W20 - Changing Breeds.pdf

eye-drinking thing, so… What do you mean, what am Italking about? The thing? Where you drink the stuff froma corpse’s eye, and you see the last thing it saw beforeit died? Oh, come on now; don’t make that face. You’lltake to it quick enough. It’s one of the things Ravengave us, to do what we do as well as we do it. There’s nobetter way to get information on what killed some poorschmuck, or why it was done. Just settle down on the deadguy’s forehead and dig in. But, think before you drink,kid — you can only drink one eye from a corpse, andyou see different things from each. The left eye showsyou all the crappy repercussions of the guy’s death, whilethe right eye shows you what’s good about him buyingthe farm. But, like I said, folks get kinda touchy about it,so… you might want to kind of use your own discretionabout that one. I mean, if you can. [Eye-drinking requiresa successful Perception + Empathy roll (difficulty 7)]See, that’s another thing about being one of us. Thatwhole discretion thing? Not so much. We can’t shut up.Hey, don’t tell me you noticed: that’s disrespectful. Butit’s also true. It’s part of what we do, but sometimes itbackfires, so… don’t be surprised if some time you findyourself looking down the blade of some flea-hound’sGrand Klaive because you just let it slip that you saw hisKinfolk doing the nasty with his pack beta. Informationwants to be free, and it’s hard as hell for us to hold backwhen we know a juicy tidbit.Oh, and while we’re talking about weaknesses… If itsparkles, we’re there. The only thing that draws a Coraxmore than a secret is a shiny. Just try to keep your witsabout you when you come in for a landing, okay? Sparkliesare bad-guys’ favorite bait for us, so next time youdo a power dive to scoop up a dime, take a peek around,even if it’s hard [Willpower roll, difficulty 7] to look away.BreedsYou probably have noticed that there’s some differencesbetween, say, me and you. I mean, you’re upon that branch, for one thing, and I’m down here onthe ground looking up at you and risking having folksthink I’m crazy if they drive by and notice me chattingyou up. You’re probably more comfortable that way, cuzit’s how you were born… with the feathers and all. I’vebeen around long enough to be okay in both forms… Ijust happen to think this one looks better, what with myfancy lapel pin and rings. Jewelry doesn’t work so muchin bird-form. But I digress…There are two breeds of Corax: homid and corvid.But honestly, it doesn’t matter much to us whether youwere born with arms or wings. We don’t discriminate; weall pretty much start out on the same footing, regardlessof what form we were born in.[All Corax begin play with “Raven’s Gifts” — an additionaldot of Subterfuge, Enigmas and Dodge, representingtheir bond with Raven. All Corax also begin with the sameTraits: Rage 1, Gnosis 6, Willpower 3.]Okay, so, in the spirit of full disclosure, there’s morethan just a sense of fair play in why we don’t tend to picksides based on whether we had feathers or not at birth.Honestly, it’s kind of a moot point: we’re all “made” Coraxmore than born one. You’re not one of us because aMommy Corax loved a Daddy human — or raven — verymuch, or any of that cabbage patch, summoning the storknonsense. You’re a Corax because someone — anotherCorax — saw you and thought you would make a goodwereraven yourself. Then they did the rite and awhilelater — congratulations, it’s a Corax! Okay, so it’s a littlemore complicated than that, but… you get the idea.Oh, one last thing — there’s no such thing as a metisCorax. We can have kids with each other — don’t look atme like that, kid, I don’t mean you and me, specifically,just Corax with other Corax. Anyway, we can inter-breedand all; the kids just can’t become Corax themselves.You can’t tie a fetish egg to the spirit of a Corax-Coraxcrossbreed, because Raven’s a slippery cuss and he likesus to spread the wealth. Bear that in mind when you’rethinking about nesting. It can be heartbreaking: believeme, I know.• Corvid: Corvids are born ravens, like you. Ifsomeone’s set you up with the Spirit Egg Rite, y’all generallyundergo your First Change when you’re about 8 or10 months old. The bad news is, that means you don’ttend to know much about a lot of human stuff. You canfly like the dickens, though. [Corvid Corax cannot buyComputer, Law, Linguistics, Medicine, Politics ore Scienceat character creation, other than with freebie points. Theybegin play with two free dots in the Hobby Talent: Flight.]And the other good news is, you’re not going to dieof old age at fifteen or twenty. If you keep your beak outof trouble — and good luck with that — you can liveas long as a normal human does, rather than as shortas a bird.Let’s see, what else. Y’all are usually pretty cliquish,talkative — even by our standards — and a little fuzzyon the notion of property rights where shiny things areconcerned.[Starting Gifts: Enemy Ways, Raven’s Gleaning, Scentof the True Form, Spirit Speech, Truth of Gaia, Voice of theMimic and Word Beyond]• Homid: As for my kind? We tend toward thetwitchy loner type. Most of us are tallish, and skinnyish,and we’ve to a tendency to have noses that politerfolks call “sharp” or “aquiline”. Honestly, we look kindCORAX95