Gifts Rites and Secrets

Note: Obviously, if you fail your Willpower roll, you could derail your entire chronicle (or just lose a favorite character) by vanishing into neverland. Therefore, this Flaw should only be bought with Storyteller approval, allowing her to prepare for the eventuality of having to send the entire group of characters pelting off through the Umbra to catch their wayward birdie. diralike Mannerisms (I point 91aw) You don’t leave your corvid nature entirely behind when you lose your feathers. Rather, you’re prone to birdlike head motions, sudden stalking advances, standing on one leg, and, when you think no one’s looking, attempting the human equivalent of preening. Mind you, 99.9% of the human population will not ascribe anything odd to you, other than perhaps a need for certain medications, but to that 0.1% who are in the know, you’ll stand out.

Guarbianship (2 point Merit) You’ve been entrusted with the guardianship of a spirit egg. Only you know the location of this egg in the Umbra, and you are its sole defender. As long as you maintain guardianship of the egg, you gain a point of Glory. Furthermore, you can always rouse other Corax to come to the egg’s defense should you require assistance. On the down side, if a spirit egg is stolen or damaged on your watch, you suffer a permanent loss of 3 Glory.

Strong Claws (4 point Merit) Birds’ claws contract automatically when they sleep, allowing them to keep a grip all night long on whatever perch they’ve achieved. You can apply that sort of grip whenever you want, making it nigh-impossible to pull something from your grasp if you really want to hang onto it. If you decide that you absolutely need to keep something in your grasp, you get an extra three dice of Strength to use if anyone tries to take the item away from you.

This Gift can also be used when hanging onto window ledges, cliffs, tree branches and so on for dear life, or when trying to haul dangling victims back to safety from such perilous locales.

Gifts Corax have their ownGifts, taught to them by the Sun in mistaken thanks for “rescuing” his position in the celestial hierarchy. Raven has also sweetened the pot for his children with an extensive range of Gifts to choose from.

Chapter Four: Traits and Secrets e Gifts. Furthermore, seein the way that Garou or the Corax has left Raven’s children; in the int The Corax downplay the rumors that they have managed to steal the secrets of every single Garou Gift as well, and would dismiss those stories as slander except for one thing: The stories are pretty much true. There aren’t many Garou Gifts out there that the Corax haven’t uncovered the details of. Mind you, not every Garou Gift is suitable for use with the beak-and-feathers getup, but once a Corax reaches suitable levels of experience, odds are he’s picked up most of the tricks in the werewolves’ book. (The sad thing is, of course, that the Garou know that their code has been cracked by the Corax, but they haven’t been able to uncover much more than a few Corax recipes in return. It drives them nuts -and the Corax like that just fine.) All Corax start out with three Gifts. Corax Gifts are directed toward uncovering and passing along information and getting out alive with the latest news.

Voices and accents are all covered by the scope of the Gift, as are machine noises, crashes, gunfire and any other noise you can imagine. Voice of the Mimic is taught by a Mynahspirit.

System: The Gift requires a Perception + Expression (or Mimicry) roll, with the difficulty based on the complexity of the sound. When combined with the Merit: Eidetic Memory, the Corax can replay whole conversations with eerie verisimilitude.

System: The Corax, by rolling Perception + Stealth, can pick up hints as to the nature of enemies in the area.

Usually, a Corax who uses this Gift successfully can pick out the number and type of his opponents; with extreme successes, sometimes more can be learned.

Carrion’s Call (Level Two) - As much as their other functions obscure the fact, the Corax still feed on - and are intimately linked to - death and the dead. Furthermore, the Corax have a nigh-sacred duty relating to the corpses of the slain that demands that Raven’s children be able to find the freshly slaughtered. This Gift tells a Corax when a fresh corpse is nearby, and inexorably leads the wereraven to the site where the body rests. This has its ups and downs - clever fomor are more than happy to murder innocents to attract the attention of Corax with this Gift.

After all, once Carrion’s Call has been issued, the Corax has no choice but to eventually, somehow, respond.

Carrion’s Call is taught by a Vulture-spirit.

