Places

Responsibilities: The Elders are the leaders of the sept, though what that means varies from one sept to another. In some septs there is an alpha and his second, in some just an alpha, and in some large septs a council of seven, nine, or even thirteen Elders makes decisions. In some septs, the Elders are representatives of tribes or major political factions. In some septs, the Elders must be respected as warriors and are mostly Ahroun, in others they must be mediators and are overwhelmingly Philodox, and in others they are the

sept’s boldest and wisest shamans and magicians.

Benefits: The Elder is the leader of the sept. Her power is only limited by the Litany itself and the power of the sept to unseat her if she proves herself corrupt or incompetent. This translates as a +5 bonus to all Social dice pools when dealing with the Garou, Kinfolk, and spirits of her sept. Even outsiders will accord an Elder great respect, granting a smaller (+3 dice) bonus to social dice pools. The Elder also has the ability to marshal every resource the sept has at its disposal. The Elders can theoretically call upon every spirit ally, financial resource, and fetish the sept has to offer. The Storyteller should judge what is appropriate, since different sized septs have such radically different resources to offer.

The heart of almost every sept is its caern. This is the sept’s sacred place, the focus of all sept rituals. This is where the sept comes to celebrate its victories, mourn its dead, and sanctify the turns of life’s wheel. Septs unlucky enough to lack a caern are barely real septs, and usually do everything in their power to find or build a proper caern. Caerns and septs are so closely related that sometimes the terms are used interchangeably. Technically, however, “sept” refers to a community of Garou living together, while their “caern” is the magical and spiritual center of the sept.

A caern has two parts: the bawn and the heart. The bawn is the majority of the caern’s area of influence, and contains the memorial, the living area, the shrines, and the assembly area. Garou consider a caern’s umbral reflection just as much part of the bawn as its physical surroundings.

The bawn consists of everywhere under the caern’s spiritual influence. In some septs, the edge of the bawn also marks the outermost border of the sept; larger septs, however, may claim far more territory. In most rural caerns, much of the bawn is a broad field with most of the trees and undergrowth cut away. This has the dual purpose of providing the Garou with an open place to run and play, as well as limiting an attacker’s cover and making it easier for a sept to erect defenses. In an urban caern, the bawn might be a block or two with an unusually low crime rate and an unusually high number of trees and small gardens. Some urban bawns are just the lobby of a single building, with the caern itself somewhere above — or below — the ground.

The bawn is a spiritual region, as well as a physical location. As a result, it might be separated from the outside world by natural boundaries, like a river or series of rocky outcroppings. In many cases, the sept marks the outer boundary of the bawn with fences, standing stones, or graffiti tags. In the bawn the spiritual energies of the caern usually come across as a vague feeling of peace and well-being, even in a sept dedicated to a spirit of Glory.

Almost all septs maintain a memorial in their bawn. Although this area may be called “Graves of the Hallows Heroes” or “Glade of the Honored Dead,” only a few septs can actually afford to inter their dead. Instead, most septs honor their dead with memorials. These memorials can vary wildly depending on a sept’s aesthetics and resources, from statuary depicting the hero in his prime, to a climate-controlled room where acid-free scrolls recall the life stories of the dead, to a forest clearing with simple Garou runes carved into the trees.

Most septs provide a separate living area so that as many Garou and Kin wish to can live within the bawn. The kind and quality of a sept’s living quarters vary wildly, from tents to cabins to grand rustic manors for rural caerns, and seedy dives to small apartments to penthouse apartments for urban caerns. Most communities interpret the Litany to mean that high-Rank Garou should also receive the best housing. Depending on the needs and culture of the sept, the living area may also include other structures dedicated to the practical needs of life, including kitchens, dining halls, an infirmary, a library, a practice field, and more.

Most caerns have many shrines to the sept’s various spirit patrons, including at least one dedicated to the sept’s totem spirits. Many septs also honor the totems of the tribes that make up the sept’s population, as well as the totem spirits of the sept’s packs. A few septs go so far as to build shrines to other members of the local spirit courts, including their totem’s allies and underlings. Some caerns gather all their shrines into one place, while others have many small shrines hidden all over. In old caerns, the shrines can be somewhat mysterious, honoring spirits that no one Garou in the sept recalls. Wise septs continue to worship at these shrines, making guesses as to which offerings will please their spirits; less thoughtful septs let these shrines fall into disrepair.

The living area of a sept always includes some kind of public assembly area. Some smaller septs just repurpose one of the living structures, clearing room in the center of the dining hall by pulling chairs and tables to one side or simply gathering in a likely part of the bawn. Other septs have a special area dedicated to meetings, like a natural am-phitheater. Usually a central feature, like a large flat stone or tree stump, or ancient fire circle, acts as a focal point.

