand the savage fury of Gaia’s warriors and dish it out in return. Magadon starts with the human side. Once the chosen candidates commit, they train rigorously to enhance physical ability, from balance and speed to strength and endurance. Magadon gives the best medicines, genetic engineering and biological enhancements to these men and women, making them the best physical specimens humanly possible, and sometimes more. All the while, the candidate absorbs Wyrm-taint, and he welcomes it. When he reaches full physical potential, the process of possession begins. To give the fomori on First Team the best advantage over the Garou, the Banes chosen are the strongest available. The Banes devour as much taint and negative energies as they can, aided by First Team engineers, making them hungrier and more vicious than their common kin. When the merging is complete, the result is a powerful fomori, highly trained and bred for the sole purpose of fighting werewolves. Armed with weapons specifically designed to combat Garou and devastate the environment, First Teams have collected more werewolf pelts than any other group, save perhaps for the Black Spiral Dancers.

When the need is greatest, Pentex sends in First Teams alongside Black Spiral Dancers to wage war on important caerns or wipe out local septs. These battles are bloody and glorious, and take a tremendous toll on Garou forces, which are slower to replenish than Pen­ tex’s. By the time the last member of a First Team meets his end at werewolf claws; another one is completing its training and executing her first mission.

Pentex controls. It devours. It can and does employ fomori who come across its path, and the constant spiritual degradation of its human employees makes them attractive candidates for hungry Banes. But Pentex wants more. It wants to serve the Wyrm and get rich doing so. It doesn’t just want whatever it can find - it wants to create the strongest, fastest, and most controllable fomor possible. This is where the long, multi-segmented First Team recruitment, training and corruption program comes in.

Welcome to the elite.

Recruitment

Garou wonder how Pentex manages to find so many humans desperate enough to trade away their humanity for a Wyrm-ridden spiral into corruption and death. Even in these end days, how can Pentex throw wave after wave at the Garou?

It’s simple — they advertise, and they look out for talent.

The Front Door

Very few humans apply for a job that guarantees losing your soul to an alien spirit of hate and destruction, so Pentex uses its most familiar tools — money and lies.

Pentex subsidiaries advertise their benign-sounding positions, and armies of lawyers, accountants, administrators and other corporate drones all responded to ‘position available’ advertisements.

Pentex, via its subsidiaries, has a corporate army of recruiters and talent spotters always looking for fresh meat for the grinder. Every recruiter specializes in a different area, and few recruiters understand the truth of what the eager new employees are agreeing to. Fewer would really care if they did — the bonus for every recruit far outweighs their conscience.

Janice Maloney works in a recruitment office for Secure Employment Solutions, matching applicants’ skills with the right kind of employment. Ms. Maloney knows within minutes when the right candidate walks through the door, and she ensures they get fast-tracked into the next ‘security officer’ training program.

Stephanie Batiste is well known in the professional football scouting circles. While other talent scouts look for the next big thing, Stephanie looks for the next big injury; other scouts pass tips to her because she’s no threat to their interests. Stephanie walks in with the checkbook, offering a signing bonus and a new goal to kids with crushed dreams.

Colonel Jack Bowman keeps his finger on the pulse of every branch of service and has a generous expense account. His friends think of him when a soldier doesn’t quite meet the standards for promotion or washes out of special forces training. Jack’s there to help manage them into the first stage of a glorious new civilian life.

Bob Pullman volunteers in a soup van that feeds the city’s homeless. He knows the desperate street people and they recognize him as someone they can trust. He offers a second chance and the promise of something more than they’ve ever experienced before.

Internal Transfers

Pentex monitors employees across hundreds of subsidiaries daily. Every employee experiences some level of Wyrm-inspired degradation, from soul-numbing bureaucracy to distilling Bane essence into the latest medical breakthrough. Pentex provides mandatory training packages to all its holdings, delivered by professional educators. These teams include recruiters who check for increasing discontent, aggression or inability to deal with personal issues — all key signs of Wyrm taint. They offer employees with the right signs higher-paying ‘developmental opportunities’.