While a Corax does not need to respond to Carrion’s Call immediately, he has no more than 24 hours in which to do so or else Raven himself will punish the Corax for dereliction of duty. This punishment takes the form of stripping the Corax of one permanent Honor Renown, as the transgressor has clearly ignored honor’s demands by refusing to heed the call.

Morse (Level One) -There are messages that need to move faster than any Corax can fly, and there are times when neither computer nor phone is a safe method of information transfer. At times like that, a Corax still has a method of getting his message to his nearest fellow wereraven, namely, the use of this Gift. By merely tapping out his message onto any hard surface and using this Gift, a Corax can make sure that someone out there gets his message right now - because there may not be time for a later. This Gift is taught by a Machine-spirit.

Word Beyond (Level One) - When traveling through the Umbra, Corax often feel the need to leave information for their fellow birds. After all, it’s common courtesy to inform a relative that the old safe road now leads right into a nest of Pattern Spiders, right? Unfortunately, there’s a dearth of writing materials in the Umbra, which means only that the Corax had to find an alternate method of leaving their missives. That’s where this Gift - which allows a Corax to create arecognizable sigil out ofwhatever’s handy - comes in. A spirit in service to Coyote teaches this Gift (when he feels like it).

System: In the Umbra, the Corax (by rolling Wits + Expression, difficulty 6) can create a marker out of available materials for any other Corax who come by. The number of successes indicates the complexity of the message that can be encrypted into the marker, which can be Corm Omens and Signs (Level Two) - Corax can find symbolic portents in their surroundings without even trying - but this Gift helps. The world is full of omens, after all, but a Corax with this Gift knows where to look for them. This Gift is taught by a Stormcrow.

The primary effect of Razor Feathers is to make the feathers along the edge of the raven’s wing hard and sharp as steel. The hardened feathers are strong enough to parry knives or claws, and are sharp enough to slice easily through unprotected flesh - or even stronger materials. Razor Feathers is taught by a Steel-spirit.

I I I i i I I I SDecial Combat Maneuoer: aneuver that tgkes full if the attack doesn’t connect, the target is so busy spinning out of the way that he’s off-balance for his ires a Dexterity + Brawl roll st roll Dexterity (difficulty 5 ) the assault. Off-balance y to all rolls the next ropes, breaking winChapter Four: Traits and Secrets Sky’s Beneficence (Level Two) - More than one human has commented with supreme annoyance at birds’ uncanny ability to deliver payloads from altitude. This Gift, reputedly one of the first Raven granted his children, allows C o r a to take that aptitude and turn it into something with more practical applications. Simply put, Sky’s Beneficence allows a C o r a to drop a package of any sort (including the stereotypical) onto a target no matter how high the altitude of the Corax. Obviously, depending upon the Cora’ current altitude and the size of the payload, the drop may actually damage whatever the payload lands on.

Any aerial spirit can teach this Gift.

The limitations on this Gift are twofold. The first is that the Corax has to be, obviously, fully airborne when using Sky’s Beneficence. In other words, Homid-form Corax need not apply. The other factor is that the Corax needs to be able to see her target, else she will not be able to deliver her payload properly. This Gift can be used in conjunction with other Gifts, however.

This Gift allows a Corax to bestow that feeling on the target of s many minutes as times when a Corn is too tired or too badly injured to navig himselfback home. That’s when he turns to this Gift. Swallo Return is nothing less than an autopilot, bringin safely back home even while the wereraven sleep Swallow-spirit teaches this Gift. ift does is allow a Corax to double Ragabash Gift. e Gift’s parameters. some wereravens play: On (in, say, a bar); the other her choice without necessitating that the Corax herself tail her victim. Sometimes the Gift creates the shadow of a large bird that follows the target everywhere; other times, it just imbues a sense of pure paranoia. At first glance, Sky’s Shadow might not seem like a terribly effective Gift, but nervous men make mistakes - and this Gift can make even the strongest-willed man nervous. Any bird spirit can teach this gift.

