Everything

While some elders would like to believe that every sacred detail of a Pact forged at the beginning of meaning­ ful time on Earth is still relevant and untouchable in the twenty-first century, the fact is that things change. Things fall apart. The world turns, and the Garou turn with it. If the People couldn't evolve with the times, they would already be nothing but a footnote in the Apocalypse's pièce de résistance. The rites they use to stabilize their society are no exception; while the specific form of a rite is how it draws power from the spirit world, it isn't written in stone.

Exceptions to the Rule

At times, a ritemaster may find that the special condi­ tions required for her rite to work just don't exist. A ritual that requires burying personal items at the pack's home

caern needs performed while the pack is busy fighting for their lives in the middle of the Scar. The werewolf needs to get to the Underworld post-haste, but no animals are in sight for sacrifice and she refuses to murder an innocent human being for her cause. No vines grow in the wasteland the pack finds itself in on the doorstep of the Deep Umbra, needing to cross the threshold to achieve its goals. What then? A ritemaster with enough clout in the spirit world and a silver tongue can persuade the spirits to let him change up the form of a rite he already knows, just this once. By praying, singing, or pleading to the spirit world as a sort of mini-ritual prior to attempting the actual rite, a mystic can get permission to perform a rite in a slightly different way than usual, perhaps using unconventional materials, or at a different time or location than is customary. Wise werewolves are wary of trying this too often or making too drastic a change, however, as the spirits become impatient with those who flout tradition too much.

If the Garou presents a good enough case, he can also make these temporary changes in desperate situations. He may alter rites that normally require an entire sept's presence to allow fewer participants if, for instance, half the sept is trapped elsewhere or the pack has no way of reaching its caern. Likewise, if a ritual normally takes hours but the vampire and its minions are coming right now, the spirits may accept a more abbreviated version. The spirits are also occasionally flexible in matters of Renown, when a ritemaster wants to perform a modified rite to honor a fallen comrade or celebrate the deeds of a hero; he could adjust the Rite of Boasting to provide extra Glory to a pack that speaks well of its departed brother's accomplishments in battle and then goes on to emulate them, for example.

Making New Rules

Just as a werewolf can create new rites, she can rewrite existing rites to create new canonical versions of them as well. Unlike a temporary change granted in the heat of the moment, changes that create new versions of rites are permanent, and allow others to perform the rite the same way later. To do this, a ritemaster must walk the spirit world through the process of shifting the old way to the new way, performing the original rite and then gradually stepping through each change one by one until she has demonstrated the alternate form completely. It takes great concentration, a focused will, and staying power to accomplish such a task. If successful, the mystic introduces the new form of the rite into the oeuvre of recognized rituals that can then be passed on just like any other rite.

Werewolves find myriad reasons for creating an updated version of an existing rite. Rites that vary from tribe to tribe or even sept to sept, such as the Rite of Wounding or the Rite of the Winter Winds, are common examples. Tribes have strong cultural identities and long traditions that align with the human societies from which they originated, and

each tribe expresses its connections to the spirit world in different ways. If a sept of Bone Gnawers borrowed a rite from a nearby group of Red Talons, but the original version called for human sacrifice, few would question the decision to petition the spirit world for a variant! In a less drastic ex­ ample, the funereal traditions of a tribe's originating culture inform how they observe the Gathering for the Departed. Rituals that shape a group's way of life are the perfect avenue for expressions of individuality and rich diversity.

Sometimes, a tribe or sept runs into the problem of special conditions being unavailable on a grander scale. If a werewolf discovers a rite that requires the sacrifice of an extinct species of animal, she clearly needs to develop an alternate version to succeed. Likewise, a sept whose caern sits in a desert is likely to engineer a variant of any rite that requires a significant body of water. Other reasons are more personal in scope. A metis ritemaster who cannot speak or howl due to disfigurements is arguably in the wrong line of work, but may create alternate versions of those rites that require vocal utterance if she's determined to do it anyway. Some ritemasters have specialized skills that lend themselves better to one expression of ritual than another, prompting creative reworking of rites to suit their strengths.

Often, recasting a rite represents a desire for uniqueness or keeping up with cultural progress. An individual pack can assert its identity as a group by claiming a new form of a rite as its signature form, and may become incensed if another pack “steals” it. For instance, a pack that really hates cats might develop an alternative to the Voice of the Jackal that makes its target sound like a yowling feline instead. Some Garou, particularly younger ones, believe that rites should evolve with civilization and seek to update ancient rites to suit more modern sensibilities. The were­ wolf who performs the Rite of the Questing Stone with a GPS instead of a needle may piss off some elders, but the updated version works just as well: as Glass Walkers are fond of pointing out, spirits of the global positioning system could use a little love too. Some altered rites appease local spirits who prefer one set of trappings over another; for instance, spirits who know and respect the use of tarot might receive a divination rite that originally relied on casting bones better if the werewolf deals cards instead.

