Okay, so we left off with the proper 'awakening' of the cave. From here, the game's going into a bit of a time jump with the occasional stop to take care of stuff during that period. Now, this one gets into some serious Garou ritual stuff, so if anyone reading has any questions feel free to ask.
Following the Garou 'meeting' the cave with Deborah as an intermediary, the idea came up to hold a small, somewhat-improvised moot to properly consecrate the caern and pump some Gnosis into it, with plans to hold a larger, proper one later once there's been time to figure out who's coming to the new sept to stay. The initial plan is to hold the monthly moots on the New Moon (fitting, for a caern of Secrets). And Raptor's Strike, as one of the highest-ranking Garou in the area, volunteers to lead the new sept for a little while until things stabilize and the Garou there can find their feet. Claudiu is the first to vocally express some concern about that, wondering if there's going to be an issue with Strike not passing on his power when the time comes (after all, Strike and Claudiu are Silver Fang and Shadow Lord, respectively, and this is the nature of things). Strike counters with, basically "Look, this isn't my home sept. I'd rather get back to where I should be, but in the meantime I'm probably the ranking Garou in the region and somebody's gotta do this job for a little while." The cave vouches for him with the caveat that it's watching.
Åke wants to get in touch with Andrea and Roy, but no-one in the pack knows just how to find either of them. They know if they poke around town enough Roy might turn up but Andrea is definitely going to be hard to get ahold of. And there's some concern about going back to town with the threat of potential attack in the area. Åke and Jerry are all for heading back to Marlinton to trying anyways, because they feel guilty as hell about even unintentionally excluding the Fera emissaries from the moot. Claudiu offers an alternative: He steps sideways, gets a word in with some of the spirits drawn in by all of the activity (he is, after all, a Spirit Magnet), and manages to convince a couple of them to go track down Andrea and Roy and let them know what's going on.
Eventually the moot begins after sundown, with Raptor's Strike in charge and running things until they can establish some sept positions. He holds the Opening Howl, and comes up with an offering to get the attention of the caern totem as part of the Inner Sky portion of the moot. He calls for someone to into the cave and share with it a secret that nobody else knows. Aedan Thorne of the Edge of the Firelight (one of the NPC packs that's been hanging around and helping) volunteers after a few moments of silence. He steps into the cave, and a few moments later the glyphs inside begin to glow and waver and shift. Water begins to come out of the pedestal, pushing out from underneath the moonstone as the carving on the top glows along with everything else. The presence of Uktena, the caern totem, is palpable. Aedan comes back out, somewhat impressed, and takes a seat.
We began the Cracking the Bone portion of the moot, where sept business, rank challenges, dispensing of renown and the like is dealt with. Strike volunteers the Sons of the Saga to step up and remind everyone how everyone got brought together for this; normally, there's a separate portion of the moot for this sort of thing, referred to as 'Songs and Tales,' but for the sake of the flow of the scene we combined them this time. Åke gets up and tells the tale, sharing the adventure with the assembly. He and his pack are granted renown for their deeds.*
Then Strike asks if there's any new business, and the members of the Sons of the Saga all challenge for Rank 2 (as they've achieved enough to qualify).**
Jerry, the pack's Ahroun, must challenge another Ahroun of higher rank to a sparring match, to three knockdowns or submisison. He challenges a Fianna from the Edge of the Firelight. They shift to Crinos form immediately begin some attempts to sweep each other off their feet, but Jerry quickly changes tactics to grapple the other Garou. He gets a good grip on him -- good enough that the other one can't get away or reverse it -- and even with Garou regeneration manages to crush him until he gives up. Jerry is Rank 2.
(As this goes on, Build This Wall -- who has turned up for the moot -- as a few quiet words with Raptor's Strike while the two of them give Claudiu some pointed looks.)
Next is Åke, the pack's Galliard. His challenge is to, with only a few minutes' preparation and a borrowed acoustic guitar, perform a rendition of one of Deborah's songs. He's given some time to prepare, and then finally performs. Mechanically, I treated this as an Intelligence + Performance roll to put together an arrangement he can play, with the results determining the difficulty of the Charisma + Performance roll to actually play the song. He manages to nail it, and is welcomed as Rank 2.
