From: thanatos@home.interaccess.com
Subject: Non-Garou Werewolves in WoD

Well, as I tried pointing out in my semi-satirical post, the 
groundwork is there.  You just have to do a bit of WORK.  First, why
not make the bite similar to the plague bite the Ratkin know.  Those
who are Garou and are bitten manifest the wolf.  Those who are not
of the wolf die.  Then there's the subject of the following story,
one of the Lost who finds the wrong kind of astral buddy.  The point is
that you can conduct an entire chronicle about lost children who have
no idea that there are other of their kind, or that there are even
part of the natural order.  DO the following.  Give them innate gifts
(stuff they know how to do.  Drop gnosis, and slap on Humanity.  The
Lost ones burn this whenever gnosis is called for.  The Humanity loss is
temporary, lasting until they do an act worthy of a rise, or the end of
a story.  However, if they ever burn ALL humanity, a point is permanently
lost.  Then pick up the players guide, and buy all the "superstition flaws,
like Uncontrolled transformation (sight of the Moon), and Gets Pentagram
on palm, and Problem with Wolfsbane, etc.  It's possible, but you just
have to think.


	"C'mon, Larry, the bus will be leaving!"
	Larry stooped to pick up the last of his clothes, carelessly
discarded in the fit of juvenile passion.  Mary was so sweet, so
beautiful.  He watched her disappear into the darkness, toward the
clearing where his friends agreed to meet.  "Where the hell is my
wallet?" he though, glancing about the forest floor.
	"I say we take him NOW!"
	It was low, quiet, and unquestionably inhuman.  He wasn't supposed
to hear that, but it was too late now.  He didn't bother glancing into
the woods.  It was time to run.
	The moon.  The moon was far above, a full brave orb, glowing
horrifically, and turning each tree into a demon.
	"He runs!"  This one was less human than the last, if at all
possible.  "Catch him!"
	It was a short sprint to the clearing, where his three friends
and Mary waited, but they seemed behind him every second.  Tears flowed
passionately from his eyes.  He just wanted to escape, to get away--to
flee!
	And there they were.  Mike.  Carl.  Janice.  Mary.  Carl and
Janice still hadn't bothered to become "presentable."  The moment he hit
the clearing, the normalcy of his good friends swallowed him up, and
he realized it was indeed just his imagination.  The sounds behind him
stopped, and all was well...almost.
	They didn't move.  His friends remained staring forward, blankly,
trying to say something, and failing.  Finally, Larry leaned in to catch
what Stoner Mike waswhispering under his breath:
	"Run."
	He turned, even though he didn't have to.  They were there, all 
three, and they were terrifying.  Larry felt the urge to freeze, perhaps
the urge to flee, but more important than all these, rising up within him
like bitter bile, was the urge to FIGHT.
	He stepped forward to accept their challenge.  Behind him, voices
surged in the woods.  They were his friends and classmates, trying to see
what was taking them so long.
	"No time!" one of the monsters hissed.  He lunged forward, and
picked Larry up like a rag doll.  The beast spirited the boy away,
far from his friends.
	The fighting spirit, quelled when the monster touched him and proved
to be more than a phantasm, soon regained control of Larry.  All alone,
and certain to die, he removed a pen from his pocket, and dug it deeply
into the neck of the creature.  It screamed in pain, and dropped the
boy.
	All three turned on the boy, looking at him as a pitiful lump
of man-flesh.  "He has spirit!"
	"Yes.  But the banes come close, and we have no mirrors."
	"He could not come like that anyway.  He must be taught."
	"We must go!"
	The one who carried him looked at the frantic one.  "Coward.  Would
you lose him again?  We will fight the banes, and then return for the
boy.  Agreed?"
	The other two nodded.
	"And now, something to remember us by."  It moved with lightning
swiftness, and brought the horrible jaws down on Larry's tender flesh.
He wanted to scream in pain, but could not.
	When he awoke, Mary was standing over him.  "Larry?"
	The entire class, it seems, surrounded him.  There was no sign of
the monsters, and it seemed as if the entire experience was a dream after
all, except for the pain.  His hand...
	"Mr. Talbot!"  It was Mrs. Cummins, one of the Chaperones.  You
ought to know better than to run off with a pack of wild dogs!  You'll
have to get a shot for that bite."
	He glanced at it.  It burned with an angry red, but it wasn't the
horrid bite he had imagined.  It looked like a normal dog bite...from a
fairly large dog, though.
	He stood, and limped back to the bus with the rest of the class,
Mary by his side.  The pain was erasing the memories of what he had seen
this night, but worse, it was opening doors in his mind, doors to another
time, a time when he and his kind hunted animal for sport.  With this
power came no understanding.  Just rage.

In the Umbra, the three Garou bodies lay smashed and desecrated.  The pack
of banes giggled with glee.  One noticed the lad, walking away.  He
sensed the potential within him, and decided to play The Game.  Slipping
behind him, hiding in the shadow all beings cast into the umbra, he tugged
and pushed at his awakening wolfness.  Yes.  He would be a good little
monster...with the right prodding.

thanatos@interaccess.com