Unclean Spirits

For every positive force, there is a negative one to counter it. The entire universe works in a system of checks and balances; for every new planet that cools and begins to simmer the soup of life, a black hole forms light years away as if in almost direct result. Spirits are no different. The Garou and some Magi have communed with spirits since the beginnings of creation. For as long as there have been spirits, there have been men and beasts that have spoken to them, and as long as human nature has existed so have Banes.

Banes are spirits, which is to say they have been completely stripped of any semblance of a physical body or never had a body to begin with. Before the time of the Gauntlet, which separates the material world and the world of spirit, arose, spirits communed openly with man and creatures. Most notably, the Garou. To understand banes completely, one must first understand spirits. Information on spirits can be gathered from Werewolf: The Apocalypse Second Edition (ISBN 1-56504-112-7) and Axis Mundi: The Book of Spirits (ISBN 1-56504-315-4). Axis Mundi has been excessively hard to find for the past couple of years, but has recently gone into reprint and is available for order through the Official White Wolf website.

The greatest and most numerous of all of the Garou Nation’s enemies are the hordes of spirit minions of the Wyrm; banes. Banes are the dark reflection of the nature, elemental and totem spirits that the Garou commune with on a regular basis. They are just as diverse in purpose and appearance and, as the Garou have learned in the most difficult possible ways over the centuries, just as powerful. The word "bane" is a term reserved SPECIFICALLY for spirits who serve or are lost to the Wyrm. There are NO BANES in the service of Gaia. To be a bane is to be a slave of the Wyrm and its agenda of balance through corruption. Banes, as the Garou have also learned, spread like small pox throughout a specific area, their baser nature defiling everything – especially humans – in their path. Their emotional vibe is powerfully radiant and can awaken the darkest feelings within a human, who acts almost as a host for the bane’s taint as the human spreads it through any and all it comes into contact with, all the while with the bane feeding on the emotions that it exemplifies.

WHERE DO BANES COME FROM?

The same place as spirits – the Umbra. Banes are nothing more than the spirits of the Wyrm who exemplify and consume the darker set of emotions possessed by mankind or a specific force of corruption. Banes are not necessarily limited to the Umbra, however, and most of them possess a Charm, similar to a Garou Gift in function, called Possession, which allows them to inhabit a human host at the cost of a few Power Points. This does not mean that ANY human being can be possessed by a bane at the leisure of the bane. Banes do not create evil, they simply feed on it and/or magnify it. For a human to attract a bane’s attention, she must first be well on her last lap towards embracing the Wyrm and what the Wyrm represents. She must first be an easy catch.

HOW POWERFUL ARE BANES?

Banes range in powers and abilities from trivial and paltry emotional manipulations to virtually godlike in regards to the resources at their disposal. Suffice to say, the stronger the emotion that fuels it, the stronger the bane. Banes will gravitate towards pockets of negativity and gorge themselves on it, usually doing everything within their power to ensure their source of nourishment is long lived – at least for a time – to sate them. When a bane has drained all that it can from an area or person, is abandons that area or person and moves on leaving behind Wyrm taint in its wake.

WHAT DO BANES LOOK LIKE?

Banes in their "true forms" (whatever forms they appear in while using the Materialize Charm) are horrific to most humans and will incite delirium. While in possession (using the Possession Charm) of a human however, banes look relatively normal with the exception of the occasional look of hatred, desperation or complete and total confusion on the face of the host. Banes may also materialize, with the proper Charms and expenditures of Power Points, into any form they desire. These forms and their appearances are limited only to the imagination of the storyteller creating them Great movie inspiration for banes, what they might look like materialized and what they can do in regards to raising hell are John Carpenter’s The Thing and the movie adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s From Beyond.

WHY BANES?

Why use banes in a Werewolf: The Apocalypse chronicle? There are various positives to adding banes into a Werewolf game, the least of which is that they’re incredibly formidable as well as disposable antagonists for the Garou. Banes are relatively easy to create, take little time, though or energy to create from a basic concept and are rarely missed when a Garou PC tears them to pieces. Banes can be found in the most unlikely of places and are extremely diverse in nature, therefore it is possible to have dozens of banes within a Werewolf chronicle of various size, shape and power and never see the same bane twice or have exactly the same foe to face on more than one occasion. The claw and fanged cannon fodder of the Werewolf universe, banes are the perfect on-the-spot villain.

Banes are also very necessary in some instances. Black Spiral Dancers use them to create their Fetishes and Bane Klaives, as there are virtually no spirits other than banes who will willingly speak to, commune with or associate with the lost tribe. There are many times that Garou, such as Uktena, will capture banes for various uses, such as for extracting and gathering information and in the creation of certain items such as Baneskins. Also, without banes, Fomori cannot exist.

HOW DO I CREATE BANES FOR MY CHRONICLE?

This is something that every Werewolf: The Apocalypse storyteller should toy with from time to time. The creation of banes for your chronicles can be both a great outlet for your own negativity and for impressing upon your players certain lessons regarding certain aspects of the chronicle that they might choose to overlook as unimportant or less than glorious to undertake otherwise. They’re also a chance for you to create a customizable villain for your characters to face as they progress in power, ability and Rank throughout the Chronicle. Banes are far from static, and when the characters outgrow the challenge of a specific type of bane, you raise the bar a little and throw banes of slightly greater power at them, each new bane type more able and battle worthy than the last.

