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Life Mates
A really essential part of a Kinfolk's life is their ties to the Garou. Their role with the Garou has often changed through the generations. Tribes had once fought over kinfolk, the most bred, the most captivating, the more intelligent and cunning were sought after like prized possessions. In other generations the Kinfolk were one night lays and hopes that a child would be conceived. At first all of these seemed to come to the forefront of the Nation's mind when the total loss of Garou were tallied after the last battle. Conceiving and carrying a child to term for any Garou or kinfolk has become rare. Miscarriage is very common and loosing an infant in their first year of birth is a heartbreak for any Garou, and the Sept involved. With numbers already low each loss was a greater blow and added more desperation to the cause.That was until the discovery of life-mates. It's a relatively new term for the Garou Nation but there is not a single Garou alive that does not know what it means. For the Garou it means hope, it means life and colour and passion. Since the time of the Battle of the Umbra, Garou had lost their ability to feel and see the world in nothing but shades of gray and white.
When the first life mate was discovered they had thought it was some trickery or magic. The kinfolk in question had thought she was going crazy. For all her life she had been plagued with a voice whispering in her dreams, a voice that she thought she knew and only hoped to hear every time she went to sleep. She had gone through life feeling as though there was someone out there, whose pain she could feel, whose sadness leaked through her own tears whenever she cried. For the Garou it had been similar; he had gone through life watching others around him, hunting, learning through others reactions what emotions meant even if he couldn't feel it himself. Sometimes he would feel her, a woman in his presence that made him feel calmer and reassured. At times he could feel her pain or whenever she was in trouble, and it would drive him near mad. It was disconcerting for both involved and they often thought they were insane or troubled, possessed or haunted by some spirit or other.
That was until they met each other. What was to be a simple passing in a Sept became much more and changed the hopes of the Nation thereafter. His dreary world blossomed into colours, bright and dazzling. She instantly felt a connection with this Garou, knew it from the core of her that it was this man that had plagued her dreams. Within days they knew each other intimately, beyond flesh and thoughts. He could feel elation, passion beyond the thrill of a hunt and could see that the sky is blue. She could temper his rage and give him a sense of peace simply by being around him. They could rarely be apart and to try and separate them from one another for long periods of time had them in a high state of anxiety or stress. As they discovered each other, and the Garou were left to puzzle over the turn of events, rumours spread like wildfire. Soon there were more discoveries of similar events and with these curious couplings came many questions.
What was going on? Was it magic? Was this Gaia's doing? Or the Wyrms? There were too many questions and too little answers. Even now Garou debate endlessly on what has happened between Garou and Kinfolk and whose role is what. But there is one theory that seems to fit it best; When the Weaver calcified the Gauntlet, Garou lost their connection to their spiritual halves, and much like the spirits that had once called the Umbra home, their spiritual selves had been lost. And this is why the Garou were unable to appreciate the colours and the essence of life with their own emotion. It's a theory that Gaia had placed these parts of the Garou in ones that she could trust; the Kinfolk, who live in the mortal realm; the very same one that the Weaver had sought to protect from the Battle of the Umbra. The Kinfolk who are already genetically linked to the Garou and the Mother, had now became the spirit keepers for the Garou. Where once kinfolk had to entrust Gaia and the Garou with their lives, now the Garou had to entrust Gaia and the Kinfolk with large portions of their lives in return.
It has also been found that a union that occurs between life mates has a high percentage of a healthy infant birth. Life-mates are able to conceive, and with care of a safe environment and undue stress to the pregnant mother, there has been successful pregnancies that carry to term and children that live beyond infancy. This alone is not the only force that drives Garou to find their life mate. Since the realization that such unions do exist, those Garou that continue life without their other half, or have already lost the life-mate they have never met (in this life), live without colour and emotion, and each day that passes there is a greater chance that their life will spiral towards the true darkness of the Wyrm. It is not uncommon for a Garou to fall to the Wyrm this way. With their lives best used for hunting and protecting, and with little else other than the ability to destroy, its no wonder that many Garou fall to their Rage and then to the ways of the Wyrm; where hunting becomes a desire rather than a necessity. And soon enough these Garou are walking the line of the Spirals and are often sacrificed by their Sept mates who must carry it out with heavy hearts. It's a very real fear for Garou, for them not find their life mate, or even worse, to have found their life mate and have lost them. Its true that any life mate that looses their other half fall to the thrall of the Wyrm, and those kinfolk that suffer the lost of their Garou-mate often become empty shells, suicidal or become completely mad. But as such, this has always been the way of things; for every light there is a shadow, and Gaia's children are no exception. Finding a life mate is a great cause for a Sept to celebrate and loosing one is a very somber affair.
Players have the ability to choose whether or not they want this to effect them in game. Players can choose Kinfolk or Garou that have or haven't found their life mate. The bond between life-mates is a spiritual one and this aspect of the game is to add something new to the World of Darkness. By no means is a player pressured to have this a large part of their characters life if they are not inclined to do so.
Garou that do not have a life mate will still be able to act accordingly, the lack of emotion does not mean that they are great brutes incapable of understanding the consequences and the intelligence behind emotionally motivated actions. It merely means that those Garou that do have their life mate are emotionally in tuned with themselves; they essentially have their spirit awakened and can appreciate the world around them more than a Garou that only has Rage to be familiar with. Alternatively, they have the option of playing a Garou that has been looking for their life mate and is becoming quite desperate in their hunt and may beginning to be falling towards darker tendencies. Be warned though, that such Garou will often be watched closely.
Those that choose to go with this new concept have several possibilities. Their characters can be looking out for their life mate and not yet have met them. It is up to the player whether or not they have had dreams or heard their mate across distances. Players can choose whether they want their life mate to be met in game, be it another PC or an NPC, but this must be noted at character creation or discussed with the ST.
Players that are starting the game with a life mate must always keep the following in consideration:
Please read the game forums for more information.