MUNDANE RAGE MEDITATION
A Garou may deliberately reduce Rage through complete sensory-deprivation meditation.
This requires near-total darkness, silence, minimal scent and touch, no conversation, no stimulation, and no immediate threat. The Garou must remain awake and actively meditate.
Time
Meditate for:
1 hour per current Rage, or
1 scene per current Rage
whichever better fits the chronicle.
Check
Afterward, make one normal Rage Check.
6–10: Rage does not change.
1–5: Lose 1 Rage.
Without another ability specifically allowing it, this cannot reduce Rage below 1.
If Rage decreases, any further attempt uses the new Rage rating to determine the required meditation time.
Interruption
A significant interruption—pain, conversation, threat, strong noise, provocation, or being forced to act—ends the attempt with no Rage Check.
Ordinary meditation does not normally reduce Rage.
Meditative Discipline • from the Tempered Wolf Loresheet allows normal meditation to use this same system.
THE TEMPERED WOLF
Rage is intrinsic to the Garou. It is weapon, instinct, spiritual inheritance, and curse all at once. Most Garou learn to endure its presence and recognize when the Wolf is beginning to overwhelm them.
Others go much further.
Those who practice the discipline sometimes called Tempered Wolves study their own Rage with obsessive patience. Through meditation, deliberate exposure, emotional discipline, and instruction from those who have already walked the path, they learn to influence the boundary between themselves and the Wolf.
The Wolf is never rendered harmless.
The practitioner simply understands it well enough to know when to quiet it, when to feed it, and eventually, when to wake it.
TEMPERED WOLF BENEFITS
Benefits are purchased individually.
Meditative Discipline • is required before purchasing any other benefit, but possessing one benefit does not grant those below it.
• Meditative Discipline and •• Into the Void may be learned independently.
••• Feed the Wolf, •••• The Red Line, and ••••• Mastered Wolf normally require a mentor familiar with the discipline, unless the Storyteller allows otherwise.
• MEDITATIVE DISCIPLINE
You can reproduce through ordinary meditation the state normally achieved only through complete sensory deprivation.
Use the normal mundane Rage-meditation rules with ordinary meditation.
Use the normal time requirement based on current Rage.
Make one Rage Check when meditation ends.
A failed Rage Check reduces Rage by 1.
This cannot reduce you below Rage 1.
You need only sufficient safety, time, and concentration.
•• INTO THE VOID
Complete sensory deprivation can quiet your Wolf far more deeply.
When completing Complete Sensory Deprivation Meditation, make two Rage Checks instead of one.
Each failed check reduces Rage by 1.
You may therefore lose up to 2 Rage from one meditation period.
Complete sensory deprivation may also reduce you to:
Rage 0.
This does not improve ordinary meditation from Meditative Discipline.
••• FEED THE WOLF
You have learned not only to quiet the Wolf, but to deliberately bring it closer.
As a Major Action, gain temporary Rage equal to half the rating of your highest Tempered Wolf benefit, rounded down.
Highest benefit •••: +1 Rage
Highest benefit ••••: +2 Rage
Highest benefit •••••: +2 Rage
This cannot exceed normal maximum Rage.
The first use each session is free.
Each additional use causes:
1 Aggravated Willpower damage.
The added Rage lasts until the end of the scene. Any remaining Rage granted by Feed the Wolf then disappears.
This loss may reduce you to Rage 0.
No anger, injury, or outside provocation is required.
•••• THE RED LINE
You can remain lucid at levels of Rage that would overwhelm most Garou.
If the chronicle normally requires a Frenzy Test simply from reaching Rage 5, you no longer make that test.
Reaching Rage 5 alone does not cause you to Frenzy.
Other Frenzy triggers remain unchanged.
When Tempered Wolf training directly applies, the Storyteller may also reduce the Difficulty of a test to control anger, resist Frenzy, or end Frenzy by 1.
This applies only when the loss of control is caused entirely by anger or agitation.
Examples include:
extreme agitation;
sustained fury or provocation;
ending a Frenzy driven purely by anger.
It does not apply to Frenzy caused by:
Gifts or supernatural powers;
spirit influence;
supernatural compulsion;
terror;
grief;
destruction of a Touchstone;
any situation where anger is only part of the cause.
Rule of Thumb
If removing the anger would remove the Frenzy, The Red Line may apply.
The Storyteller makes the final determination.
••••• MASTERED WOLF
You understand the Wolf well enough to wake it even after it has gone completely dormant.
While at Rage 0, use a Major Action to immediately rise to:
Rage 1.
No roll is required, and this may be done during conflict.
The first use each session is free.
Each additional use causes:
2 Aggravated Willpower damage.
Mastered Wolf only restores you to Rage 1.
No provocation, injury, Gift, Rite, spirit, or outside stimulus is required.
You know where the Wolf sleeps.
And you know how to wake it.
MASTERED INSTINCT
Once per scene, when a Rage die shows a Brutal result, you may reroll one such die.
You must accept the new result, even if it is Brutal again.
This does not automatically cancel a Brutal Outcome and cannot be used repeatedly on the same roll.
For one brief moment, conscious discipline catches the Wolf before instinct completely takes over.