Every large corporate entity has its share of misfiled paperwork. All too frequently a manager signs the wrong document and some poor pump-jockey from the local Enron gas station is sent to First Team training. Usually the first clue these unfortunates have of their fate is when they report for their new work assignment only to have an assault rifle thrust into their hands while a training instructor shouts orders at them. Few make it through basic training alive, let alone get to their first combat assignment.

Opportunity Knocks

As well as its overt recruitment strategy, Pentex employs another band of recruiters who understand the more specialized aspects of the company and the opposition it faces. These recruiters appear the same as their ignorant counterparts, and are employed by the same subsidiaries — only their knowledge and unlimited travel accounts differ.

Every day, they trawl internet newsfeeds and read hundreds of blogs and emails, looking for clues of strange activities and posting their own ads in newspapers and popular websites. Each recruiter has years of experience and networks of contacts who feed them information. Once they identify a likely location they take the first flight heading that way.

These recruiters are cautious. Their first priority is identifying ongoing or residual Garou activity. If they find werewolf infestation they note the locations for future follow-up and file a report up the chain. The location may not be suitable for recruitment opportunities — yet — but it may be prime testing ground for a newly minted First Team.

If the recruiter believes it safe enough she digs deeper. She is trained to recognize the tell-tale signs of Delerium and interviews victims to determine their recollection and ability to deal with facing such horror again. If she finds the right mix of damage and anger she sets to work convincing the mark of the opportunity Pentex brings for safety and revenge. These recruiters have broad authority to summon medical and trauma specialists, who grind down resistance with targeted counselling and generous distribution of Magadon pharmaceuticals.

The Back Door

Many supernatural beings secretly crave the security of a steady paycheck and the chance to pretend they belong. Pentex does not have an open door employment policy, but the corporation always considers powerful new employees. The decision whether to bring them in depends on the projected profit or loss.

Pentex has no monopoly on fomori — the number of Bane-possessed victims far exceeds Pentex’s employee register. Pentex has no particular interest in total control, either — each wild fomor keeps the Garou’s attention divided. The company does send recruiters if it hears of a particularly interesting specimen —an especially powerful fomor or one with rare or unique powers.

Pentex will sometimes tap the prisons it owns as a source of combat fomori; mistreated, desperate inmates and thuggish guards alike make the perfect environment for Banes to exploit. Recruiters watch for early signs of possession to arrange ‘work-release programs’ for the mutating prisoners. Many unpossessed prisoners volunteer for these opportunities, hoping to escape their concrete hell. Some prisoners have the right profile to be fast-tracked for possession or other experimentation — if they survive and display useful abilities Pentex will consider First Team training.

Peculiarly, some fomori find their way to Pentex laboratories and offices no matter how concealed or deniable the link to head office. The Banes powering these monsters seem to sense their own and guide their vessel ‘home’. The reception these fomor receive depends on how much they’ve exposed Pentex’s interests, and how expensive covering the mess will be. A remarkable number of these ‘wild’ fomori pass quickly through training and on to deployment. They haven’t had the vetting or brainwashing that higher-ups prefer in making a desirable First Team trooper, but they do understand carnage and tearing into the enemy. Most receive only cursory training before deployment to a conflict zone with an incredibly low survival rate. Trained, reliable First Team fomori are a considerable investment of time and money. If someone else wants to volunteer to catch a bullet or fall on Garou claws while the real First Teams pursue mission objectives, Pentex obliges.

Kinfolk are their own, special category, and recruiters proceed with additional caution. They assess suitability for recruitment — Kinfolk of the Gaian tribes don’t often display the hatred and resentment of their wider families to be worthy recruits. Snatch-teams kidnap unsuitable Kinfolk and pass them to Black Spiral Dancers, brainwash them, or kill them depending on circumstance. Pentex particularly values Kinfolk who don’t know of their nature. Recruiters offer exorbitant contracts to bring them into the corporation’s clutches, but if they resist several waves of ever more persuasive negotiators, the company treats them as it would Gaia-affiliated kin.

