Shifter

Application - Garou Application - Fera Books Tips Umbra and Spirits Buying Rites Gifts More Combat Maneuvers Demographics Talen & Fetish Creation House Rules Nodes, Caerns and Glens NPCs Packs Renown Making Rank & Rank Table +Shift Code Staff Staff Philosophy Proxying
Shifters in the Twin Cities Some Garou are all about the pack, sept and tribe. Some Garou work within the traditional confines and thousands of years of history. Those are not the Garou here in the Twin Cities. There is no Sept, the nearest one was destroyed decades ago. There are virtually no packs. Want to be friends with a Vampire? There are no elders to stop you. Want to shack up with your Cousins belonging to the other shifting races? The spirits will judge you. Its not that the Garou have given up, but as a whole the Nation has decided the fight here isn't worth it. This leads to freedom for forward thinking Garou. You can live as you choose, alone or in small clusters. You can fight the good fight how you think is best. But you are on your own, even the spirits look at those in this land as questionable at best. The Changing Breeds have found this place to be a safe haven. The Garou that are present are outnumbered. Like the Garou, they have found no sacred places, but they have found respite. This is a modern city. With creatures of all sorts that can be friends, enemies and sometimes both. It is a lonesome city. But it is a city where you decide whats best for you. Rokea and Lupus buddying up? It can happen. You only have the judgement of your peers and the spirits. A Nagah and a Nuwisha finding themselves as lovers turned mortal enemy? Without elders, is there anyone to put a stop to it? There aren't any elders to nag you to follow this way or that. There aren't elders around to learn from. The spirits here are angry and disillusioned. Which means the Shifters can live as they want.... For now. Back to Top
Demographics There are only a handful of critters I do not want to tell stories for. So please keep that in mind when applying. If they are listed as None Here, don't even ask, its not that they can't exist in this area, its that I won't approve them. Closed means, depending on what you are, you might be able to purchase an NPC, but it will be something ultimately decided by the Shifter Wizard and controlled by the shifter wizard. Restricted means you will have to impress me with your app. RACES Garou: OPEN Ananasi: RESTRICTED Bastet: OPEN Corax: OPEN Gurahl: OPEN Mokole: RESTRICTED Nuwisha: OPEN Ratkin: RESTRICTED Rokea: OPEN Kitsune: CLOSED Nagah: RESTRICTED Kinfolk: CLOSED Ajaba: RESTRICTED Drone: CLOSED Fomori: CLOSED Gorgon: CLOSED Kami: CLOSED Any other race not listed: CLOSED TRIBES Black Furies: OPEN Bone Gnawers: OPEN Children of Gaia: OPEN Fianna: OPEN Get of Fenris: OPEN Glass Walkers: OPEN Hakken CLOSED Red Talons: CLOSED Shadow Lords: OPEN Silent Striders: CLOSED Silver Fangs: OPEN Stargazers: CLOSED Uktena: OPEN Wendigo: OPEN Hengeyokai: CLOSED BREEDS Homid: OPEN Lupus: OPEN Metis: OPEN AUSPICES Ahroun: OPEN Galliard: OPEN Philodox: OPEN Theurge: OPEN Ragabash: OPEN Back to Top Approved Books While I as staff may pull from other books for inspiration or ideas, the only books pertinent to players are the following: Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition W20 Changing Breeds If it isn't in these, it will not be on your sheet unless it comes from another sphere's approved books (such as abilities or backgrounds). Back to Top		Staff Wizard: Frigg Occasional Assistant: Experience: Frigg has been a Shifter Wizard on multiple games and multiple iterations of Metro/Sheltering Sky and now Fulcrum. She's been playing WoD since the 90's. Additional Coding & Tips Tip 1: This is a game, remember this is a game. Have intense scenes. Have epic scenes. But at the end of the day, its a game. For stories filled with randomness from dice. Anything can happen. Characters can be over the top. Characters can be mean to other characters. But this is a game, played by people. Remember that and OOCly you should be decent to one another. Tip 2: Save for a couple anomalies, you are a creature of Rage. Even a 1 perm Rage Ragabash can frenzy, as you can gain temp rage Over your perm Rage and you roll whichever is higher. Yes, you are less likely, but the possibility is there. Tip 3: The set up here in Twin Cities is rough on Shifters. This is a MASSIVE uphill battle don't be dejected when its hard. Outside help is not discouraged. Back to Top Staff Philosophy I am coming into Fulcrum with a few different ideas than I have tried before. This means that what you expect, probably won't be what you will be encountering. One thing that has always come up as an issue. Packs. Yes, they are integral to most Shifter