Places

All Open Moon Bridge *

Enigmas Enigmas Ability. Illusion, Shadow, Chameleon-spirit

Gnosis

Gnosis points Engling, Ghost

Healing Health levels Peace, Calm, Water elemental

Leadership Leadership, Intimidation War, Bird-spirit

Rage

Rage points War, Pain

Stamina Soak dice Protection, Guardian, Turtle-spirit

Strength Strength attribute War

Urban Streetwise City elemental

Visions Oracular visions Bird-spirit

Will Willpower points War, Ancestor-spirit

Wisdom Rituals, Expression Owl-spirit, Ancestor-spirit

Wyld Anything Wyldling

Power: One point/level/die is gained per success on the Rite of the Opened Caern.

Spirits Encountered: These are the spirits most often encountered near this type of caern. How­ ever, there’s no guarantee they’ll be there. Other spirits may appear at the Storyteller’s discretion.

* Only if the caern has completed a Rite of the Opened Bridge to a destination for that Moon Bridge.

Nation’s network of caerns and sacred places. Though a caern’s moon bridge can be opened in the physical world, it’s usually far more discreet to open it from the spirit world on the other side of the caern’s Gauntlet.

Because the secrecy of the Veil is important to the survival of the Garou Nation, many werewolves working together at a caern can help hide (or at least cover up) spiri­ tual activity in the physical world. Ideally, several Theurges are on hand in each sept to control and manage the spirits around a caern, and cubs and cliath find it easier to learn these same practices when elders are nearby. When impor­ tant rituals or powerful rites are enacted, all the participating Garou can cross over to the spirit world there. If the local Master of the Rite wishes to conduct these ceremonies in the physical world, their ritual tasks are easier because the Gauntlet is low. This benefit is especially important in the world’s few urban caerns. Bone Gnawers and Glass Walkers specialize in variant rites for urban areas, although more traditional or old-fashioned Garou may prefer the purity and power of the wilderness instead.

System

Each caern has a Caern Rating between 1 and 5 that reflects the potency of effects that can be enacted there. For example, a Level One healing caern might refresh and heal minor wounds, while a Level Five one could miraculously heal the most grievous wounds. The higher a caern’s rating is, the farther its moon bridges can reach. Thus, the greatest heroes of the Garou Nation have opportunities to travel to sacred places in the most distant corners of the Earth. Caerns with higher ratings tend to attract a greater diversity of tribes, travelers, and heroes.

The higher a caern’s rating is, the lower the rating of its Gauntlet will be. Level One and Level Two caerns have a Gauntlet of 4, Level Three and Level Four caerns have a Gauntlet of 3, and at Level Five, the most power­ ful caerns have a Gauntlet of 2. The presence of many Garou becomes essential in the most powerful caerns, since the veil between worlds is thin, allowing spirits to enter the world more freely. Level One through Three caerns can create a moon bridge reaching for 1000 miles (1600 km) per caern level. A Level Four caern’s moon bridge reaches for up to 6000 miles (9,700 km); at Level Five, up to 10,000 miles (16,000 km).

Although the Gauntlet is strong enough to separate the worlds of flesh and spirit, it’s not impermeable or im­ penetrable. In many places, especially where the Gauntlet is weaker (or “lower”), spiritual energy bleeds through into the real world. This residual energy is too weak to really benefit shapechangers, but particularly sensitive humans may notice it, even if they don’t realize what it is. Humans have used many methods to commune with the spirit world or attain a state of expanded conscious­

ness: Occult rituals, religious rapture, psychedelic drugs, artistic reverie, the endorphin high of extreme physical activity, tantric sex, and proficient meditation all hold possibilities. Places on this side of the Gauntlet where spirit energy bleeds through are called the Periphery.

When a human being (or other sentient creature) becomes aware of her spiritual side, her consciousness drifts into the Periphery. The effects are highly subjective. Colors become brighter, senses sharpen, intuition brings sparks of unexpected insight, life becomes blissful, or the attuned mind opens to feel a connection with all things in the world. It’s brilliance; it’s madness; it’s a state of reverie cynics call delusional.

In this state of ecstasy, seemingly magical events occur. The results depend greatly on the seeker’s state of mind. Artists and spiritualists seek it fervently so they can become familiar with this of rapture. Kinfolk may be vaguely aware of the Periphery’s presence, meditating on its presence to become more sensitive to the world of spirits. In rare cases, Kinfolk have even been able to project their presence immediately beyond the Gauntlet to carry messages to their werewolf relations. Psychically or spiritually sensitive humans can also detect its presence. (Ordinary humans with the Awareness or Occult skill, or a Merit that increases awareness of the spirit world, can use Perception to sense where the Gauntlet is lower, but only under the sympathetic conditions listed above.)