While under the Gift’s influence, the victim is constantly aware of the shadowy eyes of unknown figures upon him. This takes away from his ability to concentrate, and he’s at + 1 difficulty on all Willpowerand Mental-related rolls as long as the Gift’s effect lasts.

When this Gift (yet another example of Helios’ largesse) is calldupon, theCoraxcansuddenlyseethroughanythingshort ofa solid object. TO the eye, night becomes day, fog becomes transparentasair,andsmoketumsclearasglassonceEyesofthe Eagle is invoked. Inaddition, thisGiftcanbe used toextend the range of a Corax’ sight, which makes it useful when paired with Sky’s Beneficence. Eagle-spirits teach this Gift.

With a success, the Corax acquires knowledge of one of his target’s deep dark secrets. While this Gift doesn’t turn loose the sort of secrets that are useful in combat, it does pry loose all sorts of interesting blackmail material. most often utilized in conjunction with Razor Feathers, in which case it makes for a devastating weapon. Hummingbird Dart permits a Corax to pluck one of her own feathers and throw it like (as one might guess) a dart. The feather flies Straight and true, Un~~~Umbered by anything SO petty as the laws of Physics and the strictures OfaerodYnamics. A Hummingbird-spirit teaches this Gift.

The thrown feather does Dexterity +3 dice of damage.

Dead Talk (Level Three) - There are secrets you just can’t get from a dead man’s eyeball. There are times when you need more than just a stiffs last sight. At those difficult times, being able to hold a conversation with, or at least get a few straight answers out of, the spirit of the deceased increases the Corax’ information-gathering Possibilities exponentially. A Vulture-spirit teaches this Gift, though supposedly some wraiths can teach it as well.

Cora nds himself chased by wherewithal for an extremely erity + Flying roll (difficulty 5). who become too fond of using Vulture’s Feast are often System: Corax using Airt Sense must spend one Gnosis Only C o r a in Homid can make use of this Gift. Corax Larder of the Shrike (Level Three) - Shrikes are notorious for killing more than they need, then storing the corpses for later use. Shrike-spirits can share the knowledge of the benefits that can accrue from such behavior. Essentially, this Gift allows the to Store food - and anything eke, like, Say, acorpsein Perfect condition for up toayear, solong as the stored item is allowed to hang free in the “larder.”

Living items cannot be placed into a state of suspended animation by this Gift, which only affects dead things.

Vampires and Risen don’t fall under Larder of the Shrike’s purview either, unfortunately.

Simply put, this Gift allows a Cow to know the de Gnosis, as well as a Wits + A are any successes, the Corax choose knowledge of a single Gifts lower in level than he is. Natur * Sun’s Guard (Level Thr by Raven after the great misadv serves to protect Corax from excessive heat. After all, the ravens got away with being burned to a crisp on the outside the first time; next time, the Corax might not be so lucky.. . . To no one’s surprise, an Avatar of Raven teaches this Gift.

Each success is a turn during which the Corax is immune to flames literally up to and including those of the surface of the sun. This includes regular flames, magickally conjured fire, and even balefire. 0 Ai& Sense (Level Four) - This is the same as the spirit Charm, and can be taught by any type of spirit possessing that particular Charm. point and roll Perception + Occult (difficulty 7) to utilize Chapter Four: Traits and Secrets it. The understanding of the ways of the Umbra granted by this Gift halves travel time through the spirit world.

Vulture’s Feast allows a Corax to rot flesh with a touch, regardless of whether the target meat is dead or alive.

Obviously, this is not a Gift to be used lightly, but there are times when even the most peaceable Corax has no recourse but to turn someone’s face into a mass of decaying SuPPUrationA Vulture-sPirit teaches this Gift.

System: The exercise ofvulture’s Feast requires the expenditure of a Willpower point and two Gnosis. The Corn must then make a successful Dexterity + Brawl roll (difficulty 5 ) in order to touch his victim, then he must succeed on a contested Stamina roll. If he wins, the flesh he’s currently touching becomes withered, dead and rotted; the victim takesone Health Level of aggravated damage for each success the Corax has left. easily turned to the Wyrm, so anyone who gets a reputation for using Vulture’s Feast frequently will find himself watched carefully by his fellow wereravens. action that any Corax should ever take lightly, and Helios himself notices if a wereraven abuses this Gift. After all, he’s the one who teaches it.

