The Beast Fears Fire - Boreal Wolves

Boreal Wolves [Hardship/Violence 3]

Impulse – Huff, puff, blow your House in. Then eat you. Boreal wolves are large, white wolves that occasionally migrate down into the mountains from the Surleycrow Plateau. Unlike normal wolves, they tend to be solitary, and, even when hunting in packs, they more often than not get in each others' way, so rarely gang up. They make up for this fact by their enhanced strength and aggression and the fact that they can control Black Wind to chill, terrify and batter their prey before they start with the biting.

Harm – Injury 2, Peril [Terrified, Numb, Chilled, Shaking, etc.]. The standard boreal tactic is to knock their prey around with the black wind until the cold and fear slows them down and then wade in with the fangs.

When someone is using the Black Wind to hurt you, face Hardship.
On a Hit, you can choose to take harm as stated or a Peril.
On a Hard Hit, you take neither.
On a Miss, you get both. Sucker.


What all the howling's for.
The general consensus is that some unpleasant wind spirit way back in the day possessed a wolf for unpleasant reasons and ended up sticking around. The descendants of that wolf ended up with the spiritual powers of their secret, third parent, because that's how heredity works in fantasy worlds. Stories persist that somewhere up on the steppes of Murren, the progenitor of the Boreals is still hanging around, grown to truly massive size and wickedness.

Boreals hang out in the mountains when they come to Crickton, the lowlands being to warm for their tastes, even in the occasional snowy winter. They are thankfully uncommon, even in the Surleycrow, and on the Steppes where they are widely believed to have originated.

Wind witches will, not surprisingly, pay well for the remains of a boreal wolf; a lot of their bits make good components for their talismans. Coats and cloaks made from boreal pelts are good gear against the cold and against fear, which makes them fairly sought-after, and gives some hunters of normal wolves with the access to a little time and bleach the notion to try counterfeiting boreal pelts. This meets with mixed success; the average Crick has never seen one, so there is a chance you can pass it off. Wind witches know the real from the fake at a glance and trying to gull the most notoriously cranky of the traditions is probably not a great career move.

Some folks compound medicines to help with anxiety, timidity and erectile dysfunction out of boreal organs. These are not clinically proven, so beware.