Heroes become great by opposing terrible villains. Werewolves have an instinctual need to hunt, one they firect against their most insidious foes. The evils they face are not always usperntural, of course. Many werewolves fight seemingly orfinary battles, from crusading with political activism to protecting victims of crime and exploitation. Yet wherever the Garou hunt evil, they often find the same foul stench of corruption behind it. Behind the shadow of reality, werewolves see the spirits of the Wyrm ready to exploit, corrupt and victimize.
The Fenrir describe the Wyrm as the Great Serpent of Darkness spawning monsters for them to kill. Black Furies see it as spiritual despair lurking near families devastated by domestic violence and abuse. The Glass Walkers smell its foul stench in corporate corruption and ecological exploitation. The hydra has a thousand heads, yet all of them are formed from the body of the Wyrm as it slithers and scurries towards the weak, the helpless and the sinful.
Save perhaps for the most blasphemous Black Spiral Dancers, no werewold has ever spioken to or met with an actual physical incarnation of "the Wyrm" itself. Typically, it is known only through the deeds of its servants, an imagined evil lurking behind very real acts of perversion, corruption and outright desctruction. Certain powerful Theurges question wehther a separate and distant entity guides all of these minions. A vast and calculating intelligence does seem to lurk behind their actions, but such speculation is difficult to prove. Although the Wyrm remains an abstraction for most Garou, they still speak of it directly, based on the horror and destruction its spiritual servants unleashed.
Occultists are aware of three major aspects of the Wyrm, each with its own legion of servitors. The Beast-of-War gluts itself on violence and delights at spreading entropy thoughout the world. The Eater-of-Souls seeks to devour all of creation, feasting on matter, energy and spirit with equal propensity. The Defiler Wyrn is the most insidious aspect, as it concentrates on corrupting human society.
Banes
The Great Serpent often acts through mortal agents, but it also directs legions of evil spirits. Werewolves call these foul ephemera Banes. While some mystics believe that Banes are avatars of various aspects of the Wyrm, most regard them as separate entities with individual sentience. Some Banes even speak of the Wyrm with dread, obviously acting in fear of their unseen master.
Banes are strongest in the spirit world, for it is their natural element. There, they use spiritual powers called Charms to seduce, corrupt or assault their enemies. Powerful Banes possess humans or animals n the physical world, using them as vessels. Typically, these possess creatures are "spiritually weak," already overcome by sin or dark emotions, such as lust, greed, envy or wrath. The Wyrm's minions do no cause all acts of "evil" in the world. They seek out ideal victims to possess, perverting and exaggerating their most horrific tendencies. Once a victim has been possessed, the whisperings of the Wyrm urge him to commit further horrible acts. Banes can also manifest physically, creating as loathsome a form as possible to unnerve those who oppose them.
Countless varieties of these wicked spirits exist. Many students of the occult have attempted vainly to gather the facts they can confirm into hierarchies and categoies, but such attempts typically drive scholars insane. Some Banes appear as manifestations of malevolent forces or personifications of weird phenomena. Others are simply freaks spawned with no obvious purpose. A current theory holds that Banes serve masters tied to the great themes of evil: Hatred Pollution, Seduction and so forth. Despite all attempts to confine them with rigid rules, the Wyrm continues to perverse its minions into grotesque and disturbing new permutations.
Wyrm Caerns
Just as werewolves have dedicated sacred sites to the Goddess, the minions of the Wyrm have desecrated caerns in its unholy name. Surrounded by the liveliest awfulness, its cultists perform unspeakable rites and blasphemous magic to aid the forces of corruption.
Originally, Wyrm caerns remained far underground, eternally basking in the light of chilling, poisonous balefires. Its hideous minions shuffled, oozed and undulated in subterranean chambers around the balefires' sickly gleam. While the bowels of the Earth churned with such evils, the surface remained relatively unmarred, largely due to the werewolves' vigilant patrols. A shambling horror crept occasionally to the surface on a misson of desecration or a straightforward killing spree. The Veil has mercidully obscured these nightmare memories, allowing them to resurface as human myths. Odysseus and the Cyclops, St. George and the Dragon, Beowulf and Grendel -- the heroes and villains have been renamed, but the essence remains the same.
