W20 - Changing Breeds.pdf

Home TerritoriesOnce common to all riverlands of the world, theKeepers were largely driven out of Europe, Asia, Africa,and South America, leaving the majority of the tribe alongthe more remote rivers of Alaska, Russia, and the PacificNorthwest. A brave few, however, have sought out therivers of other parts of the world to make their homes,taking up their guardianship of those long-abandonedwaterways in hopes of healing the damage done throughcenturies of neglect and misuse.KinfolkHuman Kinfolk of the Keepers are perhaps the mostdiverse of all of the Gurahl, crossing many ethnic andcultural backgrounds. From Egypt and Africa to theAmericas and beyond, human civilizations have alwaysthrived along strong, clean sources of water, and theKeepers were there to make certain the resource wasnot being abused.Human-born Keepers resemble their human parent,which could mean heritage from virtually any ethnicgroup. Many Ursine Keepers come primarily from blackor brown bear stock but also the sloth bear of India, theHimalayan or moon bear, the Malayan sun bear, andSouth America’s spectacled bear. In northern climes,there is also significant crossover between Keeper Kinfolkand those of the Ice Stalker tribe.Tribal CultureKeepers have no formal organization, though theydo manage to meet informally to exchange informationand gifts. They have at least one large gathering a year.Though they usually travel alone, they sometimes workin small groups.Much of the Keepers’ culture revolves around thegiving and receiving of gifts, whether material items,such as food or artwork, or less tangible things, like stories,poetry, and songs. They also share Gifts and rites aspart of the gifting. River Keepers also consider hostinggatherings a sacred duty.AppearanceHomid River Keepers have the same phenotypeas their human parent and exhibit the most variationsamong the Gurahl. Ursine Keepers resemble their bearparent, resulting in just as great diversity within thetribe’s bear-born members.BreedsGurahl have only two breeds — homid and ursine.Because werebears choose their mates carefully throughthe use of a special ritual, metis Gurahl are unheard of.Gurahl consider this a special boon from Gaia as a resultof their generally solitary lifestyle. A deformed or otherwiseflawed Gurahl would seldom survive the rigors ofwilderness life on her own. Should two Gurahl mate, theunion results in no pregnancy, or else a stillbirth. As theGurahl are under great pressure to repopulate their Breedafter the decimation of the War of Rage, Gurahl whochoose to involve themselves in such a fruitless pairingare viewed with great sadness by the rest of their kind.• Homid: For hundreds of years after the War ofRage, the Gurahl removed themselves from the world— including human society — to protect themselvesfrom the Garou’s predation. This meant that there wereextensive periods — entire generations — where therewere no homid werebears born at all.Gurahl born from humans are beginning to makea comeback, though they are still sparse in number.Traditionally, human-born Gurahl were born into tribalsocieties that were somewhat apart from mainstream urbancivilization, or among cultures with strong traditions andconnections to the natural world. However, many of thesefamilies have integrated with urban culture, bringing fortha generation of homid Gurahl who are comfortable withhigh-tech gadgets, cars, computers, and the like.To make up for past losses in Kinfolk, Gurahl havetried to select new groups of humans as breeding stock.While these may be from any culture, werebears arevery careful in choosing their mates, and many havetaken partners from among those involved in medicalcareers, peace-keeping duties, environmental activism,or wilderness protection.Beginning Rage: 3Beginning Gnosis: 4Starting Gifts: Persuasion, Ursa’s Light• Ursine: For centuries after the War of Rage, theGurahl were an almost exclusively ursine Breed. Matingwith, and raising young among, their bear-Kin was seenas safer than among homids with whom the Garou mightalso be interacting. Even today, many Gurahl active inthe modern world come from bear-parents, althoughhunting and territory devastation have taken a toll onthe were-bear’s ursine Kin.Where bears are endangered, ursine Gurahl are rare.Most modern bear-born Gurahl grow up within protectedplaces such as restricted wilderness areas and nationalparks, retaining bear form until some crisis forces the FirstChange — and hopefully alerts a teacher to their presence.Once they have taken on human form, ursine Gurahloften remain in that form out of curiosity about humanaffairs, learning as much as their human born cousins(though usually later in life). Gurahl born in captivity112CHANGING BREEDS