Everything

The Nihilach, blessedly rare, figure prominently in the tales of modern Garou. Pessimists hold that these Banes are spirits of the Apocalypse itself, manifesting to pave the way for the coming of the Wyrm. Others hold that they are the talon-tips of the Corrupter, gaining its first all-destroying hold upon Gaia directly. The Silent Striders know the truth, but do not speak it. It is no better than the rumors.

Nihilach appear at portentous moments in the war against Gaia, usually moments when a significant piece of the Mother is about to die. First, they stand and watch, impassively surveying the course of events; and then they move in to fight. That is the only mercy of the Nihilach — that they eventually condescend to do battle with Gaia’s warriors. These great Banes are terrible, all-consuming forces in battle, and many brave Garou cannot even muster the strength to raise a claw against them.

Nevertheless, those that do fight discover that the Nihilach are not invincible. In that fact alone, the Garou strive to find hope.

Rage

10, Gnosis 4, Willpower 9, Essence 30-50

* Blighted Touch: The Nihilach’s version of Blighted Touch is different from that of other Banes. Rather than bringing the worst elements of the target’s nature to the fore, this Charm instead induces a deadening lassitude and crippling depression. Effort seems futile, dreams unattainable, and the world a sick and pointless joke at best, a gauntlet of needless indignities as prelude to meaningless nothing-

ness at worst. A botch attempting to resist this Charm is capable of sending a Garou spiraling directly into Harano.

* Yawning Void: This Charm stands as the most fearsome of the Nihilach’s powers. It activates reflexively by paying one Essence whenever something dies in the Nihilach’s presence, be it a discorporate spirit or a murdered Garou, and the death need not be at the Nihilach’s hands. The billowing emptiness of the Nihilach’s body unfolds into a sheer, sanity-scraping void that draws in the soul of the slain. Anything swallowed by the Yawning Void is gone forever. A Garou hero will not persist as an ancestor spirit, nor be returned to Gaia’s embrace and reincarnated. He, like anything else swallowed by this Charm, will simply cease to be.

Image: Nihilach look like very little, in a way. They’re null impressions on the world around them, a shadow that drinks light, understood as impressions rather than details. They’re tall, standing higher than a Garou in Crinos, and when they act, there is the understanding of long, painfully thin limbs. Nothingness hangs about them like a shroud, and that shroud gives the impression of a wide, powerful body. A Nihilach cannot properly be said to have a face, but those looking where a face should be often glimpse impressions of those they have known in the past, individuals they associate with memories of loss and regret. Nihilach are silent, making no noise as they stand and watch, nor when they swoop in to attack.

Background

The Silent Striders, with their greater understanding of the Dark Umbra, understand what the Nihilach are. They’re Banes of Oblivion, the annihilation that waits beyond the hunger of the Wyrm, when the Destroyer has eaten even itself. That they are beginning to appear in the Umbra and upon the face of Gaia is the direst of many dark omens in these final days.

Storytelling Notes: The presence of the Nihilach is an existential threat, a whispered promise that there will be no world beyond the Apocalypse, no recovery, no new age to rise from the ashes of the old. They challenge both the martial prowess and the convictions of the Garou, and best brought forth at the climax of a chronicle, to underline the import of whatever disaster the Garou fight to avert. To win a battle where a Nihilach took the field is to have definitively prevented Gaia from moving deeper into the final night from which there is return, and that is an act worthy of celebration.