A Geek History of Time - Episode 315 - White Wolf Part IV Werewolf in Stein

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

Item one, get the grocery store. Item two, laundry. Item three, over through capitalism. You know, for somebody who taught Latin, your inability to pronounce French like hurts. Damn. Look at you getting to the end of my stuff. Motherfucker. But seriously, I do think that this bucolic, luxurious live your weird fucking dreams kind of life is something worth noting. Because of course he had. I got into an argument essentially with with some folks

as to whether or not punching Nazis is something you should do. And they're like, no, then you're just as bad as the Nazis. I was like, the Nazis committed genocide. I'm talking about breaking noses. Drink scotch and eat strychnine. All right, you can't leave that lying there. Luxury poultry. Yes, yes.

Fancy chickens. Yes, fancy chickens. Pet, pet fancy chickens. Pet fancy chickens. Pet Fancy Chickens. Pet Fancy Chickens. ["Pet Fancy Chickens"] This is a Geek History of Time. Where we connect an artery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California.

And as we sit here recording this, we are about a week away from my son's first night overnight, away from my son's first night overnight away from home. Um, well, that's not entirely true, but it'll be the first time he's spending the night away from home. Not with his grandparents. Um, we, we have arranged, uh, for a friend of my wife's to have him over her place where she and her son are. He's really excited about getting to spend the night with his friend. And I'm waiting for the point at which my wife has a nervous breakdown as the event gets closer because you

know she was like all right okay yeah I think I think yeah it's it's time we can do it he's old enough I think I'll be okay I'm like yeah you're saying that now when it when it gets to the Thursday night before yeah we'll well, you're still feeling about that whether whether your conviction is gonna hold I mean, I think it will in the end, but I It's I think it's gonna be it's gonna be difficult for her So we'll we'll see how that goes. I'm I'm looking forward to it because you know It's night with just the two of us, which is lovely So, yeah, that's that's what I have going on. How about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony

I'm a US history teacher up here in Northern California at the high school level The thing is I wasn't always a US history teacher For a large chunk of my career I was a Latin teacher and I have two quick stories tied back to that that happened today. One, a colleague and friend of mine who has been a guest on my pun show, texted me from his child's sporting event, saying, Hey, did this student at one point, did you have a student by this name in your Latin class? I said, oh my God, not only did I have this student, this student is one of my top five

favorite students of all time. How do you know this person? It's my daughter's coach at their sport. Oh my God, you have no idea how lucky you are, da da da. And it unleashed a torrent of me just brag dumping about how amazing this kid was and how awful their luck was when it came to schooling. Because when they came to my school, I think we were either, well, there was the smoke days.

The next year there was the evacuation under threat of live shooter and bomb. The next year I think we went on strike. The next year COVID hit, and also they took away the AP program for my Latin. So it was just Latin 4. So it was just bad luck all around. And I took this kid with me to Rome, by the way, and they were the only student, like,

the only kid pulled out of line at random, scare quotes, in Frankfurt, a darker student than many of the others that were on the trip with us, and I stood right by their side, and they're like, oh no, no, you can go sit down. I said, the hell I will. And so I stayed with them the whole time. So that's one student. Another one texted me between shows,

sent me a picture of a bunch of DVDs that they got, or I assume Blu-rays, and they're like, hey, was this the cartoon you and I talked about? And it's America's, or it's Earth's Mightiest Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes, the Avengers, the cartoon. Oh, wow. And this kid, when he was, I think, a freshman or a sophomore, found out what a comic nerd

I was. And again, in my Latin class, he was just this really neat kid, struggled mightily, but worked hard at it. And when he found that I loved comics like he loved comics, and we could we could talk comic cartoons his productivity went up he learned more he saw that somebody could invest in him and it really turned things around and I ended up writing him a letter recommendation he's almost done with college now wow yeah it's fantastic so a shout out to him if he still listens but it was just cool like two two different students

Like orbited back came back around like Haley's Comet for me on the same day, so nice. Yeah bitchin Yeah, very cool Anyway when last we spoke yeah, we were talking werewolves Yes gotten the history of them down and now I think you're gonna talk about the gaming Yes with them. Yeah, specifically the game centered on them. Yeah, right, right. So to recap The world of darkness was a blue that pardon me. The world of darkness was inaugurated in 1991 by white wolf publishing with the game Vampire the Masquerade. And Vampire was a game of moral horror. The players were the monsters and they had to navigate a world

of other monsters whilst trying to hold on to their humanity. It was character centric rather than plot driven. Stories were less linear by nature and it was a major departure from the dungeon crawling monster killing of earlier games. Right. Which was story driven, not character driven largely. Largely. And, and it was, it was this kind of paradigmatic shift of, you know this this is a different thing that a role-playing game can be And so werewolf continued in a similar vein It was still

very much more character centric, huh the PCs in this case are the werewolves a lot of the setting consisted of tribal politics That kind of echoes the Machiavellian scheming and maneuvering amongst the vampire clans of the Camarilla Now we're still early enough in the settings lifespan for the sabbath to not yet be developed which is like the anti Camarilla, in vampire.

Okay. Okay. And so these, these themes, the, the, the other themes and ideas behind werewolf were real significant departure from vampire. It's, it's a, it's a different game, not, not simply in that in that while you're playing as a werewolf rather than a vampire. Like the intent of it is different. Was the system the same? The system was largely the same. So it was cross compatible?

Yes. Okay. And we're going to talk about that a little as as time goes on as we get farther into the world of darkness But at this point in in the development of the game you're playing a vampire game, or you're playing a werewolf game There's there's at this point not a whole lot of cross pollination, cross play yet. And it's still using the storyteller system. It is still, you know, I have a certain number of dots in this ability.

I have a certain number of dots in this skill. So like, you know, strength is three dots and I have, you know, right. Brawling at four. So I have seven dice. I'm gonna roll. It's still using that. It's still using D tens. Uh, we're still saying, okay, the seven and higher. Yeah. Yeah. Typically seven or maybe an eight, maybe a six, you know, depending on, you know, if it's a really easy thing, you know, uh, you're still, you're still, you know, aiming for all of that. Those mechanics are all the same, but werewolves by their nature have a different mechanic

for how they work. Remember that in vampire, you have the dichotomy of your humanity stat. Versus essentially your hunger right well no your humanity represents your connection to empathy you know being a being a person you know your connection to your humanity and then you have your blood pool which represents the level of your hunger which you have to use those points in order to fuel your, some of your abilities and do stuff and all that. And, you know, the idea is you

need to find a way to keep your humanity high, but also feeding in order to continue existing. You have to do bad things and you have to find, you have to succeed at balancing that out. Right. Werewolf plays on body horror somewhat. The, the transformation, the first, the first few adventures, thematically, the idea is that your first few adventures as a werewolf player are your character discovering that you are a werewolf. Lycanthropy in werewolf is not a curse. It is not something that is transmitted by a bite. That is lore that humans came up with, you know, in the ancient world. No, if you are born a werewolf or not. in the ancient world. No, if you are born a werewolf or not. And in modern times, you don't learn your werewolf until sometime around puberty.

So maybe maybe later, never earlier. And so the the discovery of, you know, oh, my God, I turn into a beast and, you know, all of those themes that are there in the werewolf myth are present and the body horror is there. But again, the difference is this is fear of loss of control not fear of the gradual over millennia loss of your Connection to what it is to be human. Okay, right, right and So the balancing act that a werewolf has to perform There's actually kind of a couple of them at once but the one that's like mechanical is you have two stats rage and gnosis rage fuels your transformation and your combat abilities. Okay.