Claudiu's challenge is a little more complex (partially because it let me tie off a loose end regarding a spirit favor) -- not one that can be performed that night, so they're going to spell it out, finish the moot, and then he can attempt the actual challenge the next day. He's asked to retrieve a lost Kinfolk fetish from the nearby Cranberry Glades. As a matter of helping him find it, Build This Wall explains that before he left to join them at the Cave of Secrets, the Warden from their home sept asked him to help call in the favor that Claudiu owed him to cleanse a portion of the Glades. The section of the Glades in question, presumably, is where the fetish can be found. Claudiu accepts that challenge, and Raptor's Strike asks if there's any more new business.
A voice calls out, asking for recognition. Andrea and Roy step in from the edge of the light, wanting to present themselves formally to the Garou and explain that they know their role as emissaries and wanting to get the "if anyone has a problem with this, now's the time to say it" portion out of the way. Awkward silence, followed by murmuring and whispering from the crowd, until Berry steps up to them, arms wide, and welcomes them as brother and sister. Claudiu does take a moment to warn them that there's going to be some pushback, that people won't like it, and Åke openly steps up to proclaim that they have a place at the sept and shakes their hands. Raptor's Strike asks the Sons of the Saga if they're willing to voice for Andrea and Roy, and they agree that they would. And thus, Strike accepts the Fera ambassadors.
The moot continues, with Andrea and Roy sitting alone because the NPC Garou aren't entirely comfortable with sitting near them. Åke takes it upon himself to sit with them to help them feel welcome and explain some of what they're seeing (though Roy appears to already be very well-versed in Garou moot protocol). Eventually the moot builds up to the Revel, where a bunch of Garou shift into Crinos and just wreak havoc through the woods to burn off energy after getting all revved up. (Andrea and Roy naturally stay back, though IIRC Åke offered to sort of escort them through it if need be) Afterwards, as things die down, Raptor's Strike approaches the Sons of the Saga about filling a few proper positions in the new sept. Notably, he offers Claudiu the position of Caller of the Wyld (who summons the caern totem at the beginning of the moot), Åke the position of Master of the Howl (who handles the Opening Howl), and Jerry a position as a Guardian (one of the official caern defenders).
So eventually we move to the next day. Claudiu heads out to the spot in the swamp where he's supposed to look for the fetish and look into what needs to be done to cleanse the area. The rest of the pack is allowed to accompany him just in case things go off the rails, but handling the challenge is up to him. It's an overcast day and everything is dreary -- sounds seem muffled, colors seem muted. Claudiu gets a weird vibe off the place and steps sideways into the Umbra. Everything's kind of muted and gray there as well, with hazy presences. He realizes this feels like what you'd expect out of a haunting. So he steps back to the physical world and just calls out for any ghosts present to show themselves. A man in an old military uniform fades in, translucent and clearly dead.
He and Claudiu talk, and it comes up that this section of the Glades is home to an unmarked Civil War graveyard. And because of the unacknowledged presence of the bodies, the spirits are trapped in the area. Claudiu offers to have someone perform a cleansing ritual that should work a little like an exorcism to dislodge them a bit, and to put up a proper memorial of some sort to recognize the sacrifice. He gets the names of the soldiers there, and the ghost he's talking to drops the name Nathaniel Simmons, whose family were located very nearby. Claudiu realizes that Nathaniel must have the missing fetish, and gets permission to dig up the body. He shifts to Lupus and digs it up the old-fashioned way, finding the body and finding an amulet marking him as an honored Bone Gnawer Kinfolk.
They mark where everything is and head back to the Cranberry Glades Sept, to present the amulet to Build This Wall and prepare arrangements to have the Glades cleansed. (After being formally recognized as Rank 2, he then takes the amulet back to the Simmons household, as it belonged to one of their ancestors.)
And we left off there. The next session should focus on some time-jump downtime, and introduce Bryan's new character.
*-- Just a note on how I give out Renown, if I haven't mentioned it. I mostly treat Renown as having been recognized by spirits and other servants of Gaia. Normally, you get ten points of temporary Renown, and you have someone perform a ritual to convert it into a single permanent Renown. Until you have it converted, your temporary caps out at ten. As a house rule, barring circumstances I go ahead and have it roll over as long as you make an effort to keep everyone apprised of your adventures; I don't want to unintentionally screw over players if they do too many awesome things in a short period of time.
**-- I only describe things for Claudiu, Jerry, and Åke, but Berry also participated. However, Berry's going to be leaving the pack after this session and things were already going to be crunched for time so we didn't see the point of digging into a rank challenge for him.
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