You only gain penance if you fail on upholding the ban. Having a different conviction doesn’t add penance. For example, Shadow Lords patron doesn’t like jokesters, but you can initially have low jokester conviction to join Shadow Lords, and then pivot to having high jokester conviction. You can only gain penance as Shadow Lords if you fail intimidation or leadership checks. You can still have high jokester conviction as long as you don’t fail on those checks.
Yes, it’s not a conventional way. The whole point of being a litany hater is not doing the same old routine that Garou have been doing for milennia - which they still uphold despite those old ways failing them again and again. One of the themes of Werewolf is how the Garou are so arrogant and stuck in their ways, and despite their good intentions, they are losing the war. The Garou are their own enemies.
The traditional Garou may think whatever they want with Katherine, but the results speak for themselves. If you did what Katherine did, you can gain the maximum number of gifts, and even join a tribe that’s not aligned to your conviction. Katherine’s whole shtick is being a rulebreaker and finding unconventional ways to further the Garou’s goal of saving Gaia. I don’t want to spoil so I won’t add details, but one of the endings is taking on Katherine’s suggestion, and it is something that many Garou would consider blasphemous. And yet it provides the most xp, and in my opinion, is the most effective.
Depend the tribe the penance is different yes, some like Ghost Council rely on We Can Still Win Conviction, if you keep going Just Want to Survive as a Ghost, you rack up massive amount of penance. But this is more of a game thing, in universe definitely can’t do this as the Patron spirit will probably take your tribe gifts away from you, those spirit that are unaffiliated to the Tribe and aren’t strong enough to be Pack spirit likely can’t take back gifts tho.
For Kat, it is more than just Litany and traditional Garou, some Litany hating Tribe and Garou would even consider Kat to be almost blasphemous but because the Broad Brook Garou situation is special, they have the Three Family and their human magic.
Even Glass Walkers and Ghost Council rarely let human occultist among their rank because their magic hurt spirit and people, it shouldn’t exist according to Garou belief, Litany or no. Kat spirit binding ability was the worst offender of all because it was just human sorcery with raw spiritual power of Garou, it was harsh on the spirit as it force them to use their power against their will. Even the Ghosts don’t mix human sorcery and Garou magic, they just use it as it is instead, Kat is special in that sense.
The only tribe where gaining ‘I just want to survive’ conviction adds a penance is Ghost Council. All other tribes don’t give penance when adding a conviction that they don’t like, so you can easily do this as long as you’re not Ghost Council. Even then, you can still join the Ghost Council despite having high ‘I just want to survive’ conviction and not gain penance by not choosing options that increase or decrease that conviction.
Of course, this only applies to this game. Even in TT or in Werewolf lore, there are no convictions that would merit a violation to the ban. The only time a Garou can violate a ban is if they do something that is against that ban. The culture in Silver Fangs, for example, is that they favor being traditional. But you can still be a Silver Fang and have contempt with traditions. As long as you don’t do anything shameful or lose renown, Falcon isn’t going to bother you. Even Jonas Albrecht wasn’t a traditionalist and he became the king of the Silver Fangs.
I wasn’t totally sure on this, but based on further readings the Garou do actually associate with mages. There are kinfolk sorcerers working alongside the Garou. I want to know where you got this, because based on what I’ve read online, there are a lot of people referencing how the Garou may be suspicious with some mages, but many still work with them. The Glass Walkers, in particular, work with Weaver adjacent mages. Even Lucinda can become Awakened with a spirit supporting her.
So 2 then. When I was in demo, I think I did raise one of them but maybe not. I didn’t have any because I wasn’t sure of the gifts yet. Was still figuring out what gifts are where and what I can get before I picked. Sadly, it kills time to figure it all out within the game world itself. Which kinda sucks.
It is reference in the game, and in universe, mage magic is seen as evil but the Garou can’t decide on hedge magic because it’s technically of the planet, just whether it is of the Wyrm or not, so only some tribe like Shadow Lords and Ghost Council allow human kinfolk to use it, hesitantly. Garou don’t bother with hedge magic at all because gifts is just faster to earn and simply stronger. In old editions, mages was portrayed as caern raiders who steal gnosis and damage holy sites.
Ghost Council and Glass Walkers allow mages and sometime even vampires to work with them temporary but is kept a secret from others tribes, for Glass Walkers, it heavily depend on which camp we are talking about, they may work with them but certainly don’t trust them, entire camp had gotten wiped for falling to the Weaver.
