Neona's Mentorship

These are the topics Neona is willing to teach the PCs.

Spirit Lore

Research Topics + Skill (Occult)

• She provides a very basic rundown of how spirits are organized. She grants auto successes on the following Research topics:
  • Spirit Lore
  • Spirit Ranks
  • Spirit Nations
• PCs may use this education as justification for purchasing an additional dot of Occult.

Rites

Merit: Rites • to •••••

• Neona has extensive knowledge of Rites (••••), acting as Crater Lake Pack's ritemistress. She has an extensive body of knowledge regarding them.
• You gain one free rite when you buy a dot in Rites. The rating of the Rite is equal to the level you just gained.
• New Rites cost 1 Experience thereafter, as long as you know more Rites of the lower level than Rites of the level you are purchasing. Otherwise, it costs a number of Experiences equal to the rating of the Rite in question.
• Rites • that Neona can teach:
  • Banish (•): A rite used to banish spirits back across the Gauntlet, casting them out of the physical world and back into Shadow.
  • Center (•): A rite used to allow the ritualist to focus on spiritual matters, improving her ability as a ritualist.
  • Consecrate Space (•): A rite used to prepare a physical environment to act as the setting for a ritual.
  • Harness the Cycle (•): A rite used at the turning of the seasons to harvest Essence from the cycle of the year.
  • Taste of the Ancestors (•): A rite used to determine if someone's lineage includes werewolf blood and how far back that might go.
  • Totemic Empowerment (•): Used only by a pack with a totem, it turns a pack-member into a vessel for the totem's power.

First Tongue

Merit: First Tongue • to •••••

• Neonah is quite experienced with the First Tongue, having •••• in the Merit.

Gifts

• Gifts are certain powers gained by tapping into the power of one's shifter spirit.
• Neona can teach the werewolves of the group three kinds of Gifts that are natural to werewolves. Each Category has a Trait it is aligned with. A character must have a minimum of two dots in that Trait to begin purchasing Gifts from that Category, and may never have more dots in that Gift than he has dots in that Trait.
  • Gifts of Change, associated with mastery of shapechanging. (Aligned with Harmony)
  • Gifts of Hunting, associated with channeling the power of the Hunt innate to the wolf spirit. (Aligned with Primal Urge.)
  • Gifts of Pack, associated with the spiritual power that develops within a pack. (Aligned with Pack Merit.)
• Packs with an Alpha can learn specific Gifts in line with the spiritual lineage of the Alpha's Feral Wolf.
• The Cults of the Moon and the Spirit Lodges also teach unique Gifts as well.

There are two ways of gaining Gifts: the Sacred Hunt or the Vision Quest.

• Vision Quest: This is an ordeal, the exact nature of which depends on the Gifts in question. They are ascetic and damaging in nature, leaving a werewolf weaker and stripped of strength, skill, and sense of self as the sacrifice for learning the Gift.
  • To perform a Vision Quest, the werewolf must sacrifice a dot of an Attribute or Skill, stripping the dot to convert it back into Experiences until he has enough to pay for the Gift.
  • Not only does he lose the dot, but he cannot increase that Trait for the rest of the Arc/Season.
  • Each time this is done, it is a Breaking Point, except these are the Conditions gained:
    • Success or Failure: Disquieted
    • Dramatic Failure: Delusional, Fugue or Madness
• Sacred Hunt: The other way to gain Gifts is by enacting a Sacred Hunt, which is a Rite ••, causing a spirit of the appropriate type to manifest and allow the singular werewolf to hunt it. If the werewolf does not have sufficient Experiences to purchase the Gifts he wants, the rite automatically fails.
• Cost: Gifts cost 3 Experiences to "unlock" a Gift category, gaining the first Gift in that category for free. Each Gift thereafter costs another 2 Experiences.

Cults of the Moon

• The closest thing that werewolves have to a native religion, it is actually a group of five cults, each with their own rites and mysteries.
• They also teach werewolves how to create Balance within themselves, finding the point between Wolf and Man, rather than slowly watching their sanity erode as their Feral Wolf tries to take over.
• They also teach certain Gifts and Rites within their membership.
• They also hold the remnants of old werewolf culture, though how long that goes back, and how legitimately real it actually is is a source of disagreement among their kind.
• The practices of the Cults of the Moon can often mitigate or even entirely assuage some of the lunar weaknesses inherent in the Curse.