Black Spiral Dancer Kinfolk are logged in corporate records and left alone. Building additional leverage and control over the corrupted werewolves is a good corporate failsafe — it hopes it never needs the insurance but will threaten the tribe with extinction should they ever turn on the corporation.

Training

Most recruits don’t know they’ve been employed to fight werewolves. Some Kinfolk or other supernaturally-touched individuals know the truth, but everyone else believes they’ve taken a well-paid private security job with a generous benefits package. Most don’t even know they work for Pentex, instead believing their employer to be one of a range of security contractors, VIP bodyguard services, or private military corporations owned by the multinational.

Basic

Few recruits head straight into what would be expected from elite special forces training. Internal transfers and some external hires fast-track into the program, but everyone else heads to basic security training to learn the skills needed for corporate security in any Pentex subsidiary office.

The first month consists of corporate structure and propaganda, administrative requirements and basic security. The new employees also undergo extensive indoctrination sessions and encounter scenarios designed to engender team bonding and a strong reliance on the corporation. Instructors monitor the recruits for suitability for advanced training and watch out for any developing unprofessional friendships. The trainers keep the recruits from becoming too friendly, planting doubts and mistrust as needed, or relocating people to other training facilities. Instructors usually only break groups if the camaraderie conflicts with corporate priorities. Pentex wants shock troops willing to die for each other, but it needs people who will sacrifice each other for the company.

The second month covers the physical aspects of corporate security work including light firearms and baton training, and restraint techniques. The recruits learn how to monitor crowds and what behaviors to watch for, how to work with a team and protect corporate interests. This basic training delivers excellent corporate security officers for Pentex’s many outlets and customers, but only those recruits with the necessary qualities progress to have a chance at First Team status.

Intermediate

Recruits with the requisite psychological and moral flexibility move on to the next level of training. Instructors sort the candidates and ship them to other training facilities. Breaking up strong groups at this stage increases the recruits’ reliance on their corporate masters and inures them to losing people.

This is where true First Team training begins. Recruits learn to use specialized equipment and receive classes on the stranger opponents they will face. The trainees work through difficult physical and mental challenges, while taking a cocktail of pharmaceutical supplements to make them stronger and more resilient, and to think and act faster. Every supplement is Wyrm-tainted and addictive.

Enticers (p. 130) deliver lectures on the company’s goals and the need for elite First Teams to defend Pentex from its foes. Under this influence the recruits train harder

In A Perfect World

This package is how everything should progress. Reality is often different. The techniques are imperfect and the trainers and psychologists are only human.

Pentex makes mistakes, but it rarely admits to them. The trainers know better than to question the recruits they receive and have simple methods to deal with these mistakes. Recruits with some suitability to First Team work join a class as normal; if necessary they receive additional drugs to keep them calm and compliant.

Those who are obviously unsuitable from the start, or who don’t respond well to the extra attention and pharmaceuticals, are fast-tracked through the program. They receive just enough training to know which end of the rifle to point at the enemy before they graduate and deploy to the worst hell-holes as soon as possible.

The process benefits everyone — except the poor sap with zero life expectancy. First Team training staff successfully marche out another graduate, mission controllers have new meat-shields to distract the opposition, and Pentex never has to admit to a mistake. Everybody wins. and consume more to reach their potential and make the company proud. The Enticers introduce the fomori concept as an evolutionary miracle, a level of dedication beyond all but the best Pentex employees. The Enticers speak dismissively of the possibility of side effects but bookend these with charismatic presentations on the advantages and desirability of becoming a fomor. Few recruits complete this aspect of the program without developing a burning desire to excel, improve and make Pentex proud.

From this point in the program the failure rate is less than one percent — a fact of great pride for Magadon Pharmaceuticals and First Team management. The most common failures are if a trainee is somehow immune to the final stages of indoctrination, or has a negative reaction to the drugs. Pentex still makes use of these failures. Medical washouts go to Magadon laboratories for research and analysis; free-thinkers are arrested by a fully-armed First Team in front of their fellow recruits. Shortly thereafter another Enticer solemly delivers details of some concocted treachery by the failed recruit. Pentex guides the recruits to decide an appropriate punishment for the traitor. The sentence is inevitably execution and the united trainees carry out the murder, further bonding them to one another and to the corporation.

