Everything

Kerasi are active causing confusion and havoc while Black Tooth’s war rages. They have encountered various members of his army — even some of the Endless Storm — but they weren’t introduced to Black Tooth before the Ahadi killed him (see W20: Changing Breeds for more information on Black Tooth’s fall).

Black Tooth’s followers are desperate in the wake of his death and forge alliances with the Kerasi to continue the fight. The Ahadi may have won the war, but the insurgency will linger for many years if Pentex can help it.

Storytellers may choose to bring Black Tooth and the Kerasi together earlier. The Kerasi will be formidable allies for Black Tooth, and may repel the Ahadi’s strike that will kill the Simba. An Africa that experiences this outcome will be a much darker place indeed.

fought battles with the Ahadi, with the lieutenants singing the Kerasi’s praises with the plan of introducing them to Black Tooth. Even though Black Tooth is gone, his followers still fight and may win the war with Pentex’s help.

The Kerasi’s ability to suppress its Wyrm taint gives it the potential to be the most successful mockery breed for interacting with Gaia’s servants and infiltrating their groups, but the lack of Homid form and generally low intelligence renders this particularly challenging. NDL scientists are under considerable pressure to improve these deficiencies, but so far every successful increase in mental ability has resulted in the new Kerasi reeking of Wyrm-taint, and no amount of tinkering has produced a human-like form that doesn’t appear monstrous.

One of Pentex’s ‘animal conservation’ subsidiaries has seeded African rhinoceros populations with dozens of Kerasi as part of its public environmental program. The early success of this program gives the appearance of replenished black and white rhinoceros populations, but in reality the Kerasi population thrives, while rhinoceros species are closer than ever to extinction.

Storytelling Notes: Kerasi are short-tempered, brutish and impatient. Garou are unlikely to encounter them outside Africa and any first encounter is likely to be confusing for Gaian shapeshifters as these strange new shapeshifters suppress their Wyrm’s stink. The Kerasi will try to convince other shapeshifters of their allegiance to

Gaia, but Kerasi are not notably cunning or persuasive. If persuasion fails, the wererhinos will attack to prevent their secret being exposed.

All top-level Pentex projections are clear: the Garou are fighting a losing battle, in every sense. In particular, the battle for Earth’s rainforests, reefs, and other “pure” ecosystems is a foregone conclusion: they’re going to vanish. That the majority of the Garou Nation has chosen these sacred places as the grounds to make their final stand suits Pentex fine. They think their victory in the Amazon and in other hotspots is a certain victory. The Board of Directors know the final battles in the Wyrm’s march of triumph will take place in the cities, in the skyscrapers, in the black and heaving heart of the urban jungle that will be all that remains in the end. They suspect the Bone Gnawers and Glass Walkers will be the last tribes standing in any strength (what else is to be expected of the followers of Rat and Cockroach?), and that the ragged remnants of the other tribes will pour into the cities in a desperate attempt to continue their doomed, futile crusade.

With the aid of Project Lycaon, Pentex will be ready for them.

The Yeren are the most advanced and successful result of NDL’s research on behalf of the Wyrm, or so

the project’s Directors claim. Yeren are shapeshifters who take on the form of apes, designed to thrive in the modern city, and to hold an edge over the savage and primitive Garou. The Yeren’s instinctive domain is the halls of power. They’re naturally attracted to money and authority. Creatures of appetite and greed, the majority have nestled themselves into the upper-middle management of corporations, banks, and law firms, where they remain in sporadic contact with Pentex. A few Yeren have even begun climbing the corporate ranks of Pentex-owned companies, and most of those few have their eyes on a seat on the Board of Directors. They’re one of the major influences pushing Toads (see p. 137) out of their traditional niches, and they’re territorial to boot. Yeren bristle when they become aware of other supernaturals dipping their talons into a wereape’s self-proclaimed domain. This makes them natural rivals of the Glass Walkers, and they take a particular delight in using their mastery of political and financial influence to demolish, or re-zone Bone Gnawer septs. Of course, the wereapes’ rapacious greed and territorial instincts also bring them into conflict with vampires, urban Black Spiral hives, and other Wyrmspawn.

In the end, the Yeren want it all: all the money, all the power, all the respect; and they’ll happily backstab, undermine, and eat anyone who gets in their way. They

may be the newest players on the battlefield of the Apocalypse, but they’ve already gone all-in. Let the Garou satisfy themselves with glorious, Pyrrhic final charges, and the Anurana with subsistence survival in toxic swamps, closers close, and winners win.

