W20 - Changing Breeds.pdf

does that cross-bred with seagulls or something freakylike that. The Vikings gave the Corax that name, backin the day, and some of us still claim those ties — evenif they haven’t ever set foot in Scandanavia.Gulls are kind of a paradox. On one hand, they havefirst-hand ties to Hugin and Munin — Odin’s two bestbirdie buddies, Thought and Memory. Gulls spend a lotof time on the wing looking for epic stories, digging upforgotten tales of old, and that kind of stuff. On the otherhand, they like corpses as much as any of us (and morethan some). And the one place you can find both storyfodder and dead bodies is the battlefield. If you want tofind a fight, follow the Gulls. I mean, the Valkyries usedto ask these guys directions. Think about that.The MorriganAnd, speaking of scrappers… The Morrigan are a trioof battle-crow biddies, old and dry and fierce as autumnleaves. They’re from the Old Country… But they canshow up anywhere — well, anywhere there’s about tobe a hella buncha blood and battle, anyway. These galsdon’t show up to have a little chat; if you see them, youcan bet there’s death and destruction on the horizon.There are always only three members of the Morrigan,and they serve Raven’s… less pleasant… aspect. They’reall about endings — usually the permanent kind. In fact,whenever a Corax joins the Morrigan, she loses her oldname and takes up a new one. And it’s always one ofthe faces of the Morrigan from legend. Bebd, Nemainand Morrigu — always the same names, ever since theystarted writing legends down. It doesn’t matter if it’s yourlover of 50 years who gets picked; the woman she wasdies the second they settle that new name on her, and herold life is gone. All she lives for, from then on, is battle.The legends say that Morrigan and Dagda weremarried once, then something happened and she allturned cold and bloody. That was, as you can imagine,the end of that happy union. The same thing happenswith her namesakes. You can see the story all over againevery time a new raven joins the Morrigan. One lightdies in her eyes and a new, cold one starts burning. It’screepy as hell.Word is that all three of them have the Sight, thatthe wind tells them when the next big battle is going tobe. I’m not saying it’s not true — they’re always thereevery time the wolves take up serious arms, and goodnessknows the Garou are about the biggest battle-slingersaround. The Morrigan always bring eagles with them,too. Big, sharp-beaked buggers that feed on the corpsesafter the Morrigan drinks their eyes. You see three ofour kind — all female — and a bunch of eagles showingup somewhere? You either high-tail it out of there, orprepare to be a part of the fighting, cuz things are aboutto get crazy.Murder’s DaughtersNow, the Morrigan are scary because they’re genuinelynasty, and because Raven’s put his blessing of murderdown on them. Murder’s Daughters, on the other hand,are scary ’cause they’re wannabes. Each and every oneof them wants to be part of the Morrigan someday, andthey’ve got this crazy notion that the way to one of thethree spots is to out-nasty the rest of the gang.It’s stupid, ’cause I ain’t yet seen one of the Daughtersget picked for promotion, but they keep trying to provethey’re the baddest of the bad, in hopes of catchingsomeone on the nomination committee’s eye. They’realways picking fights, causing trouble, and generallybeing the biggest bitches they can get away with. A lotof the time, they end up in over their heads; they spenda lot of time after dark in the sorts of clubs where thevampires go, trying to prove they’re more bad-ass thanthey really are.Trying to be bad, yep, yep, yep. Pulling it off? Sometimes.But more often than not, they end up stirring uptrouble for themselves and everyone around them, orworse yet — proving how rough-and-tumble they are byturning on anyone who doesn’t take them as seriously asthey think they deserve to be taken.A murder of pissed-off sisters will pluck out your eyesand use ’em for marbles — and they’re always lookingfor excuses to be pissed off.Oh, and it’s a girls’ club only. No boys allowed. It’s atime-honored tradition dating back all the way to at least1952, which is the first time anyone was gutsy enoughto use the name in public.On the other hand, I’m smart enough not to argue.I like my eyes right where they are, and I never was anygood at marbles.The Sun-LostThese guys are stuff you should know about, eventhough they aren’t technically a group. Sun-Lost is whatwe call those who’ve turned their back on Helios andwandered off into the Umbra full time. It’s crazy, I know,to cut yourself off from what amounts to half your soul,but some folks do. They just lay down their responsibilities,their messages… even their eggs in some cases…and go wandering off into the Deep Umbra to see whatmight be seen.Most of the time, they’re never heard from again. Wefigure they just see something shiny out there and… keepgoing. But sometimes they come back into the shallows— the Near Umbra, or even out into the “normal” world.CORAX97