Systems

A character can modify the ritualized actions of a rite in two ways. One is the one-time act of need: temporarily changing the rite's form. To attempt this, the mystic must have performed the original rite successfully at least once before. Before the rite in question begins, the character spends a few minutes making her case to the spirits as to how her proposed changes still serve to honor them properly and to draw similarities between the original rite and the altered version to keep its symbolism intact. The player spends one Gnosis point and rolls (Charisma or Manipulation) + Rituals. The difficulty of this roll starts at (3 + rite's level), and is then modified by how drastic or related to the core function of the rite the proposed changes are, at the Storyteller's discretion. As a guideline, using a GPS instead of a needle for the Rite of the Questing Stone adds one to the difficulty of this roll, since the basic form of the rite remains the same and the materials still express “navigation,” but performing the Descent into the Underworld by replacing the sacrifice with the burning of a straw representation of a mammal or a symbolic slumber adds three to the difficulty, since the “death” that pulls the participants through the Gauntlet into the Dark Umbra has become so metaphorical that the ritual has a hard time latching on to the action. If the Storyteller deems that the proposed changes to the rite are so far from the original form as to make it unrecognizable, or that the difficulty would be 10 or higher, this roll automatically fails. A botch on this roll prevents the character from performing the rite at all for one full day, as the spirits become offended by the proposal. If the roll succeeds, the character may go on to perform the altered rite with a dice penalty on the roll equal to the difficulty modifier that was applied to the alteration roll based on the extent of the changes. If a character modifies a given rite more than once or twice, she must create a new canonical form if she wishes to modify it again (see below). If she keeps trying anyway, she risks retribution from the spirits, the exact form of which is decided by the Storyteller.

point and rolls (Charisma or Manipulation) + Ritu­ als. The difficulty of this roll starts at (3 + rite's level), and is then modified by how drastic or related to the core function of the rite the proposed changes are, at the Storyteller's dis­ cretion. As a guideline, using a GPS instead of a needle for the Rite of the Questing Stone adds one to the difficulty of this roll, since the basic form of the rite remains the same and the materials still express “navigation,” but performing the Descent into the Underworld by replacing the sacrifice with the burning of a straw representation of a mammal or a symbolic slumber adds three to the difficulty, since the “death” that pulls the participants through the Gauntlet into the Dark Umbra has become so metaphorical that the ritual has a hard time latching on to the action. If the Storyteller deems that the proposed changes to the rite are so far from the original form as to make it unrecognizable, or that the difficulty would be 10 or higher, this roll automatically fails. A botch on this roll prevents the character from performing the rite at all for one full day, as the spirits become offended by the proposal. If the roll succeeds, the character may go on to perform the altered rite with a dice penalty on the roll equal to the difficulty modifier that was applied to the alteration roll based on the extent of the changes. If a character modifies a given rite more than once or twice, she must create a new canonical form if she wishes to modify it again (see below). If she keeps trying anyway, she risks retribution from the spirits, the exact form of which is decided by the Storyteller.

Alternatively, a character can submit a permanent new form of a rite as a repeatable ritual that anyone can subsequently perform. Again, to do so the character must have successfully performed the original rite at least once before, and the Storyteller is the final arbiter of whether changes are too extensive for this to succeed. She must wait until the moon is in a phase that corresponds to the traditional auspice(s) associated with the type of rite; for instance, mystic rites can be revised while the crescent moon is visible, while rites closely associated with battle can be revised during the full moon. She must perform the rite first in its original form, but instead of completing it properly, she instead segues into the altered form bit by bit, repeating the rite over and over with minor changes each time until the full variant is performed in its entirety. If the rite's nature is such that this is impossible, such as the Great Hunt or Gaia's Vengeful Teeth, a symbolic version may replace the true rite for this purpose, but all Garou necessary to perform the actual rite must still be present and the difficulty of the alteration roll increases by 1. The player spends one Willpower point and makes an extended and resisted Stamina + Rituals roll, difficulty 7, resisted by a pool of (local Gauntlet + rite's level) at the same difficulty. This pool is the same even if the roll is performed in the Umbra, as the changes must reverberate throughout the physical world as well to take hold. The player must accumulate total successes equal to 15 + a modifier based on the extent of the proposed changes (one success for minor changes, three for medium changes, five for drastic ones). If the player accumulates the required successes before the Storyteller does, the new form of the rite enters the common canon recognized by the spirit world.