Kinfolk
We are your parents, your spouses, your lovers. We are your brothers, sisters and children.
We know the secret war you wage and are willing to make great sacrifices for your sake. Yet we are less than equals in your eyes, in your society. Only mortals, you say.
But could you do without us? You need us. We Are Kin.
Kinfolk have the blood of werewolves, who call themselves Garou, running through their veins. The Shifting breed’s blood sings and removes the madness that clouds Human’s minds via the Delirium leaving the Kinfolk to remember what happens when their werewolf kin change forms.
Many Kinfolk serve the Garou, aiding them in their wars against the Wyrm and bearing them children in the hopes of making more. They see themselves serving a higher power more real and tangible than any gods. Others, those whose families have long been separated from their monstrous kin or particularly abused by them, see themselves as protectors and hunters burdened with protecting their fellows from the wolves at their door. Most have no idea what they are and go about their lives oblivious to the monsters that would claim them.
Kinfolk straddle the line between human and monster. Those that serve act as the go between for the Garou to humanity or take on support roles within a Garou Sept. They typically live in villages made up entirely of Kinfolk within, or nearby, their Garou’s territory. How well a Kin is treated varies, some Garou treat them little better than slaves while others treat them almost as equals.
The predominant tribe in our area, the Fenrir, fall in between. The Kinfolk's power lies in having a foot in both worlds, able to call upon their monstrous masters for aid and protection while also keeping them in check and from their neighbor’s throats. Information is power and the Kinfolk control the information flow from human civilization to the Garou.
If you play a kinfolk who serves the Garou how do you do so and how much do you know? Do you travel from a kinfolk village to the Thing, if so why?
Or do you hunt the monsters whose blood you share? What twisted your character from their purpose that you now try to kill your betters?
Or perhaps you do not know what your blood holds and one day soon you’ll learn.
How do we represent this at game?
Instead of skill mastery the sub-faction 'Kinfolk' removes the Delirium Weakness of the Human faction. The Garou Nation often use them as the intermediary between them and the wider human world or as servants and supporters in their war against their Wyrm. Thus, Kinfolk straddle both worlds.
The ability to act as they wish and remember what happens when a Garou shifts into their Crinos war form makes them perfect for battlefield healers, armorers, and farmers for the Warriors of Gaia.
Alternatively this same ability makes them ideal werewolf hunters, able to remember who morphed into a killing machine of claw and fur and find them later, when they are vulnerable.