System: Given by Helios reluctantly (and some say, at the last minute) to his new acquisitions, this Gift allows a Corax to sever his connection to the Sun temporarily - minutes for every success on a Willpower roll (difficulty 7) after the expenditure of 2 points of Gnosis. If the roll is a success, the Corm is suddenly cut off from Helios. This has both positive and negative effects. On the plus side, the Corax is no longer vulnerable to the pernicious effects of gold for the duration of the Gift’s effects. On the other hand, for so long as the Corax is cut off from Helios, she cannot use Rage.

Gift of Eyes (Level Five) - The Corax’ duty of drinking the eyes of the slain can inflict a montage of supremely horrific images upon those who tend to their duties. In many cases, those images are the Corm’ burden, to suffer with in silence. That’s not always the case, however. With Gift of Eyes, a Corm can pass along a vision from an eye he’s drunk to any non-Corm he chooses. The image is transferred in all its glory and gore, just as the Corax himself first saw it. Unprepared viewers may faint or scream; prepared ones may find clues or details they need in this glimpse of a dead man’s last seconds. Raven or one of his spirits teaches this Gift.

Moments of Eclipse (Level Five) -There are times when a Corax must make a near-supreme sacrifice, voluntarily severing his connection to the Sun. The reasons for doing so are few, but always drastic. Perhaps the Corax has been chained with gold, and needs a few minutes in which to work an escape (or else he’ll die a horrible, agonizing death), or maybe he needs to prove his “worth” to a gang of vampires he’s trying to infiltrate. Regardless, this is not an A Theft of Stars (Level Five) - In some Native American legends, Raven was responsible for placing the sun, moon and stars into the sky. However, what Raven giveth, Raven can take away - or at least borrow with the help of the Grax. This Gift has a truly terrifying effect, rendering the target completely unable to see any light derived from a natural light source (the sun, moon or stars). Victims of this power are reduced to stumbling around in a bizarre twilight, if not absolute darkness. Helios’ Avatar teaches this Gift, but only to Corax whom the Sun trusts in its use.

System: A point of Willpower and a point of Rage are needed to activate Theft of Stars, as is a contested Willpower roll with the victim. If the Corax wins the roll, her victim is immediately plunged into darkness, as no natural light registers with his eyes. Artificial light (lamps, fire, etc.) registers just fine, but who’s got their lights on in the middle of the day? The effects of Theft of Stars last a single hour, but that’s usually more than enough.

Rites We are invisible upon these dancing feet We’re shape and shadowless revolving to the one eternal Dougie MacLean, “All Together”

There’s one of me and three of them, and they ain’t breathing. Plus, it’s pitch dark in here - an abandoned warehouse at 2 AM ain’t my idea of an ideal birdcage, if you catch my drift. The ceiling is 50 feet u@, which is good, but there’s no light. Damn Leeches must have chewed on the fusebox or something, ‘cause I flicked the switch and there was nuthin’.

Correction: I could hear one of ‘em laughing down the middle aisle.

They move realquiet when they want to, you know? I hear noises, scuffles, but nothing that I can pinpoint. Best guess is, though, that two of them are moving to cut off this aisle while a third climbs the pallets to one side so he can do a Jackie Chan death-from-above kind of move.

I’m not sure if they know I can fly, but I’m not relying on them being that dumb.

Crap. What was that noise? Sounded like a soda can being skiddedacross thefloor. Heh. Probably tomakeme think theguy is over there, when he’s really over there. Right, This could get ugly. Better shift into Crinos, just togive myself a little edge. It won’t do much good, not against three of the bastards, but it might buy me a second or two, and I can still fly.

Okay. Let’s move doeon a bit this way, away from the source of the noise. Hmmm. Footsteps squeaking down and to the left. One of them is whispering orders; I can’t make out the words, but I take it from his tone that he’s pissed at his buddies. beat Chapter Four: Traits and Secrets There goes another soda can. 1 hear something creaking up above now -fun boy number three has apparently achieved the middle shelf of the monster rack behind me. I’m gonna move slowly, so my claws don’t click on the concrete, and edge away from the boxes.