In order to take on any of the various forms of Wolf you, you spend a rage point. Okay. And you know, there's all kinds of ways to a rage point. Okay. And you know, there's all kinds of ways to regain rage points. Uh, but you spend a rage point in order to transform in order to do particular things. Some of your special abilities, some of your gifts will require spending a rage point. Sometimes you will need to roll against your rage to maintain self control in the you will need to roll against your rage to maintain self control in the face of something going on. Sure. And your gnosis is your spiritual connection to the umbra, to the spirit, is your connection to the spirit world.

And vampire is a very materialist game. You're a vampire. You are a supernatural thing, right? But all of your concerns are shit you can touch and bite and, you know, is here in yes. Yeah. Yeah. There, there, it's all, are shit you can touch and bite and you know, Epicurean. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

They're there. It's all, it's all very concrete. You know, we're dealing in, in the, the real world in quotes, because in this, in this particular universe, there's more to the real world than that. werewolf introduced the idea of the Umbra and werewolves by using their gnosis have the ability to hop from the physical world into the spirit world. They are capable of being psychopomps kind of in that way they travel between the spirit and the physical realm and Dealing with and Combating spirits is a central part of the lore and of the kinds of stories that you're dealing with

No, it's interesting because with a vampire you have to fight your own nature Yeah, and yet you are an inherently unnatural thing. Yeah. Whereas, or supernatural even, and I don't mean that as a pun. Whereas a werewolf is a thing tied directly to nature, and yet you are fighting something external, not your own nature.

Yes. Or you're interacting at least. But yeah. Yeah. And so you need to maintain a balance between your rage and your gnosis. Too much rage and you can flip out and go berserk. Too little and you

can lose the wolf. Like for good? Well, like until you can, you know, regain rage You know Sounds like a refractory period Kind of here's your potency There's there's there's a parallel that could be played on there for sure

And then there's there's the theme of existing as a werewolf in a human world and all right Difficulties of that and that's tied into this dichotomy And Another really big tonal difference Between vampire and werewolf. Mm-hmm is that in vampire? Moral decay is kind of the point right so Everything is in shades of you know charcoal to midnight

Sure sure like it's shades of gray. It's all grim and fucked up, but it's it's it's a whole lot of very very fine Shading of you know right we are on this, on this, you know, set of shades of gray. In Werewolf, there is a very clear bad guy. Once you get through the body horror of your introduction to, hey, you're a werewolf. Um, you, you learn about the cosmology. Cause again, we're now dealing with, with spiritual matters, right? You learn about the cosmology of the world of darkness, at least as it's viewed by the Garu, which is the term werewolves use for themselves. They are the Garu. Okay. Okay. Um, and so the, uh,

three major spiritual figures, uh, in, in the, in the, uh, Garu view of the universe are the wild, the weaver and the worm. The wild is an archic chaotic creation. It is, it is the whirlwind of constant birth, new ideas, deviation from the old ways. You know, it is, it is chaos, but in a positive growth kind of way.

Okay. It is a generative force. The weaver is the imposition of order on what is created by the wild. Okay. And then the worm is the force of destruction destruction that allows for new birth. Okay. So, so they work, they work cyclically. If the universe was balanced, if the way, if the cosmos was working the way it was supposed to, they would, they would be working as, as three seamless parts of a cycle. But somewhere in the ancient, ancient pre-history of pre-history at the very earliest times of the universe, the weaver went mad. And the weaver started trying to tie everything in the universe down. And the weaver tried to tie down the worm and Okay tying down the worm it caused the worm to split into three and it sent the worm mad Mm-hmm. And

so now the worm is the enemy of the Garou Because the worm now seeks to destroy the world. And I'm, I'm painting with a broad brush and simplify it. Yeah. But that's, that's how this comes down. So the worm is divided.

So there's, there's the, a Trinity as it were, wild weaver worm. The worm is also divided into three, split by the webs of, of the, the, the cables of the web of the weaver. It's been it's been split into three parts the defiler worm which is the worm of corruption that eats its way into People's minds or into organizations or into places and causes rot from within The worm of calamity the beast of war Which paradoxically is the worm of calamity, the beast of war, which paradoxically is the source of rage. So werewolves have the worms, their enemy, but the very thing

they rely on for their, for, for what they do, right. They are touched by it. There's a, there's a kind of Taoist kind of idea there. The fire that cooks your food burns your hand Yes, yeah, and then the worm of consumption the eater of souls that is is hunger and gluttony and and the the urge to consume Okay, so we have the three W's right? Yeah the The wild weaver the worm and then the worm divides into three things too. Yes, are there three wilds? Are there three weavers? Okay. Okay wild the wild is characterized at least as far as it's characterized by the Garu

The wild is is its own thing. It is just too incoherent To be to be split Right subclassed out. Okay. Yeah Same with the weaver, but the worm divides into those three. Yeah, okay And so spirits that are corrupted by or spawned by the worm Become Baines and these these are these are the destructive spirits that you have to face, you know, as, as a, as a Garou, you know, they, they are capable of having an influence, uh, you know,

across the veil into the physical world. They can, they can kind of, kind of make things happen, make people pissed off, you know, cause trouble. And so to get to the root of the problem as a Garu, you go into the Umbra and you deal with them. Okay. And they, they can also lead to, you know, spiritual, spiritual corruption can lead to physical pollution in the real world. So, you know, if there's, if there's a site in a, in a river that for no meaningful reason is all of a sudden the water is foul and it's, it's, you know, unhealthy and it's causing problems. You go into the Umber to check it out and you find, Oh, Hey,

there's a Nexus crawler sitting on this, you know, a point we've got to, we've got to deal with that. And so that's, that's part of, right. And how that works now, Baines can also, uh, by shadowing humans in the spirit realm and reaching into their heads and causing them to think angry thoughts and sure, you know, fester, they can eventually possess humans and those humans become supernaturally powered creatures called Fomori. Okay.

So you have your built-in kind of antagonists and gone on antagonists here. Now the worm is working to bring about the apocalypse by polluting everything bringing about the destruction of the natural world and eventually poisoning everything and leading to leading to the death of of Everything it it it is now mad and instead of I I want to destroy things for rebirth. It just wants extinction Okay, so Trying to understand this if If you get the worm like possesses a person and then gets them Appointed to the Department of Health and Human Services

Yeah, because the brain worm is in there. It will lead to our destruction and extinction Yeah, okay. Yeah, and now what is timeless, but yeah This was 1991 okay This was 1991 So we're gonna we're gonna get in we're gonna get into as much as we really love to lay everything at the feet of Pat Buchanan We can't with this game system. Yeah some stuff. We have to lay at the feet of Ronald Reagan um John Sununu you know what you did you know? Okay, he knows he knows what he did yeah

So the worm by Yeah So the worm by possessing some people by revealing itself to other people that are manipulatable It it has infiltrated human society and it it feeds and also feeds on humans worst impulses Wow, so it really is RFK jr. Yeah So, you know greed lack of empathy, you know laziness all of these things I already said that but yeah, yeah So it can convince you to like kill a bear and drop it off in a public park. Yeah. Yeah, for example, right which Can can we take a moment to what the fuck?

And that's nowhere near the craziest shit. Yeah, I know I know I know but but the fact that that is not anywhere near the craziest Shit right in that story right? What yeah, you know it's like if his last name was anything other than what it is Anyway, yeah, you'd assume he was on bath salts you like what you would and and If that assumption might not be wrong like right? I'm not I'm not trying to make any accusations, but like can we really rule anything out is what I'm trying to say right? Yeah, well no apparently the worm, well, there you go. Yeah and so in in the Quote-unquote real world of the world of darkness

Pentax Corp and its subsidiaries are at the highest levels knowing agents of the worm levels knowing agents of the worm they know the worm exists they are on board and they're there for their own gain and some of them have been possessed but some of them haven't been possessed and they're just like no no I'm gonna get rich mm-hmm like I'm not immortal who gives a shit about what happens after I'm dead you know no I you know, you keep saying you want to make this time yet and yet well, yeah. So now because there is a clear bad guy, this, this changes like everything about the character of the game.

is like everything about the character of the game. The characters are, the PCs are violent, like the ultra-violence involved in being a werewolf is something that comes up over and over again and is a source of horror. But it's a little bit easier for somebody who's been a munchkin up to this point to get on board with, with what's going on in werewolf and be closer to what the intent of werewolf was then like in the last episode when I when I was there last episode before last when I was talking about vampire it's like well if you've been a munchkin up to this point you're you're going to have a hard time adjusting to what the point of vampire is supposed to be right right Right. And so in werewolf combat is a much bigger part of the game. Makes sense.