Creating banes for use in a chronicle is essentially no different than creating any other NPC from scratch, but it’s a lot quicker in a time-sensitive environment, such as right smack-dab in the middle of a game when your players have strayed so far off track that they need to be reminded who and what they are. Here are a few steps to follow:

1. CONCEPT – What does the bane represent? An emotion? An element of corruption or consumption? We’ll use one of my personal banes to illustrate basic bane creation concept: The players in my game are somewhere in between Rank Two and Rank Three. They’re all adept warriors and need a challenge – not something they can pummel into the ether in the first round of combat, but not something that’s going to kick the crap out of them with little or no effort either. I decide that the bane I need to create for them is a Hydraulock, a sludge spirit, since I’ve corralled them towards an abandoned machine shop to investigate a mysterious disappearance of a Bone Gnawer ally. The Hydraulock, I’ve already decided, is going to be incredibly strong, although not too much more. So there’s the concept of what I want.
2. CONTRUCTION – Building the bane is the next step. All banes possess the following Traits at a level decided by the creator:

• Willpower
• Rage
• Gnosis
• Power
• Charms

First of all, I make a command decision before I begin construction of the Hydraulock and decide that I’m giving it 40 Power Points to spend total. If you’d like to be more random, role percentile dice (2d10) and let the higher number rolled lead. 40 Power Points is by no means a weak bane, but not on the same level as say a Nexus Crawler who has 50 Power Points and might be a bit too powerful for my players yet.

Willpower is what allows a bane to take actions in combat or otherwise.

Rage is a bane's twisted anguish. Using Rage, banes can destroy other spirits or even Garou enemies. For each success on a Rage roll, a bane inflicts a Health Level of damage or a Power Point of damage if their target is of a spiritual nature.

Gnosis is what the bane uses for any social or mental roll required of it. A bane rolls its Gnosis when trying to contest a Garou or spirit in a match of wits, intimidate or frighten an enemy or to gather any sort of perception and understanding of a given situation.

Power is the representation of a banes mystical battery. Unlike Garou, banes don’t use Gnosis for combat scenarios. They use Power Points instead. Every time the bane uses a Charm or takes damage, it loses Power Points. When a bane’s Power Points are zero, the bane is banished to the Umbra for 20 hours minus its Gnosis, after which it reforms with a single Power Point. This is both good for you and the players, as the same bane can become a recurring character that the Garou a harassed by or that attempts to hinder them every time it is foiled. Once a bane is reduced to zero Power Points, it can be drained of up to five Gnosis points by a Garou, which helps add to player enthusiasm when fighting banes. If the bane has less than six Gnosis when the drain occurs, the act will kill the bane.

Charms are the bane equivalent of Garou Gifts. These are the arsenals of the bane. Lists of Charms can be found in Werewolf: The Apocalypse Second Edition on pg. 182-183 and Axis Mundi: The Book of Spirits pg. 156-158. What a bane can actually accomplish in a mystical sense is limited to its Charms. The two books previously mentioned offer starter Charms for your banes to use. I personally don’t limit banes to bane Charms alone. I let them use the works. For the Hydraulock, I’ll pull what I think are the best Charms from those two books for its use.

My concept of the Hydraulock is a large, brutish, black, oil-skinned hulk that moves slowly but can cause grievous damage to an opponent. I roll 3d10 and get an 8, 6, and a 5. I give him Willpower of 5 and a Gnosis of 8 for the sake of materialization. I give him a Rage of 6, making him fairly dangerous in the Umbra as well.

The following is the primary Charm I plan to use for the Hydraulock:

• Materialize – for the bane to materialize and affect the physical world it will need this Charm. To materialize in the Tellurian, the bane’s Gnosis must first be equal to or greater than the Gauntlet of the specified area. When the bane materializes, it must spend Power Points to create a physical shape and give itself a body, however the bane still rolls its Gnosis for social and mental activities. The Power Point cost is are as follows:

* = As if a mortal

** = Each extra health level will also increase size

*** = Regenerate damage to physical form

**** = Per die of aggravated damage done in addition to strength. Bite is one die, claw is two, etc.

• Armor – This Charm will allow the bane to soak damage in the Umbra. For each Power Point spent on this Charm, the bane gets one soak dice. Without this Charm, he would NOT be able to soak at all in the Umbra. The bane can use this charm in a combat turn before damage is rolled.

I decide that when the Hydraulock materializes, first and foremost, he has 14 health levels.

1 + 7 = 8 Power Points

I decide that I want the Hydraulock to have a 4 in Strength and Stamina as well as a 2 in Dexterity.

4 + 4 + 2 = 10 Power Points

That’s 18 Power Points I’ve spent out of 40 total for the Hydraulock. I decide to spend 2 more Power Points on the Hydraulock to give it claws, making it an even 20 Power Points spent to create the physical manifestation of my bane.

I also spend 10 points towards Armor for the Hydraulock.

I decide to reserve the last 10 Power Points of the Hydraulock for the purpose of healing damage caused to its materialized form in combat with any Garou enemies it might encounter in the machine shop it inhabits and corrupts.

That’s basically it.

Creation times for banes will vary depending on what you want them to do within your chronicles and what you want them to accomplish. I wouldn’t suggest over spicing a bane, as a couple of Charms can make a really nice and really quick challenge that doesn’t require a whole lot of thought on your part. If your players feel the need for combat or become bored with a storyline, toss in a bane or two for them to gnaw on or for you to slap them around a little with to put them back into the spirit of the game.