Wyrmspawn
(Werewolf: the Apocalypse)
Its minions are spread throughout the realms of matter
and spirit. Its influence stretches from executive boardrooms to ancient
lairs of dark spirits. It is feared in all these places. It is the Wyrm.
The Wyrm writhes unseen, in the darkness and the light. Its coils
encompass the world. Wrapped in its slick, scaly embrace, the world slowly
suffocates and dies. Gaia gasps in pain as the disease eats away at Her.
it is growing, and none but the Garou know it.
Faces of the Wyrm
The Wyrm is in one sense a schizophrenic entity. Its self has been
shattered by the madness and grief of its imprisonment in the Pattern Web.
It sends out its wrathful thoughts and feelings to take form and act where
it cannot. These thoughts and feelings have taken on lives of their own.
Corruption: The Defiler Wyrm
The Wyrm operates in the Realm through its minions, those beings it can
corrupt for its purposes. Corruption is the reversed power of Balance.
It leads the corrupt to extremes and draws them away from personal
choice. Corruption is the essence of the mad Wyrm, and it manifests as
the Defiler Wyrm.
Consumption: Eater-of-Souls
The Wyrm must devour. Control of the universe is slipping from it, and
it ingests what it can to convince itself of its hold over All. The
Consuming power of the Wyrm is a factor of the Wyrm's Weaver self, that
part of it that encompasses stasis. That part of the Wyrm which is
driven to devour all is called Eater-of-Souls, also known as That Which
Eats Its Own Tail.
Calamity: Beast-of-War
Destruction is another aspect of the Wyrm, part of the power gained from
its Wyld self. This is the primal expression of the Wyrm's rage at
entrapment. it possesses all as the Beast of frenzy, corrupting the
humanity of vampires and the nobility of the Garou. Thus, the Calamity
Wyrm is also known as the Beast-of-War.
Urge Wyrms
Of the many thoughts of the Wyrm which split away and fled into the
Tellurian, the Urges are the most prevalent and persistent. These are the
primal, or base, emotions of the Wyrm. They have taken on autonomity,
though of a limited form. They are not thinking, but feeling, creatures.
They are naught but raw emotion. They have servants such as the Maeljin
Incarna, however, which provide minds for them.
Banes
The Wyrm most often acts through mortal agents, but it also has legions of
evil spirit servitors; the Garou have named these minions Banes. Banes
most often dwell in the Umbra, for they are spirits and thus indigenous to
that realm. Here, they use their spirit charms to corrupt all whom they
encounter.
There are countless varieties of Banes Some Banes appear to be
manifestations or personifications of malevolent forces or phenomena;
others are freakish monsters seemingly created with neither rhyme nor
reason. There are Banes of pollution, Banes of hate, Banes of terror, and
myriad others not so easily categorized.
Fomori
In its continuous struggle against the Garou, the Wyrm often finds itself
in need of foot soldiers. It is easiest and most satisfying to take a
creature of Gaia and warp it into a monster in service of the Wyrm.
The means by which the Wyrm accomplishes this are manifold: exposing the
creature to mutagens or balefire, tricking the creature into ingesting a
Wyrm-tainted drug or liquid, or seducing the creature to its side with the
promise of power. In the current, rational age, the Wyrm prefers humans as
its agents. Such Wyrm-infected individuals are called fomori.
The Primordial Beast
The Wyrm's anger and frustration are primal forces. Its coils reach out to
ensnare all into its corrupting embrace. Those it touches feel its madness
as if it were their own. All who are touched by the Wyrm know its rage
through the frenzy.
The Beast, dreaded by vampires and werewolf alike, is a primal legacy of
relationship to the Wyrm. The Beast is feeling without thought, naught but
raw urge. The Beast is the Wyrm, but it manifests in many forms, as do the
Wyrm's fractured personas.
Pentex
Among the earthly servitors of the Wyrm, few are as pervasive, or as
powerful, as the Pentex corporation. Pentex stands for the corruption of
human ideals, the perversion of the one-lofty goals of freedom and
enterprise. Pentex is a corporate nightmare, freely using "the
system" to corrupt the world, and perfectly capable of manipulating
whatever laws it can toward its own ends.
Pentex is a corporate octopus. Its tentacles spread in all directions and
wrap around nearly every conceivable market share, while the bloated body
remains hidden in a cloud of black ink and paperwork.
Bane Mummies
The Children of Apophis - also called the Bane Mummies, particularly by
their enemies - are dark and twisted parodies of the Shemsu-Heru mummies,
created by Set as rivals to the minions of Horus. But the result was
certainly more than he bargained for: while the Bane Mummies are truly
immortal, their experiences in the Underworld have utterly transformed
their psyches, and their souls belong to Apophis, the Great Devourer
of Ra.
These seven people - five men and two women - returned from the Underworld
and renamed themselves after the incarnations of Apophis, with powers even
greater than those of the Shemsu-Heru, that they might act as the servants
of Apophis' will.
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