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Letter to Julia from Lobo del Lago Lunar, Lupus Philodox Child of Gaia

You’re just full of questions, aren’t you? An Ahroun might have better answers for some of these, but I suppose talking to a Full Moon about Garou battle forms can be a little intimidating to a Kin­ folk — certainly more intimidating than asking a Philodox on the far side of the world. But I was never any good at sleeping in midair — I’m too curious for my own good — so I’ll explain as best I can.

The bodies of werewolves behave differently than those of other animals. This has a lot to do with the spirit side of our natures. We’re not just flesh-and-blood, so we don’t follow all the rules humans have about how the world works. There are some humans out there who try to study or even capture Garou for exactly that reason. They think we’re breaking their

laws of physics, but it’s actually just their under­ standing of the world that’s flawed.

A Garou in Lupus or Homid weighs much less than one in Crinos. This in itself is handy. Need to cross thin ice? Lupus is the best form for it — light­ weight with a lower center of gravity. Need to keep an enemy you’ve grabbed from getting away? Crinos is ideal both because it is incredibly strong and much heavier than other forms.

Of course, being heavier or lighter, larger or smaller is just a tiny piece of the advantages of shift­ ing. The form I choose says a lot about how I intend to solve problems in the near future. Hispo is more graceful than Crinos or even Lupus. Glabro is good when quarters are too tight for Crinos but the Homid form isn’t strong enough for the task. Like I’ve said before, every shape has its purpose.

Most werewolves learn to shift rapidly during combat in order to keep opponents off-balance. Some take this a step further, using the shift itself as a weapon. They will shift to a smaller form to present a smaller target or to slip out of an enemy’s grip. Or they will lock jaws in Lupus and then shift to Crinos to bring their claws into play, as well. A werewolf knocked prone while in Homid or Glabro shifts into Lupus or Hispo and can rejoin the fray without needing to stand up. Some tribes have created special fighting styles around shapeshifting in battle.

A Garou is also exceptionally resistant to physical punishment, healing most injuries in mere sec­ onds. Does that mean we don’t feel pain when we’re injured? Yes and no. When a human is in a danger­ ous situation, adrenaline gets her ready to fight or flee, temporarily dulling the pain of any injuries she might sustain. Of course, once the danger passes all the pain comes flooding back and the human feels every pulled muscle and cracked rib.

Werewolves are creatures of supernatural Rage, so the pain tolerance we gain when we’re under stress makes human adrenaline look like a sugar high by comparison. I’ve been in a more than a few fights, and even terrible injuries are little more than an itch so long as there’s danger. You won’t hear a Garou yelp or scream in pain no matter how vicious the blow, although he might growl with renewed fury. If our wounds slow us down at all it isn’t be­ cause they hurt but because they have broken some­ thing. A severed hamstring might not hurt beyond a tingle, but it’ll still make it difficult to run!

Of course, when the danger has passed so too does the pain tolerance. A shattered ribcage with a punctured lung hurts a lot, believe me. Of course, even pain serves a purpose, because it helps us stay fo­ cused on our Rage, and that stops our bleeding, forces the bone fragments back into place, and generally returns us to full strength shortly after the battle is done.

Garou healing is another one of those things that gets nosy humans too excited for their own good. While I’ve heard a few ideas about how it works, I don’t think anyone can really say they understand it completely. My favorite theory goes something like this:

Garou are equal parts flesh and spirit, and these halves reflect each other. When something damages a werewolf’s body, it makes the flesh an imperfect version of the Garou’s spirit image. The spirit self knows what the werewolf’s body should actually look like and works diligently to restore the body to its natural, proper shape. We don’t need to reattach a severed hand or even eat and drink to restore our strength. Our spirit self simply spins new flesh and blood to replace whatever we lost.

Of course, some attacks can damage the spirit self, too — silver or fire, for example, or the claws of Garou or certain fomori. Fortunately it can usually heal its injuries over time, but it takes a lot longer. Moreover, these injuries hurt for as long as we have them. If the injuries are especially bad, they can scar the spirit self, and the physical body reflects that injury ever after.

Not all werewolves care for this explanation, of course. Some confuse the idea of the spirit self with what many humans think of as the soul, and they think that this is a case of the Children of Gaia telling them that the battle scars they earned make them somehow spiritually less than those who have not yet endured lasting harm. These are very dif­ ferent concepts, however. A round rock is a different shape from a flat one, but one shape is not morally superior to another. The same with a werewolf’s spirit self. A battle scar changes who you are in some way, but it doesn’t make you lesser or greater — simply different. The Garou Nation set great stock by scars, but their Renown is an external validation, not an intrinsic statement of worth.

Ethiopia is the second-most populous African nation and one of the oldest known sites of human existence. Ethiopia is an ecologically diverse country, with deserts, tropical forests, and an extensive highland complex of mountains and dissected plateaus divided by the Great Rift Valley. Ethiopian wolves roam in the higher altitudes of the nation, but only about 550 remain after a rabies outbreak in 1990 wiped out one third of the population in a matter of two weeks. Despite attempts to pin the blame for this outbreak on agents of the Wyrm, the culprit turned out to be nothing more sinister than infected dogs. This plague among wolves has put the Ethiopian wolf on the endangered species list — only a short step removed from those animals that are extinct except in captivity.

The caerns of Ethiopia are as powerful as they are an­ cient. Without them, the Silent Striders and Bone Gnawers that occupy in the area would have long since been swept away by the many Fera tribes that dominate the rest of Af­ rica. While the tribes are used to working together, homid males hold many of the same attitudes toward women as their human Kinfolk. In a nation where nearly 70% of marriages are by abduction and almost three-quarters of women have undergone some form of genital mutilation, the handful of Black Furies who have come from Egypt to reinforce the caerns against threats from without have been forced to waste much of their energy resisting the attempts of their fellow Garou to “civilize” them. No doubt Fera spies are watching this development with interest.