Raven’s left nut! That one scared the hell out of me. He musta dropped a book or a box or somethingfiom way up there.

I just hope he doesn’t start playing happy bombardier, because he can see better than I can right now.

More noise off to the left. Getting closer, too. They’re phying withme, the bastards. Another boxjust hnded, closer.

Time topulloutmy acein thehole. Time tostart thechant.

Another box. He’s bracketed me. His buddies are just watching. Doesn’t matter, not if I get enough time to do this.

Step, forward, bow, step, step and turn, arms up.

Bastard! That one hit me. The other two are laughing and the one up top is whooping it up. Yeah, keep laughingfunny boy.

Playinggames is gonna kill ya. You didn’t knock me out of step, and I’m just ... about ... done.

They’re not expectinga faceful ofHelios, I can tell you that much. As the light grows, I can hear them screaming. I can smell the smoke. Cooked deud meat -about as pleasant as afast-food restaurant the morning after.

Crapola. The one up top is burning, and he’s filing around on cartons of books. The whole place could go up - I’m outta here.

Wonder what the firemen are going to think about the sunlight streamingout the windows as the place burns. Ah well, not my problem. Time to fly!

Rites. Gotta talk about rites now, don’t I? Well, a rite is like going to church, only.. .you never went to church?

Err, synagogue? Sunday school?

Atheist, huh? Well, let me tell you something, that’s gonna change.

Anyway, a rite is a ritual, a religious service, but it’s got a concrete effect tagged onto the end of it. I mean, something happens when you finish a rite, assuming you did it, err, right. Then again, you do a rite wrong, you’d better pray nothing is all that happens. There are all sorts of nasty consequences to botching a rite, most of which involve some muckety-muck spirit getting all pissed at you. Things tend to degenerate pretty quickly after that.

Pretty basic stuff, huh?

Right. Take notes. This is important.

Rite of the Sun’s aright flay (Leuel G o o ) This one is proof positive Helios is our buddy. When you do this rite, you get a heaping dose of sunshine that brightens up wherever you are. Doesn’t matter if you’re underground, in a bank vault, in the middle of Club Whiny Vampire -do this rite and it’s “Here Comes the Sun.” And you know what the best thing about the sunlight that you can conjure up with this one?

Well, yes, you can tan to it, but that’s not the issue. What matters is that this sunlight hits vampires like the real thing, baby.

You’ve just gotta see the look on the face of Vlad Pretentious, Dark Prince ofMount Laurel, NewJersey when youdropa “73 degrees and sunny” grenade in his hp. It’s priceless.

Rite of the Fetish &gg (Leuel Two) The Rite of the Fetish Egg is about the birds and the bees - well, no bees -and where new Cora comefiom. You see, when two Corax love each other very much, you know what happens?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We can’t breed with one another. That’s why h e are no Corax metis. Hell, a new Corax doesn’t even have to be the kid of an old Corax. This is a mutter of spirit, not genetics, boyo. Spirit’s a lot more important. What it can mean, though, is that you can have real parents and spiritual ones, your flesh-and-blood folks as well as the Corax who gave you your spirit egg.

Making aspirit eggrequires some hefty investment. There’s got to be one spiritualparentfrom each breed, plus someone’sgot to plunk some serious spiritual gas in order to create the egg and bind it to its other half. The binding is done with a feather or a human hair from the “parent” and ensures that the egg and the kidchick stay linked until such time as the kid can handle getting a double dose ofsoul. If the binding breaks, it devastates the poor kid - autism is the usual response. The parent usually just goes into depression; many lose the Sun right after that sort of thing.

System: The Rite of the Fetish Egg is never undertaken lightly. For one thing, it costs three permanent Gnosis from the parent Corax, and that price is paid regardless of whether the rite succeeds or fails.

The Rite of the Fetish Egg can only be performed in the Umbra, and requires one witness of the breed opposite that of the Corax performing the rite. Creating a fetish egg takes three hours; binding it to the soul for which it is intended takes another one. If the rite is interrupted at any point during this time, the Gnosis is lost and the rite fails.

