Peter Montoya

The Fate Background represents a prophecy that accompanied your birth or the creation of your pack. A Fate is always something significant, but it’s as likely to be dark and infamous as it is to be full of glory. In these times of Apocalypse, the Garou cannot afford to sacrifice even one warrior, no matter how dark the portents surrounding them are. However, even those with terrible fates often prove to be some of the greatest Garou, perhaps because they try so hard to defy their fate. Some even succeed.

In addition to the fame or infamy these prophecies garner you, once per game session you may use this Background to add successes to any roll that either failed or achieved fewer successes than were required. The player rolls his rating in this Background (difficulty 8) and adds any successes to those that were achieved in the original failed roll. If this means the action succeeds, the player should describe what fortuitous events caused him to succeed. If the Storyteller feels the player’s actions run against what he is destined to do, she may choose to disallow the use of the background.

When Fate is pooled among the pack, each member may call on this Background once per game session. If the action failed involves the entire pack in some way, then the player may draw on an amount of Fate up to the highest individual Fate in the pack. If the character is acting on her own, the player can only draw on an amount of Fate up to the lowest individual Fate in the pack (to a minimum of one). In a pack with pooled Fate, any character can raise her personal Fate with experience points, much like the Totem Background. However, she can only raise it up to the same level as the highest Fate in the pack — if no member of the pack starts with more than three dots of Fate, no pack member can ever buy Fate up to four or five dots.

Packs tend to garner prophecies of greater proportions than individuals. This is not only because of the greater weight a pack can swing compared to a single werewolf, but also because the Garou tend to see a pack’s accomplishments as more legitimate than those of just one person. For roleplaying purposes, consider the pack’s Fate to be equal to that of the highest Fate rating in the pack. Fate may be pooled among a pack.

You possess a fetish — a physical object into which a werewolf has bound a spirit. The spirit grants a number of powers to a fetish, so they are very significant to the Garou. Such things are valuable, and other Garou (or other supernatural beings) may covet them.

The denizens of the World of Darkness tend to look after one another, educating and protecting those who have recently experienced their own becoming. The relationship between a student and his mentor is often very close. A mentor can serve as an invaluable guide to supernatual society. Mentors may also protect a character from danger and inform him of social opportunities. However, a mentor may expect some favors in return for the information or assistance she provides.