Places

An Elder Theurge Silent Strider, Chris “Son of Earth”, is seeking a way to find descendants of his tribe’s Kinfolk. He hopes to establish a new base of Kinfolk from whatever scattered few he can find around the world outside of his original homeland. To do so, he is working on creating a fetish designed to hone in on the living relations of someone who is already dead. Son of Earth has spent years designing the housing and physical shape of the fetish, fashioning it out of the thigh bone of his great-grandfather. Now, he seeks to imbue the fetish with a Death spirit appropriate for the task. Before he can do that, he needs one more item to tie the fetish to the spiritual realm: a piece of the Umbra that is most familiar to the spirit he wishes to coax into his fetish.

Son of Earth has asked the characters to travel into the Dark Umbra with him to both retrieve the piece he is looking for. He tells the characters that the most appropriate item would be to take a trinket from what he calls the First Grave. He explains that the Dark Umbra reflects all the fears and dread about death, as well as human made monuments to the death of loved ones. Deep within the Tempest lies an island with the First Grave — the shadowed representation of the first ever marker humans placed to remember a buried loved one. Upon the First Grave are trinkets of remembrance from every single other grave ever dug and marked by humans. To prime the fetish to be specific for Silent Strider Kinfolk, he needs a trinket or possession of the line’s ancestors, but he can’t find such an item in the physical realm. Instead, Son of Earth hopes to find a Relic of one of his ancestor Kinfolk at the First Grave. Travel within the Tempest is dangerous, as ghosts often travel the Byways and will gladly steal the life force of any living creature who invades their home. The characters must escort Son of Earth into the Dark Umbra and defend him while he searches for his Relic.

The Umbra at the furthest reaches from earth is con­ sidered the Deep Umbra. Here the laws of reality have very little sway over the world and its inhabitants. The Deep

Umbra lies beyond the known realms of the Astral, Near, and Deep Umbrae, on the other side of the nearly impene­ trable Membrane. If the Near Umbra is considered a shell encasing the Earth, the Astral Umbra above and the Dark Umbra below, then the Deep Umbra is the unknown wilds beyond the shell, stretching far away to the infinity beyond imagination.

Within the Deep Umbra, forces of creation and de­ struction — and the chaos and order warring in between — mold and shape the landscape. Realms seem to ebb and flow, only taking shape as the need arises, losing consistency and changing in no discernable pattern. What would be considered realms in the Near Umbra are no more than temporary structures created by chance, or when and where a traveler’s need arises.

The passage of time similarly suffers from constant creation and destruction, causing strange dilation, stretch­ ing, and sometimes backward flow at random. It seems that, as with all other things in the Deep Umbra, time is a function of relative need, and does not follow normal or realistic constraints.

Garou packs who monitor Anchorheads know that the Deep Umbra is an ever changing thing. They report strange spirits lurking just on the other side of the Membrane, somehow unable to pass through. Those who have stepped across the Membrane describe a different surrounding each time they enter from the same Anchorhead, as though they never actually make it to the same place in the Deep Umbra twice when they enter.

Most Garou never enter the Deep Umbra, and those who do are ill-equipped to navigate through its ever changing realms and the ancient horrors that dwell within. It feels hostile and alien to them, and many cannot bear the thought of staying for too long. Many who enter become lost within, never to be seen from again. Those who go looking cannot track them, and have limited success in retrieving their lost brethren. Yet all searchers seem to return intact. Garou, with a strict purpose in mind, and a goal in sight have lead their packs in and back out again. They return with stories of epic journeys, and near death experiences as they dealt with the hostile environment. Generally, the Deep Umbra is the purview of mages and some Fera — especially the Nuwisha — who are much more capable of dealing with and exerting their will over the primordial elements swirling within it.

The Deep Umbra has many unique qualities not found in any other part of the Umbra. It is the furthest from the physical realm in terms of laws of reality, and possibly even locational distance within the Umbra. It is also the most real of all areas of the Umbra. The Celestines who are responsi­ ble for all of creation and those things within it live in the

Deep Umbra. The very real sun, stars, planets, and moon physically manifest in the Umbra, along with the physical bodies of the Triat. In some ways, the Deep Umbra is just as physical as the physical realm.

Travelers within the Deep Umbra can sense the connec­ tion to the physical, and it is different than any other place in the whole of the Umbra. Part of that feeling comes from the strange things that happen to time there. A traveler may experience only a moment or a day or two of time for every week or year they remain in the Deep Umbra. Maybe it is the primordial nature of the Deep Umbra, maybe the connection between the Celestines and Gaia is so pronounced that her children are relieved of all burdens while there, or maybe it is a simple function of the time dilation. Whatever the reason, Garou who enter the Deep Umbra stop counting time for disconnection, either from the spiritual or physical realm. It is as though they exist in both at once.

Not everything a wandering Garou might encounter in the Deep Umbra is a spirit, and even the spirits may seem alien and horrific to them. The Celestines and some of their oldest creations reside within the realm. The Deep Umbra houses a wide array of creatures beyond spirits, including other Garou and Fera, primordial creations, and even mages.