Advanced

The recruits are physically, mentally and spiritually ready to enter the final stages of training. Advanced training is possibly the most important section, where Pentex decides who endures fomorization and who stays human.

The penultimate challenge for the recruits is to face down a werewolf. Trainers use captured Garou for this experience. Corporate indoctrination paints the Black Spiral Dancers as company allies — exposing new First Team members to Delerium from their allies could have disastrous consequences in the field.

Pentex would prefer to blood recruits by killing the werewolf — ideally as slowly and painfully as possible — but the company can’t doesn’t have enough captives to dispose of that easily. Instead, the recruits usually settle for wounding and crippling the beast with whatever weapons and equipment they prefer, stopping the torture just short of killing the Garou. The recruits then discuss what they learned under guidance by instructors while the werewolf is dragged back to its cage to heal and wait for the next round of experiments, or the next wave of recruits.

The final stage of ‘training’ — before everyone graduates one way or another — is possession. The constant psychological and sociological tests identify which trainees are most likely to survive Bane possession. More importantly, the test results predict the recruits’ likelihood to thrive in ways that result in a manageable fomor. Pentex has plenty of experience with powerful fomori that can destroy and defile without restraint, but the company wants servants who respond to commands and make good corporate choices in the field. Pentex has invested vast sums of money to train the recruits and will use mindless drones or rampaging berserkers, but these are never as profitable as dependable First Team members.

Despite decades of research, pharmaceutical assistance and the best corruption experts money can buy, Bane possession is still as much art as science. The constant exposure to spiritually-degrading drugs swings the odds in Pentex’s favor but results are never guaranteed. The Human Resources Department generates cost/benefit spreadsheets with the required number of fomori from each training group and the First Team trainers organize the trainees in predicted order of success. The trainers expose them to possession until they fulfil HR’s ‘order’. The trainers usually add a couple extra if they can, to insure against any pre-graduation fatalities.

Possession takes place in specially-prepared rooms that resemble a cross between a dentist’s surgery and a dark altar. Only the most spiritually-dead people — like the recruits — miss the room’s aura of dread and despair. Dim lights create ominous shadows in the room’s corners. Individuals making the mistake of staring too long into these pools of darkness get the feeling something is looking back at them.

Technicians buckle the recruit into the chair and connect them to a variety of monitors. They insert catheters into the victim’s arms and neck and attach lines to remote dispensers filled with faintly glowing, proprietary blends of Magadon’s cutting-edge chemicals, designed to reduce resistance. The technicians anoint the recruit’s skin with a mix of ground fomor bone, blood and toxic waste. Finally, the recruit drinks a foul tasting concoction and the personnel leave the room to monitor through a one-way mirror.

Banes are rarely cooperative and the room is warded against escape. The foul drink binds a slumbering spirit that wakes within the host, usually angry and hungry. It knows its purpose and has agreed to the binding for the chance to permanently possess a human — even so, Banes are selfish, treacherous things and Pentex knows they can’t be trusted to keep their word. The Bane senses the wards that remind it of its obligations. If the Bane wants to leave, it needs to take the host offered to it.

Bane possession rarely takes more than a few minutes but Pentex standard procedure ensures the recruit remains in the room at least an hour. The technicians know the signs of success and prepare to release the new fomori. One of the dispensers holds powerful tranquilizers and technicians know from experience to ensure the new creation is well and truly unconscious before releasing it.

Deployment

When the new fomor awakes, it finds itself grouped with other fledgling fomori and supervised by Pentex’s strongest and most iron-willed instructors — usually other fomori or supernatural creatures. These new fomori aren’t mission-ready until they’ve had the chance to explore their new powers, test their limits and become familiar with their new state.

They don’t have a lot of time; Pentex always has more missions than First Teams. The company would prefer to send its new shock troops straight into the field but cost-benefit projections show that an adjustment period saves Pentex billions of dollars each year, and money always talks.