games, but with the way online games work, you come in with people, one out of three stays for more than three months. Or you make a pack in game but have fun playing with others, or timing just doesn't work and so you fall out of touch in the game. Thematically packs are everything with Garou Society, thematically not living with your pack, not doing most things with your pack, arguing with packmates etc - well, in the course of play these things happen. You find other people to have fun with, jobs and life take precedence and the game thematically doesn't really work with that. So, we are going without a pack or sept focus. This also means there's no punishment for not living with a pack. There's no punishments for having weird and unusual friends. If you make a pack, awesome, but neither I, nor anyone else will spaz if it has to break up for any reason. Issue two: man oh man, is it hard to play other shifting races. I am guilty of this too, oh so very guilty. So, with a lack of sept and packs, I am hoping to see more opportunity for players to give other races a try. The downside, there aren't a ton of NPCs out there to work with. NPCs will be few at game start, likely for a long while. I am all for having people try out different races, I am not interested in telling stories for Wyrm affiliated Shifter PCs. So, sorry folks, no BSDs or other walking the dark side PCs in the Shifter Sphere. You can be mean and nasty, but no spiral saunters will occur. Issue Three: Solving plots. Sometimes when I make a plot I know a solution. Sometimes I know 4 or 5. What I don't enjoy is PCs asking for rolls to just 'know' the solution. Come up with ideas, please! If you think you are on the right track, test your theories, help me make an exciting fun story for both of us. Don't ask the NPCs for solutions. Give them your solutions and ask for feedback. The NPCs don't know the answers but they have expertise. Better still, different NPCs will agree with or disagree with one another. The decision of what path to take, what solution to use: will always be in the hand of the PCs. Otherwise its me playing with myself. And as fun as that it, it is ultimately incredibly unsatisfying. Back to Top
From years ago, to now ... Minnesota – Land of 10,00 lakes and rumored to have once been home to hundreds of caerns – now only a few remain in the far north of the state. Currently, Minnesota has the second largest population of wolves, with only Alaska beating it out. In the northern reaches of the state, the Kinfolk of wolves and even some cats are flourishing – in the rest of the state, such is not the case. The problems started, as they often do, in cities before they were cities. Problems go all the way back to 1776, when colonial explorer and mapmaker Jonathan Carver “discovered” a cave of white sands, soft sandstone walls and petroglyph carvings of bears, turtles, snakes, fish and humans. His published discovery would lead to the caves eventual desecration when a railroad expansion project destroyed the petroglyphs in the late 1800’s. What man did not know but is still carried in the history of many shifter races: Carver’s Cave, better known as Wakan Tipi, was a caern. What Carver described as “an unsearchable distance” was in fact the unlit vestibule, where a short dive into icy waters would lead you to a passage and the caern’s heart. How Carver managed and cajoled his way in, no one is certain. With the settling of Minnesota, came more and more visitors. Native Kinfolk were forced out, with Garou eventually leaving with them. The site earned the strange moniker “the foremost relic of antiquity” in the region. And like many tourist spots in the 1800’s, the visitors did more damage than protect. Names were carved in the walls next to the ancient petroglyphs; trash was thrown in the pristine spring water; swimming and boating inside the cave was not unheard of. The caern became utterly unusable. Then came the railroad expansion, and with it needed explosions. Subsequent concussive shocks from the explosions destroyed the glyphs; the underwater passageways were obliterated, and the heart of the caern was gone. By this point, shifters in the city were few and far between. With expansion bringing more and more people, more and more technology of the day, the cities were not safe. Was this the beginning of the Third Ring, no one knows. Those who dare to come to the Twin Cities have a lot to contend with. A very unfriendly Umbra, massive urban sprawl, and no place they can call their own within 200 miles. Back to Top
NPCs NPCs will be built from the applications that come in. There are no locals here. There are no elders. This is the price of freedom from the rules and regulations of typical Shifter society. Back to Top