W20 - Changing Breeds.pdf

knew of hiding places and good territory, almost asthough they knew that the werebats were coming. TheAustralian Camazotz became so deeply intertwined withAustralia’s Changing Breeds that they were willing andable to reach past their own fear and help the Bunyipto adapt to their new home.As time went on, the Camazotz began to straintheir alliances with other Changing Breeds. In Asia,the Camazotz refused to accept that the Hakken andStargazers were not complicit in the murder of werebatsacross Europe and North America. By the time that theSpanish Shadow Lords began their genocidal war againstthe Camazotz in South America, the Asian werebats feltthat they had been vindicated. Knowing that the Hakkenwere descended from Shadow Lords, the Camazotzsaw them as guilty by association. Driven and obsessed,they shunned the Beast Courts for tolerating the Garou’spresence. Some of their former allies still whisper thatthe Camazotz were on the verge of a terrible discoverybefore Bat’s madness finally claimed them.The destruction of the South American Camazotzdrove Bat over the edge. The Garou claim that theslaughter drove Bat straight into the Wyrm’s arms, butthat isn’t strictly true. The spirit’s mind and identityfractured under the pressure of his grief and rage. Batbecame two spirits sharing a single essence, one of themstill loyal to Gaia, the other a corrupt spirit that hadgiven itself wholly to its original master. The two sidesof Bat fought, but they were evenly matched. The Wyrmwhispered poison into the ear of one side, but the Gaianside stood resolute. It would take an outside force to tipthe balance in favor of one or the other.As their totem fought with itself, the Camazotzwithdrew from the other Changing Breeds entirely. TheStargazers, hearing tales from other Garou, pointed toBat’s madness and the blood-rites of the South AmericanCamazotz as evidence that the werebats had been corruptall along. The Camazotz, weary and mistrustful, felt thatthe Beast Courts would likely believe these lies — madeall the more damning by the fact that they were comingtrue. The Camazotz withdrew from the Beast Courtsentirely, gathering what little remained of their peoplein Australia. Australian Camazotz in turn withdrew fromthe other Breeds to be with their own kind.The surviving Camazotz understood Bat’s nature, andknew how much their near extinction weighed on hismind. Even before the death of their South Americancousins and the madness of their totem, they had begun acampaign of prayer and ritual to show him their strengthand continued vitality. They hoped they could inspireBat even as their numbers dwindled. Their prayers couldhave given their totem the strength to avoid the Wyrm’stemptations and reunite his spirit.238CHANGING BREEDSUnfortunately, it was not to be. All of Bat’s attentionwas focused on his remaining children in Australia.Although the Australian Camazotz remained hiddenand safe, Bat saw what was coming — the slaughter ofAustralia’s Bunyip and the Mokolé and others in theWar of Tears — and knew that his children would benext. Years before the Garou landed in Australia, Batgave up hope and allowed himself to be subsumed intothe madness of the Wyrm.The Camazotz were doomed as soon as their patronturned his back on them. Like Corax, Camazotz weremade rather than born; when Bat finally turned to theWyrm, he warped the spirit pacts that powered theircreation ritual. At best, the ritual simply failed. Othertimes it connected the infant to a Bane. Many of thosechildren died young, exploding in a conflagration ofbalefire or sending a spiritual beacon to other Banes. Afew grew to maturity before the Bane within chose tomanifest, creating a powerful fomor.When the Camazotz saw what had happened totheir children, they realized that there would be no nextgeneration. Bat had fallen, and in doing so doomed theCamazotz. The remaining few of a Breed that had survivedwar with the Garou, the madness of their patron,and the treachery of their own children, fled into theUmbra, never to be seen again.A handful of Umbral travellers claim that the Camazotzare not yet dead. Though they have no totem, thelast werebats still serve Gaia as spies and messengersthroughout the Deep Umbra. They’re said to leavemessages in dead-drops, and to give information in waysthat the recipient never knows who delivered it. SomeNuwisha and Corax — the most experienced Umbraltravellers of all the Changing Breeds — have tried toconfirm these rumors. All of them have failed. Thoughthey lived for far longer than many Changing Breedsbelieve, when their totem fell to the Wyrm the Camazotzbecame extinct.The story of the Camazotz is a tragedy of a peopledoomed by degrees. They struggled against their fate,but at every step, they faced obstacles that they couldn’tovercome. They couldn’t defeat the Garou who drovethem out of Europe and North America, and they couldn’tprevent the slaughter in South America. Their totemfell to the Wyrm, dooming their species, and even then,they continued to fight. The last of their kind only fledinto the Umbra when it became obvious that nothingshort of redeeming Bat could save them.Traits• Like Corax, Camazotz were created, not born. Tobecome a werebat, infant humans or bats had to undergoa ritual that could only be held in special Umbral caverns.