Near the end of the 20th century, myth was replaced by science gone astray. Disastrous mistakes heralded the dawn of the End Times. Nuclear warfare, biological havoc and ecological devestation on an unprecedented scale overwhelmed the werewolves' efforts, summoning the Wyrm into the world in forms never witnessed before. As below, so it was above. Throughout the last century, the Wyrm established and befouled more caerns on the surface, rejoicing in landfills, toxic waste, ecological devestation, atomic tests sites and urban hellholes surrounded by crime and human suffering.
The armies of the Apocolypse have assembled, and they are legion. They congregate by unholy sites, preying on the innocent and the damned. People living near Wyrm caerns disappear suddenly, or they grow suspicious, sullen and apathetic. New generations of humans are born twisted and deformed, with defects ranging from the sbutle to the grotesque. Humans make easy prey, and some are hardly challenging at all.
The Wyrm also hunts the Garou themselves, along with the caerns they dedicate as sacred. Nothing delights the Wyrm more than to have its emissaries capture a werewolf caern, seed it with toxins and balefire, and then channel its potent mystic energies to its own service. With every victory, the Garou are weakened further and the end of creation draws night.
Wyrm Corruption
The Wyrm's minions claim many victims, yet the most esteemed are the Garou themselves. The Great Serpent lusts at the thought of luring its ancient foes into its own service. Despite high ideals and readied claws, countless werewolves have been seduced into acts of treason against their own kind. heroes, packs and even entire tribes -- such as the infamous Black Spirals -- have succumbed to its wiles.
A faithful servant of the Great Serpent begins by seeking a disgraced disgruntled Garou, one whose moral dilemmas have become more compelling than any abstract notions of good or evil. In the guide of a spirit or disguised as a creature of flesh, it whispers temptations, from the material to the perverse, to garner the victim's complicity. The bait may be a fetish, supernatural power, forgotten lore, the chance at revenge or simple acceptance and understanding if the victim is truly alone and abandoned. In return, the corrupter asks a little favor: information, an act of violence or perhaps an item that "no one will miss." If the victim is almost discovered, the servitor whispers promises of further aid to delay discovery. As the dark dealings continue, spiritual decay is inevitable.
Traitors are the werewolves' greatest foes, for they can wreak havoc as no obvious evil can. They know the locations of secret caerns, the weaknesses of their elders, plans made at moots and even the needs of their former packmates. As the Wyrm gains its hideous strength at the end of time, treason is becoming more commonplace. Septs respond with paranoia and xenophobia, aiding the Wyrm unwittingly in the process. Shadows lengthen, and great heros plunge into the depths of despair. The Great Serpent hisses its pleasure.
Black Spiral Dancers
Garou who turn to the Wyrm are destined to join the ranks of the Black Spiral Dancers. originally, the founders of this trive were known as the White Howlers. Subtle corruption suborned them over generations, until the minions of the Wyrm conquered the last White Howler caern and captured its greatest heros, dragging them into the depths of the underworld. When they Great Serpent had finally seduced its prey, the survivors emerged once again, this time as the Black Spiral tribe.
For thousands of years, the Black Spirals spawned in tunnels beneath the earth, waiting for the time when they would be numerous enough to decimate their Garou rivals. That time has arrived. The Spirals no longer spend generations lurking in subterranean caverns, only emerging in the surface world to rend and slay. They are a vast army, easily outnumbering the combined strength of the two largest tribes of Garou. While they favor committing wanton acts of bloodshed and devouring the flesh of other werewolves, their greatest joy comes from capturing Garou and corrupting them to the ways of the Wyrm, recreating them in their own shattered image.
Once the Garou believed that all Black Spirals were utterly and completely insane, but they have since uncovered a far more sinister truth. Only the weakest minds are shattered during the tribe's rites of passage. Black Spiral cubs and Garou initiates are dragged to a realm of the Underworld known as Malfeas, where they are forced to walk a spiral labrynth containing unimaginable horrors. Those that survive and return to the surface world are forever changed. Even for those whose sanity is shattered, there is a method to their madness. Black Spiral werewolves are capable of serving the Wyrm of their own free will. Once their perspective on creation is forever altered, they pledge themselves to Wyrm totems willingly, receiving insights from their amoral gods.
Madness and insight breed great power. Centuries of exposure to balefire and radiation have tiwsted their genetic strands. Many dis play bizarre deformities, especially in their Crinos form. Sharklike teeth, leonine or batlike ears, sickly gray green fur and winkled scaborous hides are typical genetic enhancements. While the Garou shun the deformities brought by inbreeding, the Black Spirals hold no qualm against spawning legions of metis shock troops. Their genes have been polluted; their minds are already twisted and disturbed.
