The Children's Rite

By Honorah O'Neill (hconeill@cc.owu.edu) for the Breakers tribe.

Level Three Rite

Description

All Breaker children learn the first half of this Rite as a child, though they think it merely a game. They call the game "Father's Footsteps" and it's designed to lead them off to some great adventure, just like their ancestors. This involves the children taking an old skull, any animal's will do, and setting it cranium down on the ground. One of the children then calls out over it:

"My father was Free Folk,
His father a Bastet,
His grandfather a Nuwisha,
His great-grandfather a Garou.
I am my father's child,
and so my blood runs true!"

The child then spins the skull and calls over it:

"And so they guide me, And I follow in their steps,
As I follow their voice,
Now see my ancestor's choice!"

Whatever direction the skull ends up pointing in, the children run off in that direction until they find a source of amusement. Surprisingly enough, they nearly always find something special, be it an unusual butterfly, some old coins, an arrowhead, or a small friendly spirit. Older Garou cease to play this game, but it is not forgotten. The second half of this Rite is taught to a female by her mother. It is unknown to the males. To enact this, the Breaker recites the first verse about the father and then a second verse which is as follows:

"My mother was Free Folk,
Her mother a Bastet,
Her grandmother a Nuwisha,
Her great-grandmother a Garou.
And mother to us all, Gaia,
Who makes my blood run true!"

These verses are recited over a talisman obtained from her mother. This could be anything easily wearable, a braid of her mother's hair, a claw, or something else similar. Often if the mother is aging, she will give her talisman to her daughter, so many of these are hundreds of years old.

Once this is done, she carries this talisman at all times. This ensures that she will breed true. Depending on how successful the invocation was, any Metis born to her will be fertile or possibly all her blooded children will inherit the gene. If she should remove the talisman at all while carrying a child however, the child's chances plummet to the normal probabilities for blooded children. If the talisman is ever permanently lost or is destroyed, her chances of passing on the gene at all become extremely slim, only one in twenty.

System: To create the token, the Breaker rolls Wits+Rituals, Difficulty 11-her Past Life. If she is blooded herself, the difficulty is 12-her Past Life rating. If she botches the roll, her chances for passing on the gene become one in twenty with a Homid and one in 25 for a Lupus. Metis will be sterile. If she merely fails, the chances are as those listed above for blooded Breakers. How well the talisman works is dependent on how many success she gets.

Successes	Result
1	A 75% chance Metis pups will be fertile. 1 in 4 chance that Homids will inherit the gene, 1 in 6 chance for Lupus pups.
2	A 90% chance Metis pups will be fertile. a 50/50 chance that Homids will inherit the gene, 1 in 4 for Lupus.
3	Metis pups are fertile. 9/10 Homids will inherit the gene. 1 in 3 chance for Lupus.
4	Metis may learn Level one Gifts of their father's tribe at normal cost. All Homids inherit the gene. 50/50 chance for Lupus.
5	Metis may learn the Gifts of their father's tribe up to level three at normal cost. Homids may learn up to level three Breaker Breed gifts at normal cost. All Lupus inherit the gene.

If the Breaker female's mother has died before she was taught this Rite, one of her mother's sisters may teach her, or one of her older sisters, but her difficulty will be one higher on the roll. Additionally, this Rite may only be performed once in a Breaker's life. If she fails or loses her talisman, she may not try again.