And, and you know, a little bit ago we were talking about, you know, cross pollination between games as time went on, it became more of a thing as the world of darkness got bigger. That would be like, okay, well, you know, in our group, we're, we're mostly Magi, but we've got one, you know, we're mostly mages, but we've got, you know, one werewolf and like somebody wants to play vampire, you know, whatever. Right.

You know, and you can have that going on. And once that started happening, it was actually difficult to create a werewolf character that wasn't Automatically a combat monster sure unintended sure compared to everybody else Yeah, it's the I want to play a barbarian like oh, so you only activate during combat got it got it I like you're stacking you're gonna be stacking dice the rest of the time. We're playing. Okay, that's fine You know, but You know in a mixed game with vampires mages and changelings the werewolf would have to Consciously the player would have to consciously detune their character

If it was like no, no, I don't want to be the muscle Right. I have this idea. I want to be you know, the the you know animal magnetism con man, right I want to only use my my wolfy abilities to You know seduce and charm people into doing stuff, you know that kind of thing You'd have to be like, okay, in human form, you are a stick figure. Like you, you have zero muscle tone, right? Like you trip over your own feet. Like, you know, you, you get, you, you catch colds like instantly, you know, you, you have to seriously make physical stats, not the thing.

Right. Or else, you know, uh, the moment it's like, okay, well, You seriously make physical stats not the thing. Or else, you know, the moment it's like, okay, well, there's going to be a fight and the werewolf becomes an eight and a half foot tall, you know, snarling tank. You know this kind of power fantasy is less morally problematic here because In werewolf there are bad guys and they are actively trying to destroy the planet Yeah, and so there is nuance in like, okay It's okay for you to flip out and and enter a barbarian rage, you know be a mr. Grumpy pants

Fighting them, but you have to worry about Getting caught on camera doing it you have to worry about you know, there's there's real-world consequences to making those choices but the moral event horizon is But the moral event horizon is only something you need to worry about if you flip out in the course of a rage and you fail a self-control role and you actually start devouring a human. Like that's the point at which, okay, now we're getting into, are you a, are you, have you turned into a monster monster? Right. Otherwise, you know, and, and depending on how the game was just like vampire,

depending on how the game was being played, you know, maybe that'll be an issue. Maybe that won't be an issue. Right. That'll be an issue. Maybe that won't be an issue, right? But I think partly because this game provided a little bit more license to be like, man, this is bitch and I'm a werewolf. Like dude, without, without having people look at you, like you're a fucking psycho. Yeah. Why is this your fantasy? Like is the creature of the night? How cool. Right. That's much less than asked asked question if you're playing a werewolf Yeah, yeah, right

And so This this was a game. I enjoyed a whole lot more I got into the lore a whole lot more with this term that I did with vampire and It was it was easier to wrap your head around like I said if you were coming from D&D if you were coming from a more plot-driven. Hey, there's bad guys go deal with the bad guys. This this is easier to Conceptualize right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so that's not to say that that's all there was to the game there was as I mentioned all of these themes of

You also have to exist in this world alongside the other werewolves and Those bad guys are over there, but you also have the fact that there are 13 tribes Okay of Garu and each of them are coming from a different place. Each of them have literal millennia of history that they have been passing down orally generation to generation to generation and they have their grudges and they have their prejudices and they have all

their stuff. Right. You know, and you have to maneuver within Garu society. You have to, you have to, you know, figure out how to navigate that. And so the tribes, we have the Black Furies, who are an all female tribe, they have Greek Mediterranean roots. So Amazons. They have Greek Mediterranean roots so Amazon's yes in the in universe They are they're where the legends of the Amazons came from Mm-hmm, and when a male Kinfolk of the black furies it turns out to be a werewolf

Or when a when a male child should say when a male child is born to a black fury They send the child off to another tribe So yeah, it's a thing yeah and Then we have the bone gnaws Who are the outcast tribe they are they are the untouchables of Garou society and their kinfolk are the marginalized and downtrodden Okay, so like Homeless kids in Chicago kind of yeah. Yeah. Yeah the children of Gaia are

A tribe of peacemakers who work to try to keep the different tribes cooperating Mm-hmm and reminding them. Hey look the enemy is over there not right here We need to cooperate so they're right coalition builders the activists the no no stay focused over there Please right what what people want hippies to be yes. Yeah Not what they are, but what people want people want them to be yes, yeah then the Fiana are want them to be. Yes. Yeah. Uh, then, uh, the Fiana are Celtic based. They're, they're the Celtic tribe. They lean heavily into Irish myths specifically. Okay. Uh, in, in the world of darkness, Finn Mac Hummel, uh,

was, was a werewolf. He was Garrow. Okay. Uh, and their kinfolk are Irish and and British in general Scots Less so Scots. I'll kind of get into that a little bit, but you know and one of the things that comes up in the fiannas tribe book is that there is conflict between the Irish branch of the Fianna and the English-based branch of the tribe because of the conflict between the two nations and the modern world.

And so they have that infighting going on in their own tribe that they wrestle with. There are the Get of Fenri, who are Norse. I was going to say, sounds say sounds Norwegian yes and they are the most aggro of the Hamid tribes and I'll get into what the Hamid means in a minute okay and so then there are the glass walkers who are urbanites they are city based werewolves okay take a lot of shit from the rest of the tribes because you're not really connected to the wilderness

You know your pampered your soft whatever But they are better able to maneuver in the modern world Because of their closer connection to the weaver Which which technology is a thing of the weaver? Okay, and so they're they're able to do magical shit with technology that other werewolves look at and they're like oh What is that witchcraft what the fuck right? Okay, red talons are an all lupus tribe Okay, and they are the most anti humanity

Like like a red talons answer to things is, we just kill all the humans. Fuck it, we just kill them all. That'll solve all of our problems. We need to bring back the impergium, which I'll explain in a minute, and we need to be 10 times worse with it. Like we were not harsh enough before.

They are the most threatened tribe. And they are even more aggro than the get They are they are the most aggro As a group the Shadow Lords are Kind of I characterize them as the anti-hero tribe They are descended from steppe peoples and the Germanic barbarians of central Europe who brought down the Roman Empire. But they also had some of their ancestors were also infiltrated Roman, became senators

and sent word back to their kin outside of Rome about, hey, here's what you need to do to bring this place down. They worked kind of both sides of that sure and their role in Primordial Geru society was they were the betas they were the enforcers and doers of dirty work For the next tribe. I'm going to talk about who are the silver fangs Silver fangs are werewolf royalty Okay Silver fangs are werewolf royalty. Okay. Their kinfolk are the descendants of aristocrats and the elites of society throughout history.