New fomori receive a lot of care and attention from their instructors and peers. No matter how much mental and chemical preparation the recruit had, the conversion from human to fomor is always a massive psychological trauma. The sympathy is almost certainly fake, but it is exactly what is required to cement the fragile fomori’s loyalty to Pentex and increase their reliance on the company.

Unfomorized graduates don’t receive the grace period. They march out after a five-minute ceremony where some Pentex middle manager speaks about their importance to the company. They collect their basic kit and a letter telling them where and when to report for their first deployment. During quiet periods the lucky graduates may get a day or two of rest and recreation before deployment, but First Team commanders joke that it’s never quiet time.

Pentex assigns First Teams across the world — wherever it has financial interests, develops new projects, or creates some environmental disaster to keep Garou distracted. Most major subsidiaries and facilities have a permanent First Team presence, with additional backup if Pentex believes the subsidiary is under threat, or if they need to oust the facility’s management. Either way, subsidiaries view First Teams as a double-edged sword. They offer the best security Pentex can provide, but they’re a constant reminder of the company’s ruthless agenda and willingness to apply extreme force to the business environment.

The First Teams

Even the most thorough Pentex brainwashing can’t remove the very human instinct to prefer the company of similar people. Human and fomori troops would prefer to mix with their own — the humans feel an unconscious repulsion from the ‘mutants’, while the fomori know the ‘squishies’ are forever ignorant of the fomor experience.

Pentex doesn’t care about these preferences. It builds First Teams based on statistical data, mission requirements and available resources. Most First Teams include both humans and formori. Exceptions exist — VIP protection details that can’t be exposed as supernatural may be entirely human, while brutal heavy assaults against the most fortified enemy may call for only the toughest fomori.

Troops shift between teams and can be reassigned with little notice, especially in high casualty areas. Despite this, most First Teams have a semi-permanent roster and a sense of camaraderie develops between teammates, especially after saving each other a few times. Experienced Teams with a good success record may have consistent membership — barring casualties — but no Team should be complacent. Upper management will occasionally tear teams apart just for the small satisfaction of inflicting misery on others.

Every First Team has a corporate designation and purpose according to organizational charts. Most teams go wherever Pentex sends them and follow whatever orders they’re given. General purpose First Teams fulfil a variety of roles including direct combat, sabotage, or VIP protection. Most troops never progress beyond generalist duties, but those who show ability in specific areas may be chosen for additional training to join one of Pentex’s more specialized First Teams.

Specialist Teams

Assault Teams inflict the heaviest damage on the enemy by bringing overwhelming firepower — super

Black Spiral Dancers

When Black Spiral Dancers want to lead a First Team — and Spirals never accept anything except alpha position — Pentex acquiesces. The werewolves are often stronger and faster than an Assault Team fomor.

The situation is far from ideal for the company. Pentex prefers using Spirals for missions requiring elite specialists, and to keep them separated from First Teams as much as possible. First Teams believe Black Spiral Dancers are the pinnacle of the Wyrm’s troops — proof that not all werewolves deny the truth of the world. Unfortunately, Black Spirals are usually somewhat less awe-inspiring in reality. Their instability and capriciousness is hard to predict and difficult to control.

Black Spiral Dancers view First Teams as cannon fodder for whatever goal they’ve set. When the werewolves ask for a First Team it’s because they need expendable resources to protect the pack. Pentex finds it almost impossible to guess how much the werewolf-enhanced mission will cost the company, but gives the Dancers what they need, quietly closing the personnel files of the unlucky First Team and preparing to relocate troops to fill the expected vacancies.

In doing so, Pentex once again invests in the future, strengthening the werewolves’ dependency on the company and shifting the balance of power further in Pentex’s favor.

In the unlikely event that any members of the First Team survive, they’re often damaged enough to only be fit to take on an instructor’s role — or a padded cell. Those few who remain both physically capable and sane after backing up a Black Spiral Dancer are in high demand as elite solidiers of the Wyrm. natural or mundane — to bear on the enemy. Fomori comprise the bulk of Assault Teams; few humans can survive the collateral damage of the assaults, and most don’t have the required psychotic mindset to inflict the levels of wanton carnage expected from these teams. Those few who do are rightly regarded as exceptional even by their fomor teammates.

