Everything

Caves and secret places puncture the mountains of Pangaea in untold number. The dwellers of those dark corners are far stranger than even the Zarak-Ur. Vast,

cavernous hollows hide a people who have spent too long beneath the earth. Hunched, leathery troglodytes blind from eons without light. These bulky monsters do not discriminate between visitor, foe and food, and however they communicate it isn’t through their crooked, sharp-toothed mouths. Occasionally, a great moaning song rises from the mountains that lets the other tribes know to keep out of Pangaea’s caves: the mountain people are hungry.

Glass Walker historians posit the Scar’s existence began with Rome and its aqueducts. These marvels of engineering and organization cast a gleaming Realm in the kiln of human innovation. In that scenario, it wasn’t until the early days of modern industry that the Wyrm took interest in this shining proto-Scar. The Weaver’s careless plunge toward mechanization gave the Unmaker a chance to hitch its horse to Grandmother Spider’s wagon, and it did so with glee. Others claim that the Scar has always been a joint venture of the Weaver and Wyrm. Before it was a chemically poisoned cityscape, it was a coal dust-choked mining town. Before that, a plantation of sickening toil. Before that, a scorching limestone quarry.

Whichever the case, the Industrial Revolution defined the Scar as it’s now known: acrid smoke and endless toil. The entire Realm is a caustic look at the Garou’s failure to stop the creep of industrialization. Few Realms exist more depraved or grotesque than the Scar, and no Realm in the vast Umbra is so perfectly built to get under Garou skin. The spirit world’s most petty, Garou-baiting cruelty. The Scar is a promise co-signed by the Wyrm and Weaver: this is the future of Gaia.

The vile Near Realm resembles a dirty, overcrowded cityscape. Faceless towers of black glass and steel stand like insectoid hairs from a thorax of refuse-covered parking lots. Soot-caked factory complexes belch foul smoke into the air and ooze brackish sludge into already oily rivers. The fluorescent sky is so murky with grey-green fumes that day and night are meaningless distinctions. Exhausted denizens wait in gridlocked traffic between their sixteen hours shifts at one of countless textile mills, complacently pining for the day when their hard work is noticed by callous supervisors. The streets and alleyways of the Scar overflow with hollow-eyed vagrants, worked to the bone and cast aside when the harsh rigors of factory life finally cost them their ability to work.

Experiencing the Realm firsthand is dangerous enough to give packs of experienced Garou pause. Shapeshifters who visit the Realm risk becoming trapped by the dense, rusty web that makes the Scar’s spiritual membrane one of the hardest to escape in the Umbra. The weight of the

noxious air hangs so heavily on a werewolf’s heart that mustering the will to fight becomes a challenge all its own. If captured by the uniformed, corporate-controlled Banes that act as the Scar’s police force, an imprisoned Garou can expect the same indentured servitude as the Realm’s malnourished spirits. Forced to labor in the miasma of the factories, even the most resolute werewolf has little chance to shake off the Scar’s overbearing complacency. If she labors too long there will be nothing left to rescue.

For the employees of the Scar’s corporate giants, the drain on their spiritual well-being is absolute. They retain enough of themselves to work, but they’re only alive by technicality. These drones trudge toward the final whistle of the day, when the shifts end and they get precious few hours of sleep before the entire cycle begins anew. When she can labor no longer, a fortunate spirit is thrown to the mean streets of Scar. If she’s less lucky, she’s mulched by gruesome machinery for the last traces of her Gnosis.

Getting to the Scar is almost frighteningly easy. A myriad of paths lead to the repugnant Realm, and its entrances are protected by little more than a token show of force. If anything, the Realm invites visitors. Entry is as simple as following a path to its conclusion, following a disused railroad line, or a cobbled road past brick buildings, well lit by gas lamps. As a traveler nears the Scar, the density of the Weaver’s webbing increases exponentially. The eventual tangled latticework is the result of an absurd number of pattern-spiders.

As easy as it is to enter the Realm, leaving the Scar is a feat of some cunning. The unusual thickness of the Gauntlet surrounding the Scar prevents all but the most gifted shapeshifters from stepping sideways. Failed attempts to breach the Realm’s dense membrane result in an imme­ diate, overwhelming response from the Weaver’s frantic minions. Many Garou prefer to dream their way free of the Realm, escaping into the Dream Zone from web-filled nightmares. Unfortunately, the very nature of the Scar makes dreams of escape unlikely.

The truly desperate can always take the train.

All Gnosis drained from the worker-spirits, as well as any gathered from the scraps of former employees, is stored in incredible vats beneath the floors of every factory in the Scar. Disinterested operators pump the sickening puree of their laid-off coworkers from these wells of energy into the husks of mass-produced Wyrm fetishes. The Gnosis batteries are fiercely protected by Bane and pattern-spider alike. The smallest rupture will return vast quantities of power and awareness to otherwise helpless laborers.

The massive, all but abandoned train yard in the Scar is known colloquially as the Last Junction. Here, a single engine awaits departure. The hulking, ever-smoking monstrosity resembles a locomotive in general terms, but the hellish angles and unnecessary smokestacks give it the appearance of a living creature.

No tracks lead to the Last Junction, only away from the twisted cityscape of the Scar. The massive, lightless maw of the tunnel that leaves the station has one destination and one destination alone: Malfeas.

A cadre of like-minded Wyrm and Weaver-spirits keep the Scar running. Individually, the barons are literally incorporated entities: ruthless spirit-amalgams comprised of the most nauseating, banal elements of corporate cul­ ture. The barons are afforded some small autonomy from their Celestine shareholders, so long as they keep things

in the black. That small freedom over their respective business-kingdoms is impetus to improve the bottom line at any cost. To that end, the barons are almost always at odds with each other, competing for the biggest cut of every awful opportunity. The Scar’s wicked efficiency is built around these chum-strewn waters.

The reach of the barons comes almost entirely from the Scrags and twisted emanations that make up the Scar’s corrupt peacekeepers. These thugs are little more than monsters clad in their respective corporation’s vivid sponsorship. They are as likely to gnaw the thin fibers of Gnosis from an exhausted lawbreaker as detain them. Unfortunately for the populace of the Scar, they’re fierce­ ly loyal to the barons, and avoiding the peacekeepers is impossible. They wear many hats, so long as the position gives them authority to abuse. They’re sadistic overseers of the factory floor, abusive police officers with something to prove, and violent strike-breakers with a taste for making messy examples.

Scrags aren’t the only spirits on the barons’ payroll. Bane Spiders, the massive Wyrm-tainted Weaver-spirits

responsible for the architecture of the Scar, are the Realm’s city planners and engineers. Though they occasionally act as overseers and jailors, the many-legged arachnids prefer to ply their trade as consultants than get their many-jointed hands dirty.