The Individual Cults

• The Cult of the New Moon: Upholding a philosophy of cunning over brute force, the Irraka werewolves are spies, assassins, tricksters, and thieves.
• The Cult of the Crescent Moon: Upholding a philosophy of wisdom and close association with the spirit world, Ithaeur werewolves are shamans and spirit-talkers, ritualists and occultists.
• The Cult of the Half Moon: Upholding a philosophy of honor and justice, Elodoth werewolves are judges and historians, often acting as leaders or organizers.
• The Cult of the Gibbous Moon: Upholding a philosophy of glory and excess, Cahalith werewolves howl at the moon. They are artists and performers, story-keepers and story-tellers.
• The Cult of the Full Moon: Upholding a philosophy of purity of purpose over fear and pain, Rahu werewolves are warriors and soldiers, bloody-handed monsters intent on keeping their kind safe.

Spirit Lodges

• The lodges are semi-secret societies within larger werewolf society.
• They often have specific esoteric, spiritual goals, intended to draw them closer to specific goals or philosophies.
• Each one is aligned with a specific Nation of spirits, and often focuses their interest down to a small part of that Nation.
• They all teach unique Gifts and Rites that come from those esoteric pursuits.

Known Lodges

Neona knows members of the following Lodges and is willing to make introductions.

• The Gaian Lodges (Nature Spirits): The Lodges of Nature are probably the most populace of the Lodges among werewolves. Their purposes often align closely to that of many werewolves (not surprising, considering the spiritual realities of werewolves as part Nature spirit).
  • The Entheogenauts, a lodge of psychedelic and hallucinogen enthusiasts who seek to learn more about their nature through close relationships with the occult spirits of many fungi and other entheogenic plants.
  • Lodge of Harmony, a lodge dedicated to seeking out sacred spaces that have been despoiled and returning them to a state of natural harmony.
• The Craft Lodges (Artificial Spirits): The lodges aligned with the Artificial Nation - or the Nation of Artifice, as so many prefer to call them - tend to be very closely involved in the affairs of the people around them. Many of these lodges maintain public "fronts" as social clubs, alternative religions, fraternal organizations and the like.
  • The Square & Compass, a lodge of Masonic initiates who maintain some of the occult secrets of the old Masons, with a focus on the spirits of buildings.
  • The Turing Collective, a lodge of shifters who focus on understanding the strange and often new spirits of the data age.
  • Lodge of the Shield, a lodge of shifters involved in myraid levels of law enforcement.
• The Primeval Lodges (Elemental Spirits): Lodges aligned with elemental spirits of great power, the Primeval Lodges are some of the oldest around. They sometimes have a reputation as unreasonable or even alien in purpose and actions, because of the strange nature of elemental thoughts and goals. But they are also powerful allies, so werewolves who discover one of their own is a member of one of these Lodges often tread carefully.
  • Tuākana Rangitoto, a lodge originally founded by Maori peoples, it is now a group dedicated to the study of and communion with the spirits of the active volcanos of the Ring of Fire.
  • Lodge of the Devil Winds, a lodge of shifters who pursue storms throughout the midwest, seeking to commune with the wild, mad spirits within them.
  • Lodge of Wrath, a lodge aligned with fiery spirits of violence and anger, who turn their natural rage to good use.
  • Lodge of Thunder, an ancient lodge dedicated to the reverence of ancient storm spirits, seeking positions of leadership by force and wrath.
• The Philosophical Lodges (Conceptual Spirits): The Philosophical Lodges are the smallest in number. They are often deeply esoteric, and uphold strange philosophies.
  • Lodge of Tranquility, who teach techniques of meditation in order to seek peace with the Feral Wolf.
  • Clann of the Faoladh, an originally Irish lodge dedicated to concepts of Community and Protection, who dedicate themselves as defenders of their local community
• The Empyrean Lodges (Celestial Spirits): Aligned with the far-off Celestial spirits, Empyrean Lodges are often quite cerebral in their approach to things. They are aligned primarily with the Courts of the Celestials, focusing around the planets, but there are other, stranger lodges as well - those dedicated to the deeps of the void, for instance, or those aligned with specific signs of the zodiac.
  • The Lodge of the Bull, a zodiacal lodge aligned with the spirit-court of Taurus. They commune with those spirits, and work their will in the world, focusing on prosperity and protection for themselves. They are also involved in philanthropic works.
  • The Helios Society, a lodge dedicated to cataloguing and establishing relationships with myriad solar spirits.
  • Lodge of the Seasons, an earthy and wise lodge that moves in step with the seasons.