Ranger Teams specialize in moving unseen and inflicting devastating surprise attacks on the enemy. They scout areas to map enemy locations and strengths, explore corporate interests for takeover possibilities or disloyalty, and hunt and kill rogue Pentex employees — including escaped fomori.

Rangers train for infiltration and tracking, information-gathering, sabotage and assassination. They favor humans for their flexibility and ability to blend into hostile environments, but fomori with camouflage, persuasion or other subtle powers also suit ranger duties.

Retrieval Teams are sometimes confused with Rangers — the key difference is Retrievers bring things back alive. They train for stealth, infiltration, and quick and quiet murder the same as Rangers, but also include neutralizing and transport of almost any kind of cargo. To understand the best ways of isolating and incapacitating targets, Retrieval Teams study psychology, medicine and scientific skills as well as combat techniques.

Other First Teams treat Retrievers with disdain, making them more insular and self-reliant than other teams. Retrievers nurture this as they could be called on to hunt and capture their fellow troops at any time, to almost certainly face painful interrogation and death. The focus on cerebral skills means humans are often better suited to Retrieval Teams than fomori.

The Retriever’s isolation and psychological knowledge gives them the best chance to see through Pentex’s lies and manipulations. Retrievers know the company watches them carefully — every team has a detailed file on another Retrieval Team from some other Pentex location, and a plan to capture that team should it ever go rogue. Every Retrieval Team knows that somewhere, Pentex has a team studying them and planning against their betrayal.

First Team Equipment

A First Team trooper’s basic gear depends on their assignment and whether the soldier is human. Humans require more specialized Pentex equipment to maintain control when facing the Delirium.

Pentex expects its First Teams to be ready to respond at a moment’s notice to repel Garou assaults. Every First Team member is armed at all times. Standard equipment for non-combat zones includes a Pentex-manufactured FT-13 heavy semi-automatic pistol with two magazines of standard ammunition and a third filled with silver-tipped rounds, and a silver-edged combat knife. A Kevlar vest is optional, and often only taken by the ‘squishy’ humans. Humans also receive a pair of goggles with Involuntary Reaction (IR) filter lenses (p. 192).

In addition to this gear, First Teams working in designated combat zones carry the Pentex PX-66F assault rifle with six magazines of ammunition (three standard, three silver), a light pistol as a backup weapon, compass and radio. Human troops can request heavier armor, depending on their assignment.

Not everyone receives the same quality of gear. Newbies usually get standard-quality equipment until they prove themselves or piss someone off. Troops who annoy the quartermaster get the shit gear that’s held together by duct-tape and spit and breaks when the trooper sneezes. If the quartermaster doesn’t have reason to hate anyone, he’ll often pick one at random. This poor sap is also the first to get any experimental equipment — with all the concomitant risks. First Teams with a good record of success get the newer gear and the latest models.

When First Teams go on a mission, they get whatever equipment the mission planners think they need, plus whatever else they can beg from the quartermaster. One or two ‘special issue’ items can mean the difference between mission success and a sucking chest wound, and most First Teams try to ingratiate themselves with their quartermaster.

Going Postal

Company statistics show the cleanup cost of replacing corporate drones is less than replacing a facility destroyed by Garou. Even though Pentex knows the stress on every First Team trooper makes them liable to snap and murder their fellow employees, it wants them armed and ready to act.

As a concession, the company limits First Teams to light arms when in non-combat zones such as corporate offices, under the theory that collateral damage can be more easily contained.

Management also knows fomori stability is even more tenuous. When a fomor snaps, whatever mundane weapon she carries is unlikely to be her first weapon of choice concern. Still, an unarmed, acid-spewing fomor is easier to manage than one packing a balefire thrower.

Tactics

No matter the strength and resilience of First Teams, Garou often outclass them in battle. First Teams compensate for this disparity of supernatural potence with numbers, firepower and tactics.