Traits: Yeren traits vary as much as those of the Garou or any other Changing Breed, but there are some generalizations. They tend toward high Manipulation and decent Intelligence or Wits, with physical traits often tertiary. Politics, Leadership and Subterfuge are often high, and many Yeren begin to cultivate Athletics after their First Change.

Breeds: Yeren have only one Breed, homid. They cannot produce metis, and are entirely incapable of reproduction with other primates. All Yeren begin with Rage 3, Gnosis 1, and Willpower 4.

Forms: Yeren have only two natural forms: Homid and Crinos.

In Crinos form, Yeren have Strength +3, Dexterity +2, Stamina +2, Appearance –3, and Athletics +2. The character gains a bite and claw attack like Garou, but these inflict lethal rather than aggravated damage. Witnessing a Yeren in Crinos form induces the Delirium in humans.

Powers: Yeren can step sideways in the same fashion as Garou, but must use fabricated reflective surfaces such as mirrors or chromed installations. The surface of a still pond is of no use to a wereape. They regenerate damage in the same fashion as Garou, suffer no vulnerability to silver or any other substance, and are immune to the Delirium.

Unlike the other “Mockery Breeds” developed by Project Lycaon, the Wyrm’s spirit minions have pro-visionally accepted the Yeren into the arm of the Pact that grants Black Spiral Dancers their Gifts. Specifically, they’ve been sponsored by Relshab, the Faceless Eater (see p. 126), and gain their Gifts from corrupt spirits of man, the city, consumption, and greed. As a result, Yeren may take Gifts from the homid list, and are developing a number of their own Yeren Gifts (see below). Yeren gain renown for acquiring power, status symbols, and influence, but do so slowly, for even their handful of spirit-sponsors remain wary of these unnatural creatures. No Yeren has currently advanced beyond Rank Three.

Image: In Homid form, a Yeren looks much like anyone else trying to climb her way up the professional ladder: well-groomed, young, hungry. Those spending any degree of time around them discover they have a certain manic intensity that speaks to either immense personal drive or mild psychosis.

A Yeren’s Crinos form is a hybrid of man and primate, the particular ape or monkey whose features crop up in the Crinos form seems to depend on the personality of the Yeren in question. Pentex has recorded monstrous

blends of human and orangutan, mandrill, mountain gorilla, and chimpanzee, as well as a number of wereapes of indeterminate species. Their battle form gains over a foot of height and an enormous amount of muscle mass, as well as long, hard nails.

Background

The Yeren have spread far and wide throughout corporate America, and have finally begun to branch out to other countries in recent years. They “reproduce” through something resembling the Corax Rite of the Spirit Egg, save that Yeren are incapable of producing Kinfolk. Instead, they pass on the “shadow of the ape” to potential wereapes. Desirable recruits have certain characteristics, such as overwhelming greed and appetite. The Yeren conduct the rite through a four-day careening debauch, reeling from party to party, and bar to bar. The Yeren and their prospective offspring use and abuse anyone and everything they come across, lurching in and out of blackouts, and as the rite progresses, stumbling in and out of the Umbra, as well, where the new “pledge” steadily fuses his flesh and the nature of his spirit together. The rite culminates in the First Change and a bloody rampage. Often, the sponsoring Yeren has arranged to have Pentex clean up. Anyone with important goals and ambitions nobler than simple greed cannot become Yeren, and probably dies from the conspicuous consumption or becomes a meal for a frustrated Yeren during the rite.

Storytelling Notes: The Yeren are pointless, open-ended greed writ large. They embody everything shortsighted, petty, and rotten that the Garou condemn in human nature when they refer to people as “apes.” Their territoriality keeps Yeren from working in close groups very often (though they network extensively), and this is a blessing for urban Garou; on the other hand, the Yeren are very new, and few Garou are even aware of them as a threat, meaning they often have no idea they’re being targeted by a wereape until the hammer drops.

The Yeren largely support Pentex because Pentex supports them, but they’re not satisfied as pawns and cats-paws. There’s no such thing as a stable relationship of master and servant where Yeren are concerned. Their ambition is without limit, and when they see power they don’t have, they want it for themselves. Pentex may not fully appreciate what it has unleashed upon itself in the form of the Yeren, who appear in the company’s middle management in greater numbers with every passing year.