Benevolent spirits may attempt limited communion with these spiritual seekers, but Banes also look for op­ portunities to exploit these people. Tales abound of drug-fueled artists, writers, and musicians who sacrificed too much to attain a state of reverie, only to descend into madness and despair. The risk of spiritual and psychic contamination is always present. Most sane minds snap out of this state when it becomes too dangerous. Those dependent on drugs, however, may be unable to leave, even after their minds and souls are incapable of fully processing what they experience. Peripheral imprisonment can cause psychic shock, spiritual emptiness, dissolution, or even psychic scarring and disfigurement visible only to supernatural beings or the spiritually aware. Charismatic cult leaders may lead an entire congregation into what seems like a state of grace, only to plunge them all into communal madness and horror. Only the most disciplined minds practiced in advanced techniques of magic and meditation have a reduced risk of this.

The highs and lows of the Periphery take many forms. They’re known by every culture, and as one would expect, Garou who pledge to protect mankind sometimes rescue seekers who have gone astray: visionaries who sought rapture and revelation, only to become victims to forces mankind was not meant to know.

Just beyond the Gauntlet is the closest realm of the Spirit World, a reflection of what we call the “real world.” The Penumbra is the area of the Umbra closest to Earth. It’s the most common spiritual destination of all Garou, one where they not only fight evil spirits bent on corrupting the spirit world, but also get a glimpse behind the realm people call reality. Just as the physical world is made of physical matter, the spirit world is made of spiritual matter called ephemera.

The landscape of the Penumbra looks vaguely like the physical world on our side of the Gauntlet — a street still looks like a street, and a park looks like a park — but the only objects that appear solid and enduring correspond to those that have large amounts of spiritual energy. If a pack steps sideways in a city park, for example, the living grass and trees in the physical world will look even more vibrant and alive in their spiritual reflection in the Pen­ umbra. Matter that has endured the passage of time also gains a spiritual representation in the Penumbra. Old trees and buildings have solid counterparts there; most newer buildings, unfinished constructions, and recent vegetation do not. If a new building is visible, it must have serious spiritual significance, such as a factory that churns out creations fueled with the Wyrm’s energy.

The forces of the Triat are more obvious in the Pen­ umbra. Wyld-spirits thrive in natural areas where living

things are healthy and strong. Weaver-spirits scuttle through places where technology is present, sometimes weaving thin webs to show where streets are paved or cables stretch from building to building. Newly-built structures may appear as faint outlines of gossamer webs, waiting for the spirits to solidify them. Cell phones, computers, and traffic lights all have their own distinct signatures. The corruption of the Wyrm is also more obvious, taking many hideous forms. Neglected graveyards fall into decay; pollution stains the spiritual landscape like a blight; places of suffering and misery appear as shadowy mockeries of their physical counterparts. Wyrm-spirits are drawn to these places, feeding and breeding until packs of werewolves cull the population.

Since the Penumbra is closer to the physical world than other realms, time and distance are roughly the same here. A Garou in New York who steps sideways into the Pen­ umbra on the west side of Central Park, crosses its spiritual reflection to the other side, and steps sideways back into the physical world will appear on the east side (hopefully taking care not to be seen when he enters and leaves). If he runs across the park for an hour in the Penumbra and returns, an hour will have passed in the physical world. If he does this as night, he’ll see the passage of Luna, the Celestine of the Moon, overhead, and her phase will be the same as the moon’s phase in the physical world. Once in the Penumbra, the lights of the city fade away, and the stars burn with a brilliance unmatched in the physical world.

Theurges like to tell cubs that in a way, Penumbral spirits are more real than the physical matter they repre­ sent. The spirits representing an object can endure the loss of its physical body in the real world, but a physical body cannot survive the destruction of its spirit essence. If an old oak tree is chopped down in the physical world, its spiritual counterpart may linger for a long time in the Umbra, but if a living tree is destroyed in the Umbra, its physical counterpart will wither and die.

Penumbral streets and forests seem eerily empty, since most sentient creatures don’t appear in the Penumbra. Only spiritually advanced people appear here. Mages have highly developed spiritual selves called Awakened Avatars, and their Avatars are visible in the Penumbra (even though each exists in the same realm as its mage). An animal won’t ap­ pear visible in the Penumbra, but when many animals live and thrive in one place, an animal-spirit might be drawn to that locale’s reflection in the Penumbra. Spirits and spiri­ tual places become analogies to the places they represent: as the saying goes, “as above, so below.” Garou and other shapechangers interact with this landscape in a far more immediate way: a werewolf can stand in the physical world or its reflection in the Penumbra, but he won’t be visible in both worlds. In fact, if he’s caught in the Gauntlet or passes on to more distant realms of the Spirit World, he’ll be gone from the physical and Penumbral realms entirely.