Every trooper carries silver ammunition to use in case they encounter werewolf targets — when the mission planners expect strong Garou presence they issue many more silver-packed magazines. Pentex knows even the strongest Garou fall quickly to heavy curtains of silver. Superior numbers and firepower have the advantage of a high success rate, but they cost the company dearly in casualties and expensive ordnance. While they could launch Wyrm-tainted rockets into Garou strongholds and call in airstrikes on Caerns, that only works in combat zones and countries where the government forces are too far in Pentex’s pocket.

For smaller conflicts requiring a veil of secrecy First Teams try to stick together and concentrate fire on individual targets, and use their own powers and equipment to force werewolves to separate from their packs and die one by one. The Garou have a natural instinct to work as a pack, but it’s just instinct. First Teams have multiple drills each week on anti-Garou tactics, working on the same theories as counter-insurgency and guerrilla tactics. They know how to use their numbers to watch over all the angles, provide covering fire, lay traps, and press every tactical advantage.

In urban environments with plenty of witnesses, First Teams use the crowds to confuse and delay the werewolves. They use Wyrm-tainted aerosols to spray unwary civilians and turn them into beacons to attract the Garou. If the werewolves try to use Crinos form to force the humans to flee in panic, the team deploys FightBack gas grenades (p. 193) to change the crowd to an enraged mob.

First Teams who have the resources and time to plan prefer to distract werewolves. They establish kill-zones and sniper’s nests and use their heavier fighters to harry the Garou into the kill-zones. Teams call in heavy support and use Banes and insane combat fomori as shock troops to drive the werewolves where the First Team waits to ambush them. If this doesn’t work, the Teams try to enrage the Garou — preferably by killing one of the beasts so her pack is overcome with grief — and fall back through heavily secured and trapped kill-zones so when the frenzied and unwary werewolves chase through they receive a hail of bullets as welcome.

Every First Team knows of the Garou’s tactical advantage from stepping sideways and using the Umbra. Teams carry markers, shoe-polish or other items to cover and mar any reflective surfaces they find. This doesn’t always prevent the Garou moving to or from the spirit world, but it does help control where they can use their power.

Ideally, the best Pentex operations occur when the Garou aren’t there. When it can spare the resources, Pentex keeps Garou confused to the real target by flooding irrelevant areas with Wyrm-taint or sending Ranger teams to sabotage and destroy Garou-held territory before the primary mission starts. One particularly effective feint is to stage an attack on an identified Kinfolk community or Garou caern and retreat to a fortified position when the werewolves begin to mount a credible defense. Usually, the Garou follow the offending Team and fight against the well-defended position, while the true mission takes place in another nearby location. Even if the werewolves realise the ruse, their rushed response to protect the real target is disorganised and more vulnerable to the First Team’s tactics.

Retirement

The First Team employment contract includes generous retirement provisions to support the former First Team member well into old age. Pentex can afford this largesse — no one has ever retired. Joining the First Teams is a life-long choice.

Most troops die young, killed by werewolf claws or enemy bullets. Fomori tend to expire less than two years after possession — they either burn out or repeated combat ensures their deaths. Fomori with more than two years of service are forces to be reckoned with. They find themselves given the most dangerous missions, with the reward for survival being something even more dangerous. A handful of fomori earn promotions, leading teams into battle. These are the first among First Teams, sent into suicidal engagements that they somehow survive time and again. Legends grow around them that are used to awe and inspire new generations of recruits.

If they survive years of Pentex throwing them into the worst hells, the corporation always wants to know how. The doomed trooper reports for duty at Magadon, NDL, or another subsidiary that dissects the new test subject for knowledge to use in creating future generations.

Some rare human veterans manage to survive long enough to move away from active service to become jaded trainers, mission planners, or commanding officers. From this pool the most ruthless sometimes successfully transition into Pentex senior management positions. Other corporate minions give these corrupted powerhouses the respect due their position but watch them even more carefully than their peers —their sanity is surely frayed beyond rational decision making.