Spirals breed in vast underground lairs known as Hives, sinister counterparts to Garou caerns. It is said that vast networks of underground tunnels, or at least labyrinths that extend into the spirit world, connect many hives. By tthe sluggish light of balefires, they conduct blasphemous rites and demented moots, often inviting weird and forgotten creatures from the bowels of the Earth to join them. Some even drag humans from the surface to sate their appetites.
Most Garou Theurges associate the Black Spirals with the Whippoorwill totem. A pack on the hunt will mimic its haunting cry, calling out their desire for the souls of their victims. It has since been revealed that the Spirals serve many totems and are keenly aware of the hierarchies of the Wyrm spirits. No doubt by their reckning, the most devolved creature in this spiritual genealogy would be the Black Spirals themselves.
Pentex and its Subsidaries
Pentex is a very different adversary: It's one of the largest corporations in the world. As with many institutions in the werewolves' world, it hides vast conspiracies behind layers and layers of corporate security. Originally investing in oil and mining, Pentex has since become a holding company, diversifying its resources into hundreds of subsidaries. A Glass Walker could spend years tracking all the financial dealings of companies it allegedly controls, organizations like Magadon Pharamaceuticals, Endron Oil, Sunburst Technologies and even the Black Dog Game Factory. Unfortunately for the Garou Nation, Pentex is subtle, and only a few septs are aware of the true nature of the megacorporation behind much of the world's ills. Working with its corporate allies, Pentex holds monopolies in many areas of the world, acts as a leader in the global economy, provides jobs for countless employees and spawns corruption and despair continuously throughout the world.
Pentex's prime agenda is planetary corruption in the name of the Wyrm. Oddly enough, this goal makes a handsome profit in the process. Ecological devestation is one of its greatest tactics. Pentex companies produce toxins, mutagens and carcinogens routinely, then they dump them wherever they can -- preferably in areas sacred to the Garou. After buying out vast tracts of land surrounding werewolf caerns, they then begin transforming that land into a lifeless waste. The result is often the acquisition of more Wyrm caerns, along with blights spawnng Banes and other Wyrm-spirits.
Like many real-world corporations, Pentex incorporates numerous strategies and tactics to cover up its violations, savvy lawyers, underworld contacts and government shills are ready to sell out to anyone to make a profit, and Pentex pays well. The megacorporation's standard tactics pale next to its supernatural resources. Entire packs of Black Spiral werewolves act with Pentex's sponsorship. Banes breed extensively around many company holdings. Werewolves encountering such plants can sometimes literally smell the taint of the Wyrm in the air.
Hunting corruption within the megacorp is not as easy as it first appears. Not all of Pentex's actions are evil, and many of its employees are completely free of Wyrm taint. In fact, many of its managers are ordinary people performing ordinary jobs. Corporate horror is often hidden behind seemingly innocuous or altruistic activities. Many employees simply do not realize the ulterior purposes behind their projects. For some, working for a subsidiary of Pentex is simply a way to get a paycheck -- an apathetic belief that suits the Wyrm's plans perfectly.
Garou investigating Pentex are often baffled by the contrast between the innocence of many of its employess and the vileness of its master plans. Monkeywrenching its activities takes patience, resourcefulness and dedication, but once a weakness has been found, it also requires heroes ready to destroy the monsters hiding behind a vast and powerful corporate titan.
Fomori
Every army needs foot soldiers. The Wyrm can create monstrous creatures and spawn foul Banes, but it finds seducing one of Gaia's creature and wraping it into a monster far more satisfying. It employs countless tactics, which include exposing a victim to mutagens or balefire, tricking it into ingesting toxins or Wyrm-tainted chemicals or simply seducing it with promises of power. When the Wyrm corrupts a human or animal, that victim can be forced through a monstrous transformation. The victim becomes a fomor.
The Fianna believe that fomori first spawned off the shores of Eire, breeding in vast undersea kingdoms. In those early days, a vast array of dragons, chimerae, undersea monsters and terrible ogres. These creatures became mythical, representing evil not only in Celtic legends, but also throughout the world. In the modern age, the Wyrm prefers to exploit a far more resourceful creature: human beings. Not surprisingly, they are capable of subtler evils than the titanic beasts of legend.