And they have an inborn level of crazy. Every tribe comes with certain gifts, certain benefits, and certain flaws. And the silver fangs flaw is because of the level of interbreeding inbreeding that's kind of gone on They're all a little bit nuts not like right not not incapacitated nuts, but there's always There they're goofy right there's always the chance that they're there they might go off the rails. Yeah, they're both quirky and Unpredictably dangerous. Yes. Yeah, but at the same time they have an inborn aura of natural authority which is their gift and

They have the patronage of wolf the the spirit the iconic wolf Spirit, okay, who is the totem spirit of the Garu nation as a whole? And the silent striders are their kinfolk are North African Egyptian Okay, and they are explorers of the umbra. They've gone farther into the depths of the umbra than any other tribe has Of the umbra they've gone farther into the depths of the umbra than any other tribe has Star gazers in so are they kind of like I'm sorry real quick the you said what were the one before star gazers the Silent Striders sounds writers, so are they kind of like an orientalized version like it kind of sounds like a little bit Yeah, okay. Yeah, those those overtones. OK. Now the Star Gazers are another one similarly.

Their origin is from India, the Himalayas. OK. And they spent millennia isolated from the other tribes. They kind of sat out their major events in shape-shifter history that they kind of were just like, so like if the Dalai Lama was the Dalai Wolf. Kind of. Yeah. Yeah. And then we have the Uctena and the Wendigo. The Uctena,

both tribes refer to the Uctena as older brother and Wendigo as younger brother. And these are the two surviving Native American tribes right of Garou There was a third tribe the Croatan Who wiped out? Who were wiped out by European Garou in the 1617 hundreds during colonial conflicts? Okay and so the Wendigo claimed that the three tribes had distinct roles in the very beginning of

You know the myths they passed down are the Oktaena Were the shamans? Middle brother croatan were the diplomats and the leaders And the Wendigo were the warriors right acted the pure lands from from worm creatures, right? And now all of the tribes have been feuding with each other since long before human prehistory and all of this backbiting and outright killing of each other is is highlighted as a major thing that the PCs have to figure out how to deal with how to deal with the world is

coming the world is coming to an end we We are in the last days. The apocalypse is nigh. Okay. And we still can't stop fighting with each other like animals. Right. Is a recurring, is a recurring theme. Sure. You know, the Fiana and the get don't get along because the Vikings invaded Ireland and subjugated the native Irish. Um, the, the shadow lords don't get along with anybody because everybody sees them as, you know, scheming backbite ers and they're like, look, we were doing what we were doing for the good of all of us, you know, uh, the right. Okay.

And also now I need to talk a little bit about Hamid versus lupus. Yes. Hamid, uh, is if you are born as a human, you are a Hamed werewolf. So when you hit puberty, you shift for the first time into a wolf. If you are a Lupus werewolf, you were born as a wolf. And when the change comes you suddenly wake up and you're stand and you get up to stand on two legs and You have fingers Okay, fuck man, right, right And so every every tribe except for the red talons

Has Hamid members and has lupus members. Most of the tribes are in the modern day. Most of the tribes are majority, Hamid. Red Talons are only lupus and their kinfolk are only lupus. They will never turn into a human form and mate and mate with a human that's disgusting to them. Right. Right. You know, in the same way that Hamid Garu generally are not going to do the opposite, like, you know, just because of, just because of taboos. And there are some interesting places where in, in some of the source material it's like, well, you know, with wolves being endangered and with, you know, lup so generally speaking most of the tribes are majority Hamid

You know red talons are only lupus and they have a chip on their shoulder about it, right? you know, and so all of them are fighting with each other all of the time and Like it's not it's not constant like bloodletting kind of battles, but it is fist fights and We don't get along and I'm not gonna fucking deal with you and all that kind of stuff, right? You know and does this by the way remind you at all anything about like leftist history Yeah, I was gonna say like this is just like the Judean people's front the people's front of Judea the popular people's front splitters

You know, yeah all of that. Yeah. Yeah so, I mean it makes it makes a lot of sense because if you take a look just again at the wolves and the vampires the vampires are moneyed the wolves are clannish Yeah, you know just just from that alone you have are moneyed, the wolves are clannish. Yeah. You know, just from that alone, you have capital and labor. Yeah, very much. Very much.

And so, you know, the theme of desperation is like a constant thing. And I'm going to keep coming back to it. But one of the parts of that desperation is, look, if we're going to succeed, if there's any chance of us succeeding, we need to focus on them, not us. Right. And the frustration and the fact that these feuds have been going on longer than humans have had writing is a thing. Because Garu history goes back beyond human prehistory. The, the, the impergium, which I've mentioned,

was something that the Garo nation determined, you know, about around about the time that humans started figuring out how to farm. The Garo determined, okay, we, we have to keep humanity under control. The humans are beings of the weaver. Okay. And, and we can't have them, you know, we, we see that, you know, this farming stuff and, and livestock and all of these things,

you know, their population is growing, they're becoming, they're starting to become potentially out of balance with the rest of Gaia's, you know, plan, such as it is. You know, the ecology is being affected. We need to keep them under control. And so each of us, each of our tribes, we're going to control a region. This is where the ethnic character of the tribes kind of is rooted. We're each going to have, you know, our territory because wolves, right?

Right. And in our territory, we are going to maintain a human population. When the human population gets too big, we're going to roll it and kill them. We're going to, we're going roll in and kill them we're gonna we're gonna purge the population okay and you know this that was the agreement some tribes were much more enthusiastic than others red talents you know we're like yes we are on board as a matter of fact we think you're being too liberal with the numbers you're allowing we're gonna keep that way lower, right?

You know in other tribes were like, oh, you know We're gonna kill the ones that become problematic, but yeah, we're just going to garden. Yeah Yeah trim around the edges, right? Yeah You know and because for Hamid werewolves, kinfolk are the people who raised you. They're literally your, your family there, your extended family, right? So from them will come more of your numbers too. Yes. Yeah. So, yeah. And so the,

this, this period of an indeterminate amount of time during which werewolves would descend on a village and, you know, carry off the old and the very smallest children had a primal effect on human psychology in universe. This is the reason why we as modern humans Have the wolf as the bad guy in fairy tales

So werewolves made themselves the monster Wow Okay, so there's there's a big element of the end of the world is coming and there's an element of this where we did it to ourselves Right part of the problem is we scared them so much That they then doubled down on Technological destruction. Yeah, and the distinction like oh Well, you know what the wilderness is a threat so we write away with that loud and clear guys get it yeah okay so you know and there and there are factions within within the Garo

nation who were like we did this to ourselves right the impergium was a bad idea the children of Gaia in particular they are the most protective of humanity and they are the ones who are like we need to stop treating them The way we've been treating them and we need to recognize that we need to get them on board to solve our problem well, and there's your quick hop skip and a jump to Like clan war too is like it's not we did it. It's you fuckers over there really? Oh my god If you hadn't done that, then we'd all be fine. And just constantly blaming each other for, yeah.

Yeah, and at the same time as that, there's the fact that again, for Hamed Garu, your kinfolk are your extended family. And as a werewolf, you're going to have a somewhat longer lifespan than a mortal human. But in addition to probably, you know, cause you're going to die by violence much, you know, much sooner than this most of the time. But if you live, if you die of old age as a werewolf, you're going to live to a hundred,

