Rank 2 Red Talon Gifts

(Camp: Glorious Fist of Wotan)

The Garou can reduce the mental faculties of his victim to that of an animal for a short time. An avatar of Griffin teaches this Gift.

A Red Talon using this Gift measures the vitality of her prey to plan her attack strategy effectively. During the Impergium, Red Talons used this Gift to pick the weakest of the humans and destroy them. Occasionally, the Red Talons killed the strongest of the humans to remove them from the breeding pool. Today, the Gift continues to help Red talons hunt and kill their prey. An avatar of wolf teaches his children how to detect the easiest prey.

The werewolf sends a full-throated howl shivering into the night sky, evoking primal terror in Gaia’s enemies. Creatures of the Wyrm who hear the howl find themselves troubled and unable to rest easily while their enemies are on the prowl. A wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.

Camp: Whelp's Compromise

The Red talons of Whelp's Compromise are willing to let the humans who respect Gaia continue to exist. However, despite what some of their tribemates might accuse them of, they are not "soft" on transgressors against Her. With this Gift, the werewolf can judge a human according to the laws of Gaia and decide if she is living in accordance with the natural laws or not. A human who is living well is left alone. A human who is not is shown no mercy. A wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.

Camp: Warders of the Land

Rather than take her vengeance directly on an offending human, the werewolf can choose to change the human's spiritual resonance to resemble that of a prey animal. Any predator that sees the human, no matter how small or normally afraid of humans, will see that human as prey. In most cases, this proves simply inconvenient, but if the human happens to own several large dogs, the result could be deadly. Any spirit of a prey animal teaches this Gift, sometimes under duress.

Camp: Lodge of the Predator Kings

Human corpses are problematic. They don't burn well, the Litany prohibits eating them, and if other humans find them, they tent to get offended and search the area thoroughly. Burying them isn't always an option because humans, being the curious little apes that they are, may eventually dig up an area for whatever reason and find the bodies. The Predator Kings certainly aren't willing to stop killing humans just because disposing of their bodies is a problem, hence this Gift. With but a touch, the Talon can cause dead flesh to decay and crumble to dust in seconds, giving it up as an offering to Gaia. A spirit of decay or decomposition, as well as some scavenger-spirits, can teach this Gift.

While any lupus werewolf can lean the secrets of jumping great distances, the Red Talons have refined the Gift to great effect when chasing or ambushing a foe. By employing this Gift, the Talon's leap "tracks" a moving target, allowing her to pounce on her prey even if said prey has dodged or fled while the Talon is in mid-leap. A fox- or (sometimes) a cat-spirit teaches this gift.

Howl Gift

The Red Talon can strip away the layers of humanity that cover up man's basic instincts. A human assaulted with this Gift finds himself behaving like a beast. Momentarily losing all civility, the human strips naked, runs through the streets, growls at threats and makes numerous, uninvited overtures toward members of the opposite sex. All thoughts of business meetings, color television and BMWs vanish in favor of the basic drives of survival.

Camp: Winter Packs

No Winter Garou have yet learned this Gift, and only the older Red Talons who had a hand in the Winter Council know it. This Gift, meant as a last resort, allows the user to smash stone, rend metal, and generally destroy any man-made object within reach. A wolverine-spirit teaches this Gift.

Camp: Dying Cubs

With this Gift, the Garou can spill the blood of a foe on the ground and immediately reap the energy thus released. Talons who overuse this Gift, however, often begin to smell vaguely of charnel to any werewolf using the Gift: Sense Wyrm. A spirit of decay teaches this Gift. Banes are also capable of teaching it, however, only the Dying Cubs themselves know which type of spirit teaches it to the Red Talons most often.

(Camp: Seekers) / (Camp: Hand of Tyr)

Name changed to Pulse of the Prey in 20th Anniversary Edition

The Red Talon becomes the embodiment of all of humanity’s primal fears of the wolf, carrying a heavy miasma of ancient terror about her. A fear-spirit teaches this Gift.

When danger stalks the Garou or momentous events are in the offing, visions begin striking the Garou without warning. The nature of the danger is veiled in metaphor -- a powerful vampire may appear in the Theurge's dream as a bloody skeleton, while an impending battle might be heralded by dreams of carrion crows. Cros-spirits teach this Gift.