Changing Breed Book 1: Bastet (Werewolf: The Apocalypse Sourcebook)
Changing Breed Book 2: Nuwisha (Werewolf: The Apocalypse Sourcebook)
Changing Breed Book 3: Corax (Werewolf: The Apocalypse Sourcebook)
Changing Breed Book 4: Gurahl (Werewolf: The Apocalypse Sourcebook)
Changing Breed Book 6: Mokolé (Werewolf: The Apocalypse Sourcebook)
Fera
The Garou are not the only children of Gaia.
Before the Wars of Rage, before the long centuries of blood and betrayal, Gaia's gifts were given freely to wolf and raven, to serpent and bear, to the great cats of sun-scorched plains and the cunning coyotes of the desert. These are the Fera: the other changing breeds, each shaped by their animal nature into something singular and irreplaceable, each carrying a piece of the world's balance that no other creature can hold.
They are not werewolves. They do not fight the same war, answer to the same spirits, or carry the same wounds. The Corax trade in secrets and carry the whispers of the dead. The Gurahl remember the art of healing in a world that has nearly forgotten it. The Bastet walk alone, proud and territorial, keeping their own counsel and their own ancient compacts. The Nuwisha laugh at things that would break lesser creatures, because sometimes laughter is the only honest response to an ending world.
What they share is loss. The ancient Wars of Rage left scars that have not healed even now - between the Fera and the Garou, and between the changing breeds themselves. Trust is not given freely among those who remember what it cost.
To play a Fera is to stand apart: from humans, from the Garou, from the easy categories mortals use to make sense of the dark. They carry a purpose older than memory and a loneliness just as old. Whether that makes them guardians, wanderers, or something stranger still remains to be discovered.
Occult Knowledge & Beliefs
Below is a summary of what the Fera believe about other supernatural factions:
Changelings
Faeries are spirits of the natural world, given life by human imagination and the pure quiet places in the wilderness. Only a small number of the changing breeds - those with deep spiritual ties and old pacts with the natural world - claim any dealings with the Fae, and their accounts vary wildly.
Any Fera players who believe their breed has relevant fae dealings may open a ticket with staff for clarification on their unique knowledge.
Kinain & Enchanted
Little is known about the Kinain except that, for some reason, they possess peculiar features and tend to be prone to the fantastical and the whimsical.
Virtually nothing is known about the Enchanted, only that they talk about seeing the sorts of things that would make other humans believe them to be insane.
Fomori
Fomori are not the typical humans who have chosen, unwittingly or willingly, to turn to the Wyrm.
They undergo a process similar to possession in which a Bane merges with them and warps them into a form more suitable to a Wyrm servant.
They gain great power, but it always comes at a price. Nearly all Fomori are physically deformed, mindless cannibals who lurk near toxic sites, plague-ridden villages, poisoned stretches of wilderness or forgotten catacombs or ruined tunnels.
Some retain a semblance of sapience, free will and a near-human appearance, and these few infiltrate human society on the Wyrm's behalf.
The Fomor retains his personality and consciousness, but his fusion with a malevolent spirit warps his psyche in very nasty ways. If the person was already corrupt, violent or insane, the resulting monster is truly psychotic.
Hunters
Several loose networks exist to root out and destroy or learn about supernatural beings.
Hunters tend to view the supernatural through the lens of their own beliefs - whether religious, moral, or pragmatic - seeing creatures of the night as something wrong that needs to be put down. The reasoning varies; the intent rarely does.
Very few Hunters hunt the Fera - not out of any sympathy for the changing breeds, but simply because few have the will and fortitude necessary to face a Fera in their war-form. Additionally, Hunters nearly always stalk the cities, where they can find their preferred quarry, and they are simply unlikely to encounter any Fera there.
Wraiths & Risen
Some Wraiths bear Wyrm-taint, but it doesn't seem to correspond to how malicious or destructive the animating spirit may be.