A fomor is ultimately suited to engage in combat, and most are bred or mutated specifically to kill werewolves. A single fomor is an easy kill, but packs of them can be deadly. The Wyrm bestows them with an arsenal of unholy powers, from supernatural strength and chitinous carapaces to psychic and mental disciplines. The Wyrm does indeed grant power to all who serve it, and the price is eternal damnation. Just as a victim's body is deformed, his very soul is twisted. Thwe weakest fomori become stalking horrors drawn to toxic waste dumps, urban landfills or backwoods refuges. The strongest retain a spark of sentience and develop human camouflage. They infiltrate human society and enact grand schemes on the behalf of the Great Serpent.
Pentex and its subsidaries have also made the creation of fomori one of their agendas. Some Wyrm-tainted corporations befoul and poison the lands around their work sites and offices deliberately, luring employess into "lifetime employment." Others mantain laboratories specifically for the development of such creatures. The most unspeakable ones use more insidious methods of recruitment, ranging from violent video games to tainted fast foods. Foulness takes many forms, and only the Garou possess the instincts, knowledge and training to hunt them.
The Weaver
Rebellious cliath insist that the Wyrm is not the only spiritual threat to creation. After all, it was the Weaver who first drove the Wyrm insane. Wherever her servitors thrive, human civilization forces the natural world into submission. Snapping the threads of the Weaver's schemes is a very different sort of campaign from a war against the Wyrm, one that requires subtlety and restraint.
Crude tactics do not work. Outright anarchy and wholesale destrcution harms human society as much as it helas it, in addition to rending the Veil and inviting retribution. A more common tactic involves attacking Weaver-spawn directly in the Umbra, then shutting down her favorite weapons in the physical world. Of course, the Weaver's minions typically have a strong affinity for technology, devious intellects and ruthless natures, making them difficult prey for primitive or brutal Garou.
While many septs don't support this type of Umbral espionage, various secret societies and camps are willing to recognize the renown of packs who practice "spiritual monkeywrenching." Sometimes the Weaver's minions' elaborate schemes pose an overwhelming danger to a sept, forcing a sept's elders to recruit, support and praise packs who specialize in shredding the Weaver's webs.
Developmental Neogenetics Amalgamated
Many septs are so fanatic about killing the Wyrm that they overlook other dangers threatening their existence. Developmental Neogentics, a biotech firm on the cutting edge of genetic research, is a perfect example. DNA has no reputation of environmental devestation, and it steers clear of researchign chemical warfare, defoliants and other biogenetic hazards. Yet behind its respectable and profitable facade, it has employed scientists and researches routinely who are ruthless in the extreme. DNA employees managed to capture their first werewolf in 1993, and the company has never been the same since.
After months of tests, studies, experiments and vivisection, DNA agents began to realize the value of the scientific anomaly they had captured. The creature had amazing regenerative properties, genetic mutations that seemed to defy current scientific thought and an admirable combination of human intelligence and animal instinct. The heads of the DNA corporation scoffed at the superstitious notion that their captive was a "werewolf," but they began to speculate that genetic mutation was responsible for evolving such a remarkable organism. By the end of the decade, they had captured another "lupine mutant" and fought two more.
The Weaver has a habit of repressing and entrapping things she does not understand or cannot accommodate. The Garou have only just begun to realize the danger that DNA poses to their kind. Their secrecy has clearly been compromised, but how respond remains a subject of debate. Just as the corporation does not understand the Garou, the werewolves believe that the spirits of the Weaver are lurking behind DNA's activities. Some Theurges insit that the Weaver has already enlisted the corporation as a way to suppress the Garou. The truth remains to be seen, but the threat is undeniable.
DNA agents are formidable foes. They have access to advanced weaponry, they can formulate chemical compounds capable of inflicting aggravated damage, and they are well aware of the "mutatns' allergies to silver." However, they have no interest in killing Garou -- they prefer to take their quarry alive. Tear gas and knockout gas are common weapons that are currently in mass productions. The corporation heads have decided to incest heavily in further acquisition and research.
The Garou are still uncertain how to stop DNA. While they could theoretically charge into the nearest corporate research center and kill everyone inside, the agents and scientists involved are not "of the Wyrm." Some werewolves insist that killing these humans would confirm that they are the monsters DNA imagines them to be. The DNA corporation and the Weaver-spirits who lurk behind its activities continue their insidious activities unabated. As the world continues to evolve, the supernatural world does so as well, spawning new and terrible foes for Gaia's greatest heroes to hunt and destroy.
The Wyrm
Banes
Black Spiral Dancers
Pentex and its Subsidaries
Fomori
The Weaver