Chapter Four: Traits and Secrets m -7!!J--- yrm alone knows why. The damdhings race. Me can’t afford to lose even really made it among us if you protection.

Pray you never see it come to that, Rite of decoming (Leuel Two) The Garou do this one the same way we do as well. I’d be kind of surprised if they didn’t, seeing as we’re the ones who actually taught it to them, but try to get a fury to admit to that.

System: This rite can only be cast from an Anchorhead domain, and requires the casting Corax to make a braid from three hairs (or feathers) off her head, three pieces of copper wire and three pieces of ivory. The Corax ties the braid around a wrist or ankle, then invokes three words of power. Henceforth, the Corax can fly into the Deep Umbra.

Rite of aattle dessing (Leuel Four) f The Rite of Battle Blessing is one of the big ‘uns, but don’t expect to Lam it any time soon. The only three who know this one are the members ofthe Morrigan, and they don’t exactly go around spouting off trade secrets. I only know a little bit about how this one works, but that’s scary enough for me.

It seem that if the Monigan decide they want to help one side in a battle out (usually the Fianna, in case you were wondering), they haul thisgoldenoldie out. All threefly over the battle, croaking out battle-song, and it puts the fear of Morrigu into whichever side the three ladies don’t like. It’s astonishing to watch - entire armies have broken and fled after hearing the chants of this rite. Mind you, this one’s tough to do, and the Morrigan don’t use it lightly. However, when they do uncork it, the effects are devastating.

System: All three of the Morrigan must be present to perform this rite. To enact the rite, each member of the Morrigan can spend Gnosis up to her Occult rating. For each point of Gnosis spent, the victims of the rite lose one die from their Dice Pools so long as they remain on the field of battle.

Targets can literally be reduced to zero dice by this rite.

Rite of Memory Theft (Leuel Four) If a fellow Corax has repeatedly acted dumber than a box of rocks, there comes a time when you’ve just got to scrub out the inside of his head and hope thut the next pile of garbage he accumulates between his ears is more useful. If someone does something really, really, really dumb, a bunch ofthe old-timers can pull this rite out of mothballs and wipe his mental hard drive downloading all the good bits first. Whoever leads the ritual gets thecoredumpfrom thesucker, err, target, em, objectofthe rite. Meanwhile the victim has his head pretty much wiped of anything more compkx than “Gee, pretty flowers.”

By the way, it’s a good thing this rite’s only awailubk to p-andpoobahs of the breed. Can you imagine the hell that would break loose if Murder’s Daughters got a hold of it?

System: This rite requires a small, empty wooden box, preferably painted with scenes from the target’s life. At least three Corax, including the one performing the rite, must surround the target (who, hopefully, has been subdued or at least restrained). The box is then opened and a litany of the victim’s deeds is chanted. As each event is named, the memories of that moment fly from the Corax into the box. Associated memories flee as well, until such time as the Corax’ mind is emptied of everything post-First Change. Note that the rite is an all or nothing proposition; one cannot use this to excise only certain memories.

The Corax performing the rite must then seal and crush the box, at which point, all of the memories contained enter his mind. This is not a burden to be undertaken lightly - the Rite of Memory Theft is only performed when a Corax has donesomethingtrulyhorrendous, andnoCoraxcarriesaround the memories of another breed’s failure or crime lightly. It’s one thing to know of another raven’s missteps, another thing entirely to make them your own.

This rite can only be used on other Corax. flenown Give me wisdom in misfortune Heart’s ease for my distress Richard Thompson, “May Day Psalter”

While Garou and Corax agree on the types of Renown they value, Corax hold Wisdom in highest esteem, no matter what. Wereravens seek Wisdom assiduously while sometimes forgetting to follow up on Glory or Honor.

Renown is very important to the Corax. After all, having Renown means you’re being talked about, and perhaps the only thing Corax love more than talking is having someone else talk about themsaying nice things, preferably. With that in mind, Corax avidly seek Renown from their fellows, turning the Corax compulsion to talk to their advantage by prattling on incessantly about their individual accomplishments. In a way, this serves Gaia’s purpose, because every Corax generally has a pretty good idea of what nearly every other Corax has been up to.

