Stargazers

"The enemy which you fight does not exist. The Rage which burns within you does not exist. The glory which exalts you does not exist. Honor and Wisdom also do not exist. There is only the True Gaia Realm. As a great bodhisattva once said, 'Beneath the fury of die world all is secretly well'."

- Saram Snow-on-Treetops, Stargazer Philodox

Overview


While the Stargazers have spread their wisdom across the world (rumors even claim that one walked among the Pure Ones before the European invasions), their greatest monastery and earthly abode of lore has always been in Tibet. No more. The Wyrm and its minions had long desired the destruction of this sacred caern. Through the Chinese invasions, the Wyrm finally got its wish.

The Shigalu Monastery, home to the Sept of the Snow Leopard, was overrun by Wyrm creatures posing as Chinese military forces. Among them was one pf the greatest Banes:
Goghikkhu, a materialized nexus crawler. Even the mighty Kailindo masters of the monastery could not stand before the invading horde. Many brave Garou died holding back the enemy long enough for some of the monks to gather the most important fetishes and escape by Moon Bridge. No reinforcements could be gathered in time, for the caern fell soon after, its Pathstone devoured by Goghikkhu.

Not all the fetishes and lore could be rescued, and it is believed that invaluable material has been lost forever - or worse, given to the Wyrm. What's more, two of the eldest monks, each carrying many fetishes, disappeared on the Moon Bridges; no one knows where they have gone. Some speculate that they plan to hide the fetishes where no one can find them; others say they are surely lost in the Umbra, perhaps harried by Wyrm servitors, and many Stargazers have likewise disappeared on quests in search of the monks. It seems a dark time for the wisest, of tribes.

Appearance
The Stargazers are a truly multi-ethnic tribe; they have adopted the children of many bloodlines into their own. Many are European, African, or Middle to Near Eastern in ancestry; however, most Pure Bred Stargazers reflect the tribe’s original territory in the Himalayas, India, and the Far East. Their coats run the gamut from pale gray to deep black, and a light striped pattern isn’t uncommon. They tend toward lean and athletic builds rather than thick musculature, and most carry themselves with quiet calm.

Kinfolk
The Stargazers tribe is sadly lacking in strong Kin support; their tendency to preach self-discipline and limited attachments to humans or wolves cuts down on the number of casual conceptions. The tribe originally bred with the people of India and the Himalayas, but as the Stargazers spread across the globe, they adopted many ethnicities as Kin. The tribe is particularly interested in keeping their wolf blood and instincts strong, and so the Stargazers are inclined to seek out wolf mates more frequently than one might expect. Their human Kin tend to be intellectuals, and are often people of strong convictions besides. Most aren’t particularly rich or influential, but they usually have a variety of skills that their relatives may call upon.

Organization


Unlike other tribes, Stargazers do not have a tribe-wide hierarchy. While one of the camps, the Klaital Puk, elects the reincarnation of the tribe's greatest sage to leadership, this revered figure is not accepted as a leader by all members of the tribe. Instead, the prime leadership role among Stargazers is that of mentor.

Each Stargazer has a mentor, one who guides him in his path to enlightenment. It may happen that this mentor is only temporary, that the student one day graduates to walk alone, but more often the mentor is a lifelong guru, one the student continues to revere even after the mentor has died. Indeed, it is not unknown for mentors to continue to aid their students as spirits, although it is more likely that they are reincarnated - perhaps as Stargazers to be tutored by their former students, now masters!

Tribal Weakness


Obsessive Mind Games
The Stargazer who fails an Enigmas roll becomes obsessed with the riddle, unable to concentrate on anything else until he finds the solution. During this time, the Storyteller may choose from a number of minor effects to represent this inward obsession (only one at a time, though). Examples include shutting the world out (+1 difficulty to all Perception rolls) or a slow reaction to outside stimuli (+1 difficulty to all Initiative rolls).

Camps


Klaital Puk
The most traditional of Stargazer camps and perhaps the one with the largest following is the Klaital Puk, led by the reincarnation of Klaital himself. Puk monks endeavor to gather lore from the past and safeguard it for other sentient beings until they are ready for it. After the troubles in Tibet, the monks have increasingly left their monastery retreat for extended missions in the modern world. They hope to find beings capable of understanding the Truth the Puk wish to reveal.

This camp is most respoiyible for spreading the belief that the true enemy of Garou - and the world - is the Weaver, the source of all delusions, the greatest of which is the modern world: an extraordinary illusion of dysfunction. Thus, the true mission of an enlightened Stargazer is not to battle the Wyrm directly, but to reveal the enemy behind the Wyrm, to sever the web of falsehood preventing perception of the True Gaia Realm.

Ouroboroans
Like the Klaital Puk, Ouroboroans believe that the Weaver is the true enemy and that she has fully corrupted the Wyrm by trapping it at the center of her delusory web and feeding it her venom, a powerful anesthesia that provokes hallucinations of hellish existence. Instead of fighting the Wyrm, Ouroboroans say, it must be freed. Hence, some of these monks believe that the ways of the Wyrm must be used, not shunned. They walk a path dangerously close to the Black Spiral Labyrinth.

The World Tree
Similar in some ways to the Children of Gaia, the World Tree monks seek to extend their wisdom outside the ranks of the Garou to all shapechangers and some other Awakened beings - and even to individuals, who do not yet know the secrets of the Invisible World: un-Awakened humans.

The Zephyr
This camp hosts perhaps the most boisterous monks, ones most concerned with action in the world over abstract philosophy. It is little wonder that the Zephyr has produced the greatest Kailindo masters and the most adventurous and rootless Stargazers.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License