120. And because of your nature as a werewolf you're going to be vital into your old age like your hair is going to turn white and you know you're going to slow down a little bit you're going to have wrinkles but you're still going to be jacked and you're you know you're you are you are not going to descend into physical senescence, or decrepitude is the word I'm looking for, the way an aging human would. Right, right. And so as a Garu, if you live to an old age,

you're not just seeing your grandchildren, you're seeing your great grandchildren, your great great grandchildren. Some of whom are gonna become. And as a result, you have more of a connection to the idea of your clan being important because you are seeing your generations coming up. Yes. Yeah. And your kinfolk are going to wind up coming into contact and conflict with the

kinfolk of the other tribes. And you'll keep those grudges going. And yes, because you're old. Yeah. One, one you're old. Yeah one one. You're old to your part wolf Yeah, so the pack is everything and this is your extended back So so there's this there's this There's this this wonderful level of Complexity to the problem, right? that gets that gets fleshed out and gets examined and is

part of the character basis of the interactions that run the game and it's awesome so but but as part of what happened with the impergium number one it turned wolves into the bad guy and it made the wilderness something to be afraid of for humans. It also, uh, created in humans in our subconscious, a reflexive denial of what were wolves are. So there's a, there's a really big element in vampire. And when I get to mage, there's also a big part of mage. It's like, Hey, um, for different reasons, we can't let humans figure

out what's really going on. Like they, they have, they have lore about us and all this, but we need them to keep thinking that we're a myth. Cause like, if they ever actually figured out they outnumber us and we're fucked right right So so as a very fire they did the wolves. Yeah You know So as a vampire, you know one of the things as a neonate newly turned vampire you get told is if You you know when you hunt be discreet

right Try not to kill anybody If you you know when you hunt be discreet right Try not to kill anybody Not because necessarily we care about the morality of doing that but because right killing them Creates loose ends that need to get cleaned up right right we don't so like you know keep everything on the down low You know only you know you use your powers as much as possible in subtle ways that can be explained, you know, and like mage has a whole mechanic built around that that I'll get into. But in, in werewolf, um, if you, uh,

flip out, if, if you, you know, shift into the form of war, you shift into Krenos form and you turn into a nine foot tall furry killer. Normal humans are going to automatically freeze and go into a panicked monkey mode. And there's tables in the book that say, okay, look, your average human is going to have this level of difficulty to keep from wetting themselves and just running away screaming. If they're a combat veteran, the difficulty is a little bit lower, you know, but they're just, you know, immediately because of the subconscious memory of the impergium, you know, that's, that's, that's hard coded into our subconscious and, and, you know, normal humans are going to flee.

And in addition, their memory is going to get fucked with, which is partially a real thing. When adrenaline kicks in, memory formation goes out the window along with a bunch of other stuff because like I got to stay alive right now. Right. But in werewolf, it is, well, is some kind of big dog. Right. I don't, I don't, I can't, I don't, I don't clearly remember it and it's referred to as the veil. Right. I don't I don't I can't I don't I don't clearly remember it and it's referred to as the veil. Okay. And and so you know young werewolves get told when you do this make sure you don't get caught on camera. This is this

is a modern problem that we have. Right. You know because if you get caught on a security camera the camera doesn't suffer from the veil Anybody looking at the footage on the camera isn't gonna be suffering from the veil because you're not there in the flesh, right? so, you know this this this is It makes it a little bit easier for werewolves to maintain the fiction that they don't exist little bit easier for werewolves to maintain the fiction that they don't exist, but it also creates the opportunity for, for story threads. When it's like, Oh yeah, well, you know, when you had that fight in that back alley, you didn't realize there was a security camera.

Now you're going to have to go figure out how to deal with that. Right. You know. Um, and so there's still the continued idea that no, no, you have to keep the, the, the masquerade as it were. Yeah. You have to maintain kayfabe and for werewolves, it's called the veil. Right. And for vampires, no, we're, we're all human. I just, right, you know, I'm a, I'm just a creature of the night. Right. Yeah. You know.

And so you have to deal with that and you have to maintain your connection to humans, even though you're, you're not human anymore. You, you exist in a human world. You view the world mostly through a human lens, although your experience in it is changed Because of the changes to your senses and your perspective right sure sure But you still most of the time operate on a human level with other humans and you need to maintain that connection and Garu the tribes need to maintain their connection to wolves. So there's

There's a tension there. No. Yeah so Feels like so far with Werewolf and with vampire. Yeah, there's a push toward the Aristotelian golden mean toward the Aristotelian golden mean. Yeah, there is. You know? And therein lies the tension, whereas in D&D, it's about exemplariness,

it's about excess, it's about maxing things out, whereas in these games, it's about maintaining that tension, that balance, that, you know, again, that too much of one way and you you lose your wolf too much the other way and you lose your human You know too much of one way your blood lusty and you you've made life harder for everyone too much the other way and you're starving Yeah, so like you got it. You got to hit that sweet spot and a game that is aimed at that sweet spot I mean number one doesn't sound that fun to me to be honest, but number two Just because it's another mechanic instead of like you know, but and and there's plenty of people loved it, but

In number two it sounds very Liberal fantasy like very liberal fantasy. Like, yeah. I think that's fair to say. Yeah, it's, you know, we have to keep these norms. Yeah, well, this is, you know, the tailing. 1991, makes perfect sense. Like, things have been shoved way far to the right,

so, oh no, no, no, we need to keep, you know, again, we want the benefits of all of this colonialism. We just don't want it You know don't want to our hands. So Yeah, and and what you bring up there Keys for me one of the other one of the other kind of themes that's involved. Mm-hmm is You're up against as a as against, as one of the Geru, you are up against an enemy that is out for the absolute destruction of the world. Okay?

Not exaggerating. Right. They are out to destroy everything. They want extinction. And part of your problem has been maybe not brought about, but it's been made worse by extremism in the past. So you know we're gonna maintain this impergium and this has now led to this unintended consequence of you know humans kind of doubling down on being dangerous for the environment. Right. And you are, um,

you are justified in the modern realm with extremism against Pentax and against its minions and against all of these other forces. Like, you know, massive bestial ultraviolence is maybe not the always the preferred solution because there's, you know, cleaner and safer ways maybe of dealing with problems. But like that's always on the table. Sure. Right. But on an individual level, you can't spend too much time indulging in that because you're always aware of the fact that your rage is itself of the worm.

And so what you're saying there is subconsciously very much right about the kind of the tension going on in the minds of the writers of the game. Yes You know whether whether they were aware of it or not. It's it's very much an element, right? Yeah and vampire was a gothic horror game Because of the, uh, the darkness within the soul of, or lack of soul of every character. Right. And, and your, your, uh, fate was, uh,

almost inevitable. And part of the struggle was to try to prevent that from becoming inevitable. Right. Werewolf is Gothic because the Garu are haunted by fatalism. There is, there is all of this history, all of this, like again, pre-history through the modern era, weighing them down with all of the internecine fighting and all of the feuds and all of the mistakes that they've made. And they glorify some of that. They lament some of that.

Sure. And now in the modern world They're they're coming to the point where the Piper has to be paid and the odds stacked against them are immense You know, literally the industrialized world is the bad guy, right? You know, right? and Whatever battles they're fighting Is the bad guy right, you know, right? Um and Whatever battles they're fighting

like one of the one of the first Supplement books that came out for werewolf was rage across the Amazon and it was a source book for okay Your characters are being sent by the High Council of the Garo nation to stop the worm driven the High Council of the Garo nation to stop the worm driven Despoiling of the Amazon rainforest Okay, so you're gonna go down there and you're you're going to be eco terrorists on a supernatural scale You know and here are all the kinds of Bane beasts you're gonna run into and here are you know the Pentex people?

And the you know all the minions and everything you know and It was this is the front line of this war that we're Almost certainly gonna lose but we're gonna make them bleed every inch until we all die Sounds very Nordic. It really is. There's, there's, yeah. Yeah. And, and in the get a Fenri source material,

like when you get into that, it's like they're, they, they are, uh, emotionally some of the most prepared to like adapt to the current moment in the game world. Because no, we've talked about the Ragnarok for forever. Yeah, no, the world's going to end, but the thing is, see, it's not really going to end. Right. Because we've talked about the Ragnarok for a millennium and more. So we know what's going to happen, but we're all going to die, but that ain't going to be the end.

