W20 - Changing Breeds.pdf

Appendix Two:HengeyokaiThe Beast Courts offer a range of different storyhooks and opportunities for characters than the ‘default’of W20 and this book. Steeped in tradition and ritual,to outsiders the Hengeyokai can look like a model ofwhat the Changing Breeds should be doing worldwide— but those traditions and rituals hold the shapeshiftershidebound, leaving them with more limits than theircounterparts elsewhere in the world.Using the Beast CourtsA game where the players portray members of thesame sentai provides an excellent opportunity for playersto play a diverse group of shapeshifters working towardsa common goal. The hengeyokai are far more than justan excuse for a mixed-Breed story. The Beast Courts arepart of a culture that is very different from that of theWestern Changing Breeds.Playing in Asia offers a diverse range of settings.In developed nations like Japan or South Korea, theChanging Breeds face many of the same issues as theircounterparts in the United States — but must alsocontend with denser population and less wilderness.Shapeshifters in rapidly industrializing nations likeChina or Malaysia, or in relatively impoverished andoppressive nations like Indonesia or Myanmar, encountervery different problems. Here, the forces of the Wyrmare easily visible in overcrowded slums and the unsafefactories. In these nations, millions live and work indire poverty while nobody pays so much as lip serviceto limiting pollution and efforts at resistance meet withbrutal government oppression.Players and Storytellers who are interested in a morefamiliar setting might create a Beast Court in one of thelarge Asian immigrant communities in the United Statesand Canada. A few hengeyokai accompanied their humankinfolk when they immigrated to these nations, and todaymany nations have a small but growing number of BeastCourts. A story set in one of these communities offers achance for the players and characters to experience thedifficulties members of a Beast Court face when makingcontact with the local Changing Breeds.270CHANGING BREEDS