W20 - Changing Breeds.pdf

The werebats were known as the Ears of Gaia (orironically, Her Voice). They were messengers, but ofa very different sort from the Corax. While Corax arenatural gossips, spreading information to everyonewilling to listen, the Camazotz were secret messengers.Their Gifts of speed, stealth, and heightened perceptionmade them excellent spies who would keep whatthey discovered between their allies and Gaia. One oftheir strengths, as well as one of the major reasons thatthe Garou feared them, was that it was exceptionallydifficult to know if one of the Camazotz was listeningto a conversation. Individuals might gather in secretonly to learn that as soon as the meeting ended, theirenemies knew everything they had said. All that one ofthe Camazotz needed to observe a scene was for a singletiny bat to hide itself in a corner.The Camazotz were a highly social Breed who livedin egalitarian swarms of between a dozen and a hundredmembers. They often lived in caverns alongside theirbat Kinfolk. While inclined to secrecy, they attemptedto maintain friendly and open relations with othershapeshifters.The Camazotz were most common in the Southernhemisphere, which partially insulated them from theinitial War of Rage. The Garou slaughtered the werebatsdwelling in Europe, Asia, and North America, but thosewho lived in South America remained safe during thatfirst War. Fear of further slaughter, however, kept theremaining Camazotz confined to that continent for thenext several thousand years.Some groups indulged in various forms of blood ritualsto enhance their strength and power, but were carefulto remain free of the Wyrm’s corruption. Only a fewwerebats fell prey to Taint, and other Camazotz huntedthem mercilessly. When a group of Shadow Lords accompanyingthe Spanish conquistadors to South Americaencountered the Camazotz in the early 17 th century, thewerewolves were horrified. Seeing nothing beyond thefact that the Camazotz were shapeshifting bats who usedhuman blood in their rituals, the Shadow Lords assumedthe Camazotz were a new type of Wyrm-tainted beast,and they recruited hundreds of human allies to helpthem slaughter all of the Camazotz. In the aftermath ofthis genocide, Bat — the Breed’s totem — went madand fell to the Wyrm.HistoryBat, the totem of the Camazotz, was always a strangespirit. His animal children are singular creatures: theonly mammals capable of true flight and one of only twoland species to navigate by echolocation. Even beforehis corruption, Bat was a creature of the night and anill-omened hunter. Even human cultures understand Bat’snature — European peoples connected bats to witchcraftand the undead, several Northern American tribes sawBat as a trickster spirit, while Mesoamerican traditionslinked bats to the underworld.In ancient prehistory, before the Weaver’s madness,when the Wyrm was still an embodiment of balancerather than a force of blind destruction, Bat was one ofCAMAZOTZ IN THE MODERN DAYAny Camazotz who survived the massacre bythe Shadow Lord’s did so by remaining hidden inthe Deep Umbra. They seek to repopulate theirnumbers — and return bearing messages fromGaia Herself. The Bat Totem fell to the Wyrmwhen the Camazotz were destroyed. Perhapsthe characters want to redeem and cleanse it,which would prepare a way for the return of thewerebats, or maybe Bat’s redemption happenedrecently, paving the way for the Camazotz’sreturn. Although any surviving Camazotz arelikely to still hate the Garou in general, andShadow Lords in particular, they also know theycan do little against the werewolves’ might, elserisk bringing the werewolves’ wrath upon themonce more.236CHANGING BREEDS