Right. And, you know, but for the Garu as a species, you know, the end is here. It's called, the subtitle is the apocalypse for that reason. And so that that fatalism is is interwoven through everything. Okay. In in the game. And so it's a rage, ha, literally against the dying of the light kind of kind of vibe going on and In the real world You know environmental consciousness Had started to enter the broader culture in the 70s into the 80s

right and Like when we were when we were youngsters the ozone layer right was right and right chlorofluorocarbons You know the use of styrofoam. Yeah getting getting methylated lead out of out of gasoline. Yep, right? Yep, and You know, we've discussed Reagan era recognition that oh, you know, hey air pollution is actually a problem Mm-hmm like you had to actually see that oh acid rain yeah caused by coal burning power plants. Right. All right well yeah I suppose we got to do something about that you know and so so climate change

didn't really become a focus of public attention until the 2000s like broadly You know an inconvenient truth was 2004 06 Yeah, it was 04. yeah, okay. Yeah, so And but but we see the first discussion of it in the 80s early 90s right I mean I huge fan of new warriors here and

Twice they went to fight eco terrorists Who were bad guys. One was he took them to the fucking moon. I forget which character that was. But then the other one was they were fighting like these, like these bad guys that had like they controlled the elements. Each one was a different element. And they were in, you know the the rainforest and the new warriors traveled to both places to fight Ecoterrorism. Mm-hmm. So yeah. Yeah, it's it was Absolutely a plot point In stuff like that and there were all kinds of movies that were coming out that were the same kind of thing

There was Sean Connery was in one called Medicine Man You know, anything that had Native American stuff in it was kind of about preserving nature as well, because there's a backhanded thing. But yeah, Medicine Man was like the most obvious. Oh, yeah, and massive white savior kind of tropes involved. Yeah, but let's not forget Lombada, the Forbidden Dance.

It was dedicated to the rainforest. It's true. It's really fucking weird. It's like, what? Yeah, so because this is Brazilian, that's what we're doing here? It wasn't even Brazilian. I think the sequel to it, by the way called I think Havana nights or something like that and It was written by Peter Segal

Of Wait, wait, don't tell me fame Wow, the writing credit. Yeah, he got the writing credit for it, but they literally rewrote the entire thing like There's not a single thing that he wrote on it. It's, it's the weirdest fucking story. But back to the idea that like, uh, Lombada, which I think was a Cuban thing, um, you know, like hot Miami type shit, but it was dedicated to the rainforest. And then there was like Fern gully and there was, I mean, there's all kinds. No, Fern gully. Yeah. Um,

the conceit behind Fern gully kinds no Ferngully yeah the conceit behind Ferngully That I don't remember what it what his name was but the evil evil supernatural creature It was a giant oily mess. Yeah. Yeah That's a really good example of what a bane looks like There you go. You can you can draw a line from Ferngully to the development of where we'll see apocalypse. I believe it. You know, Mark Reinhagen clearly saw that film and something, something clicked.

Um, you know, and so that's, that is what's going on in, in the zit geist at this time around that particular issue. The cold war had come to an end basically by 92, you know, the Soviet Union had, had gone away. And so that existential threat has been replaced by the environmental existential threat. Right. And so that's, that's what, you know, we had, we had been used to the apocalypse looking like the day after. Right. And this is literally saying the apocalypse.

And it isn't like we were used in popular culture to seeing the post-apocalypse, right? It's, it's, we're, we're going to imagine what, what happens after the end of the world, right? Werewolf was making the point that the world is literally ending. We are, we are, we are living through, we are experiencing the living through we are experiencing the ending of the world and The player characters in werewolf

Were trying to push back the tide And You know, I think there's and You know, I think there's There's something in that because you know, yeah in November of 92 we have a shift in administrations in the United States

We've had 12 years of Republican 12 years of Republican Corporate, you know hyper capitalist free trade all that how much free air do we really need? Yeah. Yeah Yes all of that going on and So this game comes out Fairly early in the year 92 Mm-hmm, and and it's all about you know trying to push back against all of that and then lo and behold in November

You know we see people voting against the party that had been The standard bearers for all of that destruction, right? You know the beneficiaries of it too. Yes, and the benefit You know the beneficiaries of it too. Yes and the benefit like pence tax is You know the engineers of it and the ones sucking profits out of it, right? you know and so I Was not politically aware enough

in 1992 to really realize The extent to which this game was an anti-capitalist polemic. And, and based on my own political awareness or lack thereof, if I had made that connection, I might have reflexively been like, well, I don't, I don't know if I want to do that. Right. Um, you know, and I did, I will say I did, you know, kind of flinch at what I saw as the extremism involved in, okay, no, like you're, you're going to be part of this game is going to involve, you know, breaking into Pentax facilities and like bombing them, right? Like,

you're, you, you are no shit and eco-terrorist. Like this is a thing, this is a war, this is what you're doing. There was a part of me that was like, I don't, I'm not sure about that. But then you read Farnoff into it and you're like, oh yeah, no, okay, this company is literally satanic. So okay.

Right, right. And not like secular Church of Satan, like, no, no, they are, they're demonic would be a better way of putting it. Sure, sure. They are driven by supernaturally evil forces. So, not shareholders. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, them too, but, you know, behind the shareholders. And what's interesting, and it really starts, like it begins a little bit in vampire, but it really starts becoming a thing because it's such a central theme in werewolf.

There is this tendency as the game develops to see in the fictional world of the world of darkness this developing trend, trying to think what the right word is, but this developing kind of recurring idea that look at some way in which the world is fucked up and behind it There's gonna be some kind of ancient vampire conspiracy

or the worm or When we get into mage we'll talk about the technocracy You know there's there's there's always Some level of either there's a marionette aspect to the marionette aspect yeah and there's there's always some level of supernatural involvement maybe not there the root of it but they're fueling it sure sometimes they are the root of it like straight up and like it became enough of a thing that in later books like supplements for various games they had to come out and say hey And like it became enough of a thing that in later books

Like supplements for various games they had to come out and say hey remember Humans are capable of being totally shitty on their own like not everything in this world is is driven by you know Supernatural evils. Here's an example of something that is just humans being fucked up. They had to highlight those things because it was, Oh yeah, no, like, like, you know, the, the, the pogrom in, in Russia was driven by, you know, uh, you know, radical, uh, werewolves, you know, trying to, trying to pull the, you know, pull another impergium, you know, out of their pocket kind of thing, right? You know, or, you know, vampires are responsible for this horrible atrocity here, you know, out of their pocket kind of thing, right? You know, or, you know, vampires are responsible for this horrible atrocity here you know that that kind of stuff and

There was this and I think I think Mark Ryan Hagan and the other writers would probably be Very miffed to hear me say this but there was kind of this almost backhanded, uh, optimist kind of idea of, of humanity in that, you know, we're stupid and we're easily manipulated, but we're not really that evil. Sure. You know, because-

We're the good ones. Yeah. Because, you know, the, the supernatural stuff is, is messing with people and doing all this you know, and and so I think there's there's something that that kind of develops in in the themes of the world of darkness over time and You know, this is the early 90s and there's a lot of stuff being being written and being done in this setting that is for Shock value sure because that was a thing. Yeah this time. Yes, that was all over all over the place, you know And so, you know this idea that oh, hey, you know that shitty thing. Yeah vampires man

Yeah, and you're a vampire like, you know, right that that kind of thing going on, uh, you know, like one of the, one of the plot points about the get of Fenri as an idea of, you know, stuff done for shock values that like, you look back on it, you're like, did you really have to do that? Um, one of the conflicts within the get as a tribe is, um, many get a Fenri kinfolk are neo Nazis and white supremacists.

Okay. And it's this whole thing like, well, you know, uh, they're, they're obviously, they're bad Nazis are bad. Okay.. But, you know, they're there. You got to you got to work with them because they're on the same side against Pentax and they're like they're like really bad. And like during World War Two, the

get of Fenri had an internal civil war between, you know, the American descendants of the get and, you know, or the allied descendants of the get and, you know, Nazi werewolves, which like as an get and, you know, Nazi werewolves, which like as an idea for a B movie, Nazi werewolves. I mean, it's been done recently.