Since Wraiths are not spirits of the Triat (all three forces of which are tied to the living universe), it's difficult to judge how one will act or react based on what a simple Gift may sense.
Knowledgeable Corax say that malicious spirits of the dead have somehow crossed into the lands of the living and claimed bodies of their own, but no one is certain of the cause.
Most Fera see walking corpses as an aberration that should be corrected as quickly as possible - the natural order does not accept the right of walking dead things to exist.
Mediums
Little is known about these peculiar mortals except that, for some reason, they claim to see, hear, and speak with spirits not of the Triat.
Vampires
Most Fera feel that the only good Leech is one that's been burned to ashes and the ashes scattered to the four winds.
Where the Fera prefer the open wilderness, vampires are creatures of the city, and the Fera often blame them for the unchecked invasion of urban centers deeper and deeper into previously untamed wilderness.
Vampires survive and thrive on human blood, and they could not survive in the wilderness even if it were not for the changing breeds ready to slaughter them at the first sign of intrusion.
Vampires are far from defenseless. The blood they steal from humans grants them an amazing variety of powers unique to them. It makes them much faster and stronger, especially if they've fed recently.
Vampires frenzy much as the Fera themselves do, if presented with sufficient provocation such as insult, threat to life and limb, or humiliation.
Vampires suffer grievous wounds from the claws and teeth of the Fera, from fire, and from the sun itself.
Ghouls
Little is known about the thralls of vampires, aside from the fact that they seem to follow the commands of the Leeches with little to no resistance, even to their own detriment.
Werewolves
The Garou are the wolves of Gaia: warriors, guardians, and prophets bound to the natural order, forever struggling against the corruption of the Wyrm.
Every Garou is shaped by the moon under which they were born, and bound to their Tribe and Auspice in ways the other changing breeds are not.
The Garou and the Fera share Gaia's mandate, but centuries of bloodshed in the Wars of Rage mean that trust between them is hard-won and easily broken.
Werewolves suffer grievous wounds from silver, and their frenzies - while similar in nature to the Fera's own - can be more violent and less predictable in unfamiliar company.
Fera Kinfolk
The Kin of the Fera carry the blood of their shapeshifting cousins - the mark of Gaia's favor, passed down through generations - without ever taking on the shape of something other than what they are. They are the ravens who cannot fly between worlds, the cats who will never walk in two skins, the coyotes who hear the spirit voices but cannot answer in the old tongue. And yet they are not diminished by this. They were never meant to be their cousins. They were meant to be something else entirely.
Each breed's Kin carries the particular gifts and burdens of their lineage. The companions of Corax are sharp-eyed keepers of secrets, natural magnets for strange information. Those bound to the Bastet move through society with an uncanny ease, reading rooms and people the way their cousins read the wilderness. Gurahl Kin tend toward the healing arts, drawn to mend what is broken without quite knowing why. The ties between Fera and their Kin are quieter than those between Garou and theirs - less obligation, more affinity - but no less real.
To play Fera Kin is to occupy a fascinating edge. They belong to a world most humans will never glimpse, trusted with knowledge that could get them killed, and bound by blood to creatures who are ancient and strange even by supernatural standards. They are not shapeshifters. They are something more valuable: the ones the shapeshifters come home to.
Occult Knowledge & Beliefs
Below is a summary of what Fera Kinfolk believe about other supernatural factions:
Kenning Fera Kinfolk
Kenning Fera Kinfolk are typically taught what their Fera brethren know in an effort to better avoid trouble and/or defend themselves in time of need. See the above section on Fera beliefs about the supernatural.
Callow Fera Kinfolk
Callow Fera Kinfolk, with little to no awareness of their own heritage, know and believe only what other humans know of the supernatural. This can change if your character learns of their heritage on screen (thus changing from callow to kenning), depending on what other Kenning Fera Kinfolk and/or Fera share with the character.