colbert's greatest fear

Well, I'm home for break, I got hammered for the first time for my birthday last night, and I woke up without a hangover at all while everybody I went with had splitting headaches. Perhaps this is because I am apparently a cheap drunk and erred on the side of "not blacking out" but still. I almost feel like I need to suffer a bit to balance out the scales.

But what could I possibly do to make myself suffer?



aaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Changing Breeds Part XIII: Ursara - Alternatively, Why Do I Do These Things To Myself?

Welcome back. It's been about six months since I last touched this shitheap, and I doubt any of you can blame me. You may want to go back and reread the last parts of this review to catch up and refresh yourself. For those who are too lazy and need to be brought up to speed, Changing Breeds is the worst book ever made by White Wolf and I want to watch Phil Brucato get covered in steak sauce and thrown to rabid wolverines.

The opening story bit is about a werebear who traps a hunter in his own pitfall and proceeds to murder him after helping him out because HUNTERS IN MAH FOREST. Ursara are one of the oldest Changing Breeds and are associated with wisdom, power, guardianship, and bravery. Also with absolute, uncontrollable, holy rage when you get them mad enough.

Also, this passage has something that made me giggle more than it should have.

quote:

To be Ursara is to accept a mantle of great responsibility along with fantastic might. Guardians of the hearth, towering killers, deadly clowns, consummate hunters, seers at the gates of death — all accords find their greatest manifestations in the bear-kin.

I want one of you out there to draw me a giant grizzly bear in a tiny clown suit honking a horn at other bears looking at it disappointingly. One of you drew the Awww!!! Shark, so I know there's artists in here

Ursara are usually powerfully built, excellent survivalists and deeply love their homes, rarely going too far from them. They are slow to anger but will fuck you up six ways til Sunday if you push them past their limit. They have deep voices and move at their own pace, which others usually find insufferably plodding until they're motivated to quicker action. They usually don't mess with or even associate with other changing breeds unless one challenges them in their territory, in which they end most fights with a single backhand.

They drift from group to group of bears when associating with them, as they, like the bears, prefer to be solitary unless raising a child. They aren't afraid to use modern technology to keep in touch with mortal relations or other Ursara, which opens up the spot for a truly agonizing "smarter than the average bear" joke that the writers use with glee. Also, bears have alphas now, apparently. I really should be making that point in every Breed but it's even more ridiculous here, even with the handwaving of respecting elders and only doing it during crisis.

quote:

Stereotypes
Man: Long ago, Man looked to us as gatekeepers to the lands of Death. Perhaps he needs to be shown the way there more often.
Mages: Too much power in such a small vessel. Who picks up the pieces when it explodes?
Vampires: Only Man refuses to die. We can fix that.
Werewolves: The bond between us is as ancient as the hills. Their teeth are sharp, but I will not "forsake" them.

The first breed are the Yonah, who - wait a minute.



The first breed are the Yonah, who are the black bear breed and are mostly Native Americans. They are the most even-tempered and sociable of the breeds, to the point where they get a free Social specialty, and mostly focus on bringing Man and Nature back into balance with each other, preferring to do it harmoniously but going to violence if it's necessary. Stats-wise, they're swole as hell but also rather slow in their animal forms, compared to other shifters at least.



Next up are the Nanuq, whose name comes from the Inuit lord of polar bears and not Nanook of the North (hopefully.) They are, in almost all cases, Inuit or Yupik, and look at the extremely rare "white-white bears" as spiritual thieves or the harbingers of the end times. They are more than a little pissed about global warming, as you would expect. They're essentially a bunch of Inuit stereotypes, really, mixed in with ecoterrorism undertones. They'd fit right into Werewolf: the Apocalypse. Stats-wise, they're huge and buff, and bizarrely have Awww!!! listed as a common aspect.



Lastly, in Other Breeds are the Storm Bears, which are the primal dire-bear types, the sort of animals that inspired Norse berserkers and roamed the earth long ago. They are the incarnation of the wrath of Bear and of Nature, and the wild North winds. I guess this is as close as we get for stats for a grizzly breed, if you don't just take the Nanuq, but holy shit these statistics are insane. The Warform stands at 15 feet tall and has +6 Strength and +8 Health, among other stuff. They have no breed bonus because their stat bonuses from shapeshifting are so insane.

And that's it for the bear breeds. Next time are the Wind-Runners, featuring the infamous Deerhoof Antlerdude (whose magnificent junk hair is featured above), and his horrible, horrible secrets.