Places

• If the Summer Country exists, one can only enter it during a state of epiphany. The traveler must enter a state of true love and respect for all living creatures. If he leaves this idealized state, he loses the hospitality and grace of Summer Country and is ejected immediately, retaining only vague memories of his stay. • According to legend, violence and death are not impossible here, but all creatures injured or killed should be returned to perfect health with the coming

of the next dawn. Pain exists, but it is fleeting, but never agonizing. All wound penalties are halved (rounding down). • Upon leaving, it is said, travelers return to either the place the left in the material world or a place that is filled with Gaia’s love. Presumably, either memories from those travels are hazy or no such sanctuary exists on Earth to facilitate such a return.

To the storied Galliard, Summer Country is a myth. It’s an allegory given bones by song and the hypotheticals of wishful Theurges. To the modern Garou, the idyllic, spiritual landscape is nothing more than the desperate need to have a final, uncorrupted place free of the slithering tendrils of the Wyrm. Few werewolves can refute the claims to the Realm’s non-existence. Summer Country is intangible even by the Umbra’s standards. The Garou brazen enough to imply she’s visited the Elysian Realm struggles to describe it in any detail. The shapeshifter healed by its wondrous balms cannot explain how. This does little to lend credence to its existence.

The breadth of knowledge regarding Summer Country isn’t very broad at all. Memories of the Realm resist scrutiny, like dreams on waking. In these half-remembered stories, Summer Country is a leafy island in a sea of vivid blue, dotted with mountainous peaks and subtle valleys. The island’s crystalline sky is stuck in a perpetual spring. The only rain that falls from its heavens is warm and gentle. The bulk of the island is a curved length of land, which forms a lagoon large enough for a small sea. The lagoon, in turn, shelters several smaller landmasses, the greatest of which is the Isle of Self.

The mainland of Summer Country is a collection of several distinct but temperate biomes. The rugged Mountains of the Moon and highest point of those craggy steeps, Mount Peace, are home to an untold menagerie of predators and prey. In these hills, valleys and cliffs, the inhabitants of the island keep hale by prowling the slopes and fleeing predators. At the extreme ends of the island are the forests Longing and Promise, covering farthest west and farthest east curves of the Realm respectively. At the center of the Forest of Promise, in the Enchanted Glade, is a massive granite amphitheater where the denizens of Summer Country gather and celebrate. The Forest of Longing on the other hand, is a beautiful, bittersweet place whose ancient ambiance alone is enough to evoke both respite and heartache.

The Isle of Self

The Isle of Self, which is only one of many verdant landmarks of the Realm, houses a shrine to Gaia’s glories indivisible. Nestled among the island’s overwhelming vegetation, the shrine resembles a great latticework of interwoven grasses in a disparate array of colors. Inside, weathered pillars of sparkling limestone rise around a quietly bubbling spring. That spring is the Well of Life, whose waters are panacea to any illness of body, mind or soul. A sip from it will cure any physical infirmity, knit together a broken mind, and soothe all but the deepest scars of the soul. The Isle of Self and the Well of Life have been a part of Garou storytelling since Galliards had songs.

Coming and Going

fathom what that place is, or why it should be. More than simply seeking peace with the things she believes are good and right, she has to embrace the notion that everything is worthy of its existence. Everything, including the things that have hurt and humiliated her. Everything, including the Wyrm and its minions. Everything, including herself and her weaknesses. She cannot have reservations or caveats about the love she gives. She must open herself to the idea that her prejudices, her hates, and her sorrows are all too out of sync with the place she’s pursuing, and expunge them. If she cannot, she won’t find the Realm.

The rare Garou who achieves this epiphany finds herself in the Forest of Longing, beset by an overwhelming nostalgia for better days. If at any point she loses sight of the singular, all-encompassing love that brought her here, she is summarily ejected from the Realm. The memories formed in Summer Country don’t survive well outside it. They become more dreamlike and indistinct as the heart hardens to modern rigors.

Now

The Wyrm’s influence has of yet failed to reach Summer Country, but there’s no telling when it will. None of the Realm’s inhabitants are naive enough to believe themselves safe forever. Among the denizens, two reigning schools of thought exist on the inevitable tainting of this Umbral Eden. One group believes now is the time to cut all ties the world outside the Realm, sundering any connection Summer Country has to Earth and the Umbra at large. They argue that the one pure place with the option to survive has an obligation to do just that. The other group understands how important the Realm is to Gaia and her children, and how inextricably its fate is bound to them. They advocate throwing open the proverbial gates, and bringing in all those who might need refuge from the sickness and horror outside. Even if it means the Wyrm will get there that much faster.

Of course, the keenest minds of Summer Country understand that this division could be the very thing that brings the Near Realm to its knees. Unfortunately, these are among the quietest voices in the debate, drowned out by the passions of the zealous.