Also Kat entire purpose isn’t rulebreaking and litany defying to further Garou mission, that is like most of Garou in the game, Podge doesn’t care about the Litany, he is a Bone Gnawers, Nin also doesn’t care about Litany either or even humans some of the time, she only care because Unicorn like it. Elton only somewhat care but that is because he is a terrible Shadow Lords, his tribe don’t care about the Litany. Of the 4 companions, 3 of them are willing to break rule and such to save Gaia, only Mel care about the Litany but being a member of the Three Family, she isn’t that stuck up about it enough to be a good Silver Fangs either. Kat special trait is having occult knowledge enough to use it (very rare among Garou) and applying it to Garou magic, being a rulebreaker is just her being a classic Shadow Lords.
The Garou mistrust mages because some mages attack caerns to asorb them. Other than that, the Garou tend to tolerate them as long as they’re not out there sucking their caerns. Like I said, I want to know where you got assertion. Many posited how Garou work alongside not just hedge-mages but mages too. 1234
I hope you’re not interpreting “shtick” as the ‘entire purpose of a person’. Katherine is all about not caring for the rules and not caring about what other Garou might consider ‘heretical’. Podge may not be a litany supporter, but he never strikes me as someone fine doing heretical things. Katherine is the only one crazy enough to distort her beliefs in order to gain a gift. Other pack members also generally follow the tenets. Despite not fully trusting Daphne, Elton still heeds her commands in order to keep the veil. And despite their mistrust with Daphne, the pack still heeds her in the account of her being the elder, at least until they discovered certain things with her. Also, where is it written that Katherine binding spirits hurts them?
Just read some of the rulebook and various WtA books, especially old editions ones, most of the Revised Tribebooks are either very useful, great reads, or both. Mage are called caern-rapers, name breakers, defilers of Gaia and worse, they raided caern, break “rules” of nature and Gaia and have all the more potential to do damage, due to their power, but no more wisdom than your average human, so it goes double (or more) for them destroying nature and killing Gaia. And again as i already said, Mage do work with Garou but it is rare temporary thing and not public to others tribes, sometime just within a pack.
If you played Mage or read about it, you will know that their power is inherently defying nature which cause most tribes to hate or distrust them, the tribes that do work with them are very practical about it, not buddy buddy, the Garou will turn against them if necessary.
Elton and the pack doesn’t follow Daphne order because she is an elder, they follow it only to keep the Veil because hunters is a thing among others, Elton said many time he doesn’t want to work with Daphne. Also one of the reason why even as some tribes doesn’t care about the Litany but still want to keep the Veil, hunters are scary but the Technocracy is even worse.
And as i keep saying, what Kat doing is more than just rule breaking and defying the Litany, with her occult knowledge she done something that is entirely unique to her and not some casual Litany defilers, she pretty much invented new way to gain gifts.
You can literally read about it when you earn Kat gift, by the standards of most Garou ritual it is harsh on the spirits to be commanded, and maybe even blasphemous.
I wonder how much of this has been retcon, it’s kind of hard to keep up with the changes 5th has brought plus there is still no 5th for mage yet so all of this can change even more whenever it comes out
No, just Ragabash or join Ghost Council, i am a Theurge Ghost, you just need 6 Honor and high in Human Must Understand, so probably 2 dot or even 3 (if you are using number instead of dot, > 65).
I’m loving the story so far, Kyle Marquis might just be my favorite author at the moment (Pon Para is a masterpiece, goodness). I just want to suggest that the adjective “cylindrical” is more apt to describe a burrito in the scene with Elton where you go back to his place and look at the painting of his wife, because where I’m from, I can’t fathom how a burrito can be wrapped as a sphere. (I’d upload a screenshot but I don’t know how to embed an image since apparently it’s not allowed for replies in the thread)
Other than that, I’m enjoying my run so far. I wish Kyle great health and continued success
I don’t actually think “cylindrical” is what he meant. There’s nothing special about a burrito being cylindrical - I don’t think I’ve ever seen a burrito that wasn’t. And a burrito couldn’t literally be “perfectly cylindrical” any more than it could be “perfectly spherical.” I suspect what he’s talking about is a burrito so overstuffed it loses its shape. It’s probably super messy to eat even if you aren’t a ravenous werewolf.
Kyle was being a little humorous / hyperbolic about a spherical burrito, but not by much. The real place he’s referencing in Northampton (Bueno y Sano) makes very round, very stuffed burritos and they’re amazing. I especially recommend the Salvadoran burrito and the salsa verde.