The most important part of the caern is its heart. This is the epicenter of the caern’s spiritual power, the place where the spirit world and the material world have achieved a sort of primordial union. The caern’s heart is where the Garou come to pray. When the caern is about to fall, this is where they come to make their final stand, warriors of Gaia until the end.

Caern hearts are as varied as the caerns that surround them. The form of a caern’s heart always reflects the emotions associated with the caern. A tiny sweat lodge that forms the heart of a caern of Glory might smell like blood and have walls decorated with weapons and grisly trophies, while

the heart of a caern dedicated to Wisdom might be a glassy pool that sometimes seems to reflect the sky of the Umbra rather than the sky of the physical world. The emotion of the caern leaks into the minds of those who stand at its heart, a subtle influence at first that can build into powerful waves of emotion given enough time.

Hearts also have practical uses. The heart always has a very weak Gauntlet, making this an ideal place to summon spirits, bind packs to totems, and craft fetishes. It is also the only place in the caern where a moon bridge can be opened.

Most importantly, the heart of the caern is its link to Gaia. If anything harms the heart, the entire caern will wither; if the heart is tended and protected, the caern might even grow. Some Garou believe that the connection flows both ways, that if they feed the hearts of their caerns, Gaia will become stronger. Even those who disagree usually lack the conviction to voice their thoughts — who can argue with keeping the heart of the caern healthy and strong?

The Umbral reflection of the caern is a strange place. Usually, the Umbra is an idealized version of the physical world. In a caern, however, the spiritual is an almost perfect mirror of the physical. In the caern heart, almost everything that could contain an awakened spirit does. Some Garou find the spiritual clamor unnerving, but most find it more like returning to a place where everyone speaks your own language after a long time abroad — busy, but comfortable.

Much like packs, septs have totem spirits. The sept’s totem spirit rests inside the caern, basking in its spiritual energies, and can be called forth by the Master of the Rite to give advice, act as the sept’s emissary to the spirit courts, lay his blessing upon the sept’s packs, or even fight on the sept’s behalf.

Mechanically, sept totems are similar to pack totems, with three special considerations. Firstly, when the caern is opened, the totem spirit can grant bonuses to the members of the sept. Sept totems bless the entire sept, granting Common Traits to every member of the sept and Pack Traits to packs. When a sept blesses a pack, every member of the pack enjoys the bonus. Unlike pack totems, sept totems can divide their bonus dice up among packs. For example, as a sept totem, Boar grants every Garou in the sept a dot of Stamina, and can furthermore grant a single pack two dots of Brawl, or two different packs one dot of Brawl each. Bans and benefits related to Renown don’t apply to every member of the sept, but they do have narrative effects. For example, a sept dedicated to Bear has a mixed reputation, and its members might need to work a little harder to earn Honor Renown, but they don’t actually lose five points of Honor or reduce all Honor awards by one.

Sept totems are also willing to do battle alongside their Garou, either materializing to fight in the physical world or fighting in the Umbra. The Storyteller should design the sept totem as a spirit with (fifteen plus twice the Caern’s Rating) points divided between Gnosis, Rage, and Willpower, and the following Charms: Materialize, Open Moon Bridge, Peek, Realm Sense, and a number of additional Charms equal to the Caern Rating. Thanks to their long association with the Garou, sept totems are very likely to employ spirit versions of Garou Gifts.

The sept can only summon their totem once per lunar month, and the totem’s blessing normally only lasts for a single night, though a pitched battle may cause the spirit to extend its influence for longer. Sept totems cannot simultaneously bless the sept’s packs and fight alongside them. When it is summoned, the totem choses whether to manifest as a combatant or to bless the sept’s warriors, though most totems chose to honor the requests of the Master of the Rite, Wyrm Foe, or Warder.

Finally, unlike packs, every sept has a totem spirit. A sept may choose any totem spirit without considering its cost. Septs are free to pick the most powerful totem spirits with advantages that best suit their needs and are most compatible with being distributed among the packs of a sept, rather than to the individuals of a pack.

Sept totems don’t have Bans in the same way as pack totems. The presence of so many Garou makes it nearly impossible for the spirit to be cognizant of all their choices at all times. Instead, the Ban applies to the sept as a whole, a sort of “guiding principle” of the sept. If the sept acts against its guiding principals then they will not be able to summon their totem for a lunar month. If a sept makes a habit of violating their principals, their spirit will eventually abandon them.

Almost every pack totem detailed in the W20 rulebook and supplements could be an appropriate sept totem. A few spirits that are particularly suited to sponsoring septs include Chimera, Cockroach, Falcon, Fox, Grandfather Thunder, Rat, and Unicorn, which have been converted to sept totems below. The additional totems described below embody themes that are not appropriate to individual packs. Instead, these spirits act exclusively as the totems of entire septs. As such, they have Common Traits in place of the Individual Traits of pack totems.