I was going to say, in fact, Nazi werewolves was we go back to Operation Werewolf, right? Yeah. It was mentioned in the movie or in the TV series, True Blood. When they when they go over to Mississippi, I think is the first time you really meet werewolves. I think it's like in season three or four. Um, and There is a short like it's almost a throwaway line, but they're like, oh no Operation werewolf was really werewolves and those were the fucking diehard Nazis and it was like What's okay? Yeah, it's kind of funny. Yeah. Yeah so, you know, that's that's talking about things done for shock value and

In the environment of the 90s. Mm-hmm. That was what it was now you look at that and I'm like Nazi werewolves fuck off. I right, I You know this this made me kind of uncomfortable and part of the idea was to make you uncomfortable Obviously for shock value, but like that's not cool. They were not the threat. They were not the serious threat in The 90s that they are now like in the 90s that it was almost comical. Yeah Yeah, you're right. So so there is there is a A less direness about them

Then I mean Germany had just fallen, you know, like East East and West Germany had just reunited Reunited. Yeah, and it was clear they weren't going Nazi like Mm-hmm. So Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, I understand that but you know still In the most recent edition of the game The fifth edition which just came out. I want to say last year Might have been the year before.

Get it Fenri don't exist anymore. The tribe is not part of the setting. There were a whole lot of changes in the fifth edition of the game, like mechanically and thematically. You spend a lot less, my understanding, having read about it is that in the fifth edition, you spend a lot less time being a, a wolf being a, you know, Krenos or what have you. Um, and, and yeah, it's, it's a very, it's the vibe of the game is very different and it's post apocalyptic, like the world we're living in right now the apocalypse has happened and you know what's what's left is is you got to pick up the pieces right so

it's thematically completely different from rage against the dying of the light you know but you know that's I am saying had something similar where they brought about the, like they dove into World War II for a bit. And I mean, if you remember the pantheons, there's Norse, there's Japanese, there's, you know, there's all these others. And then they brought in the American pantheon and the Russian pantheon, because there's all this nationalism that was creating a faith and all this right Well, they they're like, oh and what were the other?

Pantheons doing well the the the the Greek and the the Greco-Roman Pantheon was Kind of ascendant but the real Pantheon that was really getting off on this was the Nordic one because the Nazis were fucking Everywhere in the Japanese Pantheon like there was a discussion of that and I believe though. It's the same company or say It's a it's a Really wonky variation on the same system, right? There's there's a lot more math in Right, there's there's a lot more math in Sion sure this is like oh, yeah, I know your third dot like, you know doubles and then your fourth dot doubles after that

Or I don't remember. Yeah, it's all kinds of wild and there's squares not just dots But yeah, but like they talked about you know, the how the Norse Pantheon specifically was like man World War two was their fucking jam like they'd never been so powerful Mm-hmm, and it's like yeah guys Not yeah Perhaps like I get I get the logical out out growth of this, but maybe we don't need to do this as I game Yeah, and and you know, one of the less

I guess, I guess one of the more problematic things about the way werewolf was put together is again, the way the tribes wind up being characterized. There is a tendency and the writers tried to avoid it, but because they they built the tribes the way they did, there is this tendency to kind of fall into stereotypes. And it's a bunch of game writers who are predominantly Cishet white guys. Right. And they made a really meaningful effort for a company working in the early 90s.

They made a really, really good effort to be culturally sensitive. But what the standards were for cultural sensitivity in 1991 and 1992 Were not what they are now Yes, I mean this was before the time of don't ask don't tell which was a giant step forward from that time Like yes, you know just like if you want to understand cultural sensitivity You could just look at that like because the lens of people look back on don't ask don't tell is always very critical rightly, so we've evolved um

but At the time it was a huge step forward like and and people failed to see that Yeah, um, so yes, you're absolutely right. These guys who are writing very culturally sensitive things That could just include there is a black werewolf Like it could just include that and they'd be like they would at that time be rightly praised for including some diversity Yes, you know, so so part of what then grew out of werewolf Because there's there's mention made in the basic rule book that at the beginning of everything

When when the umbra and the physical world overlapped more? There were a bunch of other species of shapeshifters. There were were bears and were cats and were crocodiles. And there were all of these other different shapeshifting species. And somewhere along that line were wolves determined that they were the truest guardians of Gaia. And for whatever reason, uh, you know, different

groups blame different groups, but they wound up, there was a, a war that the Garu won. And in the process of doing that, they drove the other shifter species to near extinction. And so as, as the game developed, they also came out with, Hey, here are the, where the, the other, other shifting breeds was one of the source books. And they talked about like where lions for example, okay are African and

So oh, okay as a as a where and your character is going to be African sure sure or you're gonna have to come up with some kind of very convoluted explanation about how your character is not African right like You know where where Panthers are Latin American, where crocodiles are Egyptian, you know, I'm trying to remember what all, what all the other, other ones were, but there was this whole, you know,

the, the introduction of the other changing breeds was this attempt by the writers to be inclusive and bring non-European, non- you know, Native Americans of course are in it from the beginning, but there's a lot of noble savage stuff kind of attached to the way they're characterized, which is, you know, better than negative stereotypes, but it's still imperfect. Right. You know, and so this, this was this attempt to be like global in terms of inclusion and that's awesome. But again, uh, problematic steps forward. Yes.

You know, and those, those characterizations are, you know, based on incomplete understanding of the cultures that they're trying to be inclusive of. And so there's a whole lot of stuff. Vampire to a modern reader, looking at first edition vampire, there's a lot of ick because of consent not being understood as a thing and the themes of manipulation and domination and, and that, that are, that are part of that ethos are icky, right? Yeah. Um, and the way they're handled to a modern reader, it's, it's kind of ick. Yeah Werewolf runs into I think a similar problem in a in a modern rereading But it has much more to do with cultural awareness and sensitivity Because of the nature of what the game is about

Okay, yeah, yeah, you know And I had a whole lot more fun playing werewolf Was the joke I made at the time was like yeah, you know if I become a vampire Yeah, I get all these abilities, but you know, I never get to go out in daylight ever again You know, yeah, I can be a werewolf and Live my life. Yeah, you know, yeah and You know? Yeah. And so I think we, and I say we, but it was you a lot, spent some time going into these stereotypes that are associated

with vampire players in the culture. And those negative kind of connotations don't cling to werewolf. They do not. And the player culture in the same way. Yeah. And again, I come back to it's because of the nature of the story that werewolf is telling. Yeah, I could see that. This isn't moral horror.

This is existential horror. This is, we are living through the end of the world and you're going to struggle mightily against it and you're going to do awful things in the defense of the world. Uh, and you're probably going to fail. You know, that's, that's the horror here. And that is to within our culture, there is a kind of nobility that we attached to that idea. And so that again, it's, it's, it's a testament, I think, to the creativity of the people who were putting all of this together, that they could go from one game that was so very much about what it was about to another game set in the same universe with the same game system, with just a couple of statistics changed for the characters sure and have it be such a completely different thematic thing and and I genuinely think that's

part of the appeal of the world of darkness as it's ongoing you mean as it's ongoing now or at that well as it as it as it developed over time is that as each game came Out it's a different philosophical examination of identity of existence of the human experience through the lens of Your you're not really entirely human

In some way or another And and so we're going to examine this different kind of aspect of sure. What does that mean? And you think that that like I could see that philosophy Drawing people to the game now Yeah, you think that that was I could see that philosophy drawing people to the game now yeah you think that that was genuinely a drawback then I I don't think anybody had outside of maybe the writers of the game were probably like you know this is this is kind of where this is one of the effects we kind of want to have as people learn you know play in the sandbox Mm-hmm. I don't think

the Meta analysis of what was going on in the games Certainly when when werewolf came out there there wasn't enough material for anybody to really see that Yet because you only had the two games to compare against each other right as the world of darkness expanded and especially when we get to mage which is like you almost need to be a philosophy minor to like it's my favorite one of all of them because like if you know how to bullshit your way through the system you can do just about anything like right it's I love it it's it's it can be a dumpster fire if you know how to bullshit your way through the system you can do just about anything like right?