Indeed, in an odd way, Corax Renown is self-reinforcing. Corax exist, after all, to uncover secrets and spread word of those secrets ‘round the world. So every story told of a Corax uncovering a secret not only adds to the Renown of the intrepid Corax in question, but also passes the freshly unearthed secret along. In this fashion, a Corax’ Renown can mount quickly.

As Corax are solitary creatures, wereraven Renown tends to come from solo operations more than anything else (though any Corax who succeeds in getting his breedmates to cooperate often gets a healthy dollop of Renown as well). tlements of Status While Honor and Glory are known and vaguely respectable concepts among the Corax, the bird-folk have learned the hard way that many glorious and honorable actions tend to produce dead Corax. Garou don’t understand Corax Renown and don’t pretend to, but occasionally bestow Renown of their own on Corax who have performed especially worthy services for a pack or sept - uncovering the details of an incipient attack, snatching (at great risk) the blueprints of a building a pack wants to assault, and so forth. Usually this Renown is Glory Renown, to which the reaction of a Corax so honored is, “Err, thank you.” On the other hand, once it sinks in that a pack of Garou has given him a dollop of Renown, the Corax is likely to go repeating the story high and low (while trying to gain Renown from his fellow Corax, no doubt). la saving for last that I a clue we’ve done it.

“For Cats Only,” just ask around. Leave a few query gives us something to shoot for. em just plain don’t work for us okay? It’s not polite.

Widom With this set ofcircumstances in mind, WisdomRenown is the one thing that really matters to the birds, but it’s a very Corax-specific style of wisdom the birds venerate. In fact, the Corax definition of Wisdom is a little muddied with Knowledge - Corax who uncover great secrets and pass them along are showered with Wisdom Renown, while those birds who prudently (or wisely) don’t go digging through dangerous garbage are routinely dismissed from consideration.

There are three rules of Wisdom for Corax: Get it fast. (Old information is worthless.) Get it accurate. (Bad information is worse than useless.) Get out safely so you can tell someone. (If you get killed without passing the information along, who the hell cares what you found out?) Honor Honor among the Corax is reserved for those who have done something to benefit the Breed as a whole, or for Kinfolk.

Chapter Four: Traits and Secrets The latter is frankly more common, as the Corn hold their Kinfolk in high regard. Honor is also bestowed for acts of selflessness, particularly those performed on behalf of the Corax. Then again, there’s no tradition limiting that sort of Renown to those helping the feathered folk.. . .

The Laws of the Honorable Corax are: If you’re going to do it, do it all the way. (Trying to do something honorable and backing out halfway through is worse than not trying.) Get witnesses. (The worst thing in the world is having your attempts at honor misinterpreted by those who weren’t there. Keep the story straight.) Don’t do it unless you’re sure. (Performing a selfless action and expecting a reward isn’t selfless.

Don’t even try it unless you’re doing what you’re doing for the right reasons.) Glory Glory Renown is rare among the Corax, because Corax aren’t built for Glorious deeds. It’s much more common for a Corax to get someone else to do the dirty work of fighting for him than to stand up and get into a brawl himself; more sensible, too. However, on those rare occasions when a Corax does something worthy of Glory Renown, the whole breed hears about it within a matter of days - and only some of that can be traced to the bragging of the newly minted Glorious Corax herself.

Corax give Glory Renown for getting into - and surviving - fights that absolutely have to be fought. A Corax who goes around picking fights and winning them through creative use of Gifts isn’t likely to gather much Glory. On the other hand, a raven-woman who has to take out a trio of fomor guards in order to escape an office with some stolen files -she’s likely to be covered in Glory if she makes it out alive.

The rules of the Glorious Corax are: Only fight when you have to. (Get into too many scraps and the rest of the Breed will be eulogizing you.