It's I love it. It's it's it can be a dumpster fire if you don't have a good game master But it's it's awesome, and it's just way too much fun Yeah, and I think in terms of the stories you tell it's the most flexible one, okay? But I'll get into that next time but so so the, the idea that each one of these games is giving a different lens on the human experience, I think is something that we have the benefit of hindsight for and at the time, at the time that wasn't, I don't, I don't think that was the draw at the time. The draw was mostly about this is gritty. This is Gothic and dark. And, you know, this is coming from a tonal direction that other stuff doesn't, you know, um, this is modern fantasy, which was not a, a sub genre that had really

been explored in great depth. Right. Like call of Cthulhu, you usually wound up playing in the 1920s. Like that was kind of the default setting. Um, but you know, you could play it in the modern world, but it didn't that that was, that was Cthulhu. That was, that was a very specific kind of, uh, intellectual property that you were, it was that sandbox. Yeah. Um, and, um, uh, beyond the supernatural, you know, from palladium was in the modern world, but it was very much

What was the I'm trying to think of the title of the show I know I mentioned it when I talked about being the supernatural in search of it was very much You know in that in that in search of you know late 70s early 80s kind of kind of vibe for you know supernatural psychic phenomena monster stuff. This was fantasy horror in the modern world. Yes, with, you know, a filter over the lens, you know, and there was a harder, real, quote unquote, real kind of edge. Like, you could say, no, no, we're playing this game in San Francisco.

Right. And it's our San Francisco. We know the city. Like, I can tell you all about the street corner that you've all seen. Right. About the street corner that you've all seen right, but in this version of San Francisco You know there's there's a Nosferatu vampire, you know running the nightclub sure the seedy nightclub on that corner sure you know Yeah, and and that there's there's an immediacy. I think that's that's the word I'm looking for There's there's an immediacy to the fantasy when you can do that with it Yeah, it's proximal to your own life.

Yeah. And so that was, I think, the draw at this point. OK. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, that's kind of where I am with Werewolf. I'm gonna bring this one to a close.

Okay. And just mention that these ideas of the spirit realm, the Umbra here in Werewolf carry over into Mage, but the approach to it or the lens through which it is viewed putting it Changes very dramatically. Okay in in the two games Which is interesting to see from a purely narrative standpoint, but it also created some complications if you decided you wanted to Unite the two games at the table. Mm-hmm. So Anyway, we'll get into that in the next episode, but right now, what's your takeaway?

Well, actually, I have a question for you. Oh, yeah. Do you think that this could have worked if Werewolf was released first and then Vampire? That's a really good question I I think vampire I think I think vampire needed to be the first one I do too I think I think you needed to have the one that is like no we, we're just going to completely break the mold. Like everything about this game is going to be different.

Um, and you know, we're, we're going to, we're going to really make you a monster, you know, and have you have you figure that out and and have that concept Get out Into the public consciousness and have this setting get developed first That needed to be the part that that was the grounding or the foundation of building the rest of it See, I agree. I think that you need to like because from your description vampire I think that you need to like because from your description vampire Like you said was was a very grounded in reality materialism kind of thing

werewolf brought in a spirit realm a an ephemeral a Beyond the veil Type thing if you've done it the other way around it would have felt like you were descending instead of Continuing to build. Yeah, so I I would agree and I was That those were my exact reasons too. Is that yeah, and and the other thing is vampire is you know again? You're dealing with hunger Mm-hmm. You're not dealing with secondary emotions. You're dealing with an instinct and then in the second one you're dealing with madness Anger rage. Those are secondary emotions. Yeah to something else. And so you are going from the inside out as well

Yeah, so yeah Which makes sense because you said the next one we're doing is mage, right? And just by your description that sounds like you're dealing with intellect. Oh, yeah So you go from I mean we're going up Maslow's hierarchy Like yeah, very much in so playing so yeah. Yeah. Anyway, that's that's kind of my takeaway I guess is that the the The way that they built the games in makes sense so far in yeah I kind of like right now talking to you about it. I kind of want to say vampire was ego and Okay threat and the decay of ego. Okay

Werewolf is id Like okay, I said id we're gonna get get super ego. Yeah, and and mage is 110 percent super ego. Yeah, I could see that. Yeah. Yeah And so yeah I'm looking forward to talking about that one cool just because it is Yeah, it operates on a On on a on a very different set of levels kind of all at once so Yeah, all right. Well. What are you gonna recommend to folks tonight?

I'm going to recommend vagabond Have to find my copy of it for the author's name because I had it a minute ago But it is the life of Miyamoto Musashi in manga form it is the the collected anthology volumes there's 20 volumes it ran for I don't even know drawn and here it is. Vagabond by Takehiko Inoue. It's based on the biography of Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa. And it follows his journey from being a wild and utterly unafraid of death 16 year old through his development as a person and a swordsman all the way to the end of his career and yeah right now I'm nearly done with volume one and I'll just hold it up so Damien can get

a look at just exactly what a door this thing is that is huge. It's it's gigundo Yeah, and again, there's like 20 of these So yeah, it's a great series. It'll provide you plenty of reading material and yeah, so that's my recommendation. What about you? I'm gonna recommend Captain America comic books issues 402 to 408 They came out essentially from July of 92 to October of 92 which really probably means March of 92 until August of 92. Yeah, but 1992 is when they came out

They are called the these are the Captain America they came out they are called the these are the Captain America issues called man and wolf where Captain America turns into a werewolf no shit really shit really okay yeah something in the water exactly like when we were talking werewolf I'm like wait a minute cap turned into a werewolf I bet you and I I I thought it was gonna cut one way or the other He either would have turned into a werewolf in the 70s Yeah but I couldn't figure out when that would have been because he no matted it up because you know the

Evil president committed suicide in front of him. Yeah, um and And then I was like, it must have been in the nineties and sure enough, boom, there it was 92. I was like, okay. So yeah, they're pulling on something there. So, all right. Anyway, uh, cool. Uh, where can we be found? We collectively can be found at our website at wubba wubba wubba dot geek history time dot com Where you can find our archive going back? 300 and X episodes at this point and

Find something anything in their topic that catches your interest and listen to it bounce around And then of course we can also be found on the Apple podcast app, the Amazon podcast app and on Spotify. Wherever it is that you have found us, please take a moment to subscribe and give us the five-star review that you know we deserve. How about you, sir? Where can you be found? Well, per the usual on the first Friday of every month, you can find me and Capital Punishment

at the Sacramento Comedy Spot at 9 PM. Tickets are $15. You want to bring money for merch as well, because we have pins, we have stickers, we have t-shirts. But May 2nd, June 6th, and July 11th are the dates that I'm gonna give you. Come on down, watch us spin that wheel, listen to us pun. We've been going at it for nine years now. So bring friends, get your tickets early because we will be selling

out all of those shows. So very cool. Yeah. Oh, you can get them online as well if you go to satcomedyspot.com and click on the link for. Oh, you can get them online as well. If you go to saccomedyspot.com and click on the link for the calendar, and you can find our tickets there, and you can buy them online. So that's the easiest and best way to make sure that you've got a seat. So. All right.

All right. Well, for A Geek History of Time, I'm Damian Harmony. And I'm Ed Blalock. And until next time, keep rolling tens.