Corax aren’t built to be infantry.) Fight to win. (If you lose, you’re dead. No one will care that you fought “by the rules” at your funeral.) No second chances. (If you have a chance to finish an opponent, do it. Killing him immediately saves you from ever having him come back when you least expect it.) Seeing as it’s birds who gave us the term “pecking order,’ it should be no surprise that Corm have a reasonably stable system of Ranks. Basically, a Corax’ Rank determines three things: What secrets she’s let in on (meaning rites and Gifts), what order she speaks in (and by extension, how many folks are still around and listening when it comes time for her to speak) and where she sits at Parliaments (more important than you’d think). ‘coy5 Renown Ch The nature of magical trinkets available to Corax is often limited by the fact that half the race simply doesn’t think like a tool-using species. With that being said, however, there isn’t a Corax alive who doesn’t like having some sort of surprise up her sleeve - or wing. As such, there’s a steady market for barter of toys, gadgets and gewgaws among the Corax, who either barter information for them or, on rarer occasions, make them. (Rumors that Corax have a predilection for stealing others’ talens and fetishes are merely the scurrilous slanders perpetrated by assorted absentminded B&te who couldn’t remember where they’d left their nice shiny new fetishes and needed to blame the Corax who innocently happened to be in the neighborhood at the time and.. .err.. .ahem. In any case, it’s not true.) With that in mind, here are a few of the favorite toys the Corax like to play with.

Sliver of Helios Rank Glory Honor Wisdom Oviculum NeocornTF Ales eless Rank available to the Corax Rank is generally given by acclamation rather than by formal ceremony. When the time is right, the Corax in question simply finds a place reserved for her closer to the front of the Parliament and hears more and more potent secrets whispered in her ear. Plus, since the raven-folk are by definition incorrigible gossips, news of the Corax’s ascent is passed along and scratched on Umbral notes for all the winged world to see.

Of course, any advance in Rank is subject to Helios’ oversight. If a place is made for a Corax to advance in Rank at a Parliament and the sky immediately becomes clouded over, that is taken as a sign of Helios’ displeasure at the proceedings, and the advancement is immediately revoked.

Furthermore, the Corax thus denied also loses a permanent point of Glory Renown, and will find himself gossiped about and pitied by all his fellow wereravens.

Needless to say, Corax can not renounce Renown.

There’s no point to it for them.

To use a Sliver of Helios, the Corax simply unwraps it (it’s a good idea to keep a Sliver wrapped up, for obvious reasons), at which point it illuminates a 10’by 10’area with sunlight. Needless to say, any vampires caught within this area (for some reason, the light fills a cube, not a sphere as one might expect) take normal damage as from sunlight.

Otherwise, however, the Sliver simply serves as a glorified, very bright flashlight. It is impossible to dim the Sliver in any way - it’s an all-or-nothing type deal.

If anyone attempts to use a Sliver like a dagger, under the mistaken impression that form follows function, the blade immediately shatters and the light goes out at once.

Silver Claws It’s easy for a Corax to lose Renown, or even Rank. All he has to do is make a habit of bringing back bad information, or gain a rep as a lazy scout, or rely too much on what others have told him andnot add anything to the Breed’s information stew.

All of these take a while to circulate through the &rax rumor mill, which means that a wereraven guilty of any of these transgressions has plenty of time - and hears plenty of warnings - to straighten out his act. If you lose Renown among the Corax, odds are, you’ve earned it.

The only thing that will get Renown stripped quickly from a Corax (by anyone besides Raven, in any case) is to lie to other Corax - in a worst-case scenario, about other Corax. The Corax rely on their information network being as clean as possible. Misinformation may sneak in, but as long as every Corax does his best to report accurately and honestly, the network stays mostly pristine, and chums out mostly useable information. As soon as a Corax starts to lie to the community, the community’s reason for existing becomes threatened. Needless to say, the Corax don’t sit still for that sort of thing.

The Silver Claws are, in form, exactly that: a set of wickedly hooked and serrated claws that fit over each of a Corax’ combat-form claws. At the end of a battle, the Claws return to their normal, inert, harmless content.

Supposedly, there is a variation of this fetish in which the claws transmute to gold instead of silver, though no