The Dark Litany

The Black Spirals have rejected the Litany of the Garou; the Song of the Spiral raises the fallen White Howlers to the level of monarchs in a ruined kingdom. The world is their playground, their den and their keep, so long as they follow the rules their Litany sets for them. Adherence to this dark Litany grants them access to the vast power of the Wyrm’s Gifts, justifying their evil, turning it into a vile religious edict. These are the chains that the Spirals are happy to wear.

## The Tenants

### Serve the Wyrm’s Will — This is His Age

The Black Spiral Dancers have an obligation to promote the Wyrm’s work upon the Earth, but they vary on this, the first and foremost tenet of their Litany. The Princes of Ruin maintain that they have discharged their duty under this edict already, and that the war for the Apocalypse is over. The Wyrm won. They believe they serve the Wyrm simply by being the monsters they are meant to be.

A majority of Spirals holds a more active interpretation of this tenet, however, believing that in return for the Gifts and other spiritual power the Wyrm’s servants grant them, they owe the Dark Father some degree of worship and obedience. Belief of how much they owe the Wyrm varies among such Spirals. Some Spirals simply attend Hive moots and partake of tribal rituals, devoting most of their time and effort to their own desires. Others are full-blown fanatics, glorying in their role as the earthly avatars of the spiritual embodiment of ultimate destruction.

### Beware the Territory of Another

As with the Garou, the Spirals recognize their individual rights to claim and hold territory. Spirals respect this tenet almost universally. The tribe is in constant danger of Garou attack, and frequently engaged in invading and defiling Garou caerns, and would not survive long if its members didn’t respect one another’s dominions. Spirals show such respect with the typical rituals, with visitors howling to announce themselves and being accepted or rejected as usual. The Spirals take it a step further, informing nearby hives of the approach of any threats they might be aware of.

### The Spiral Awaits Those with Open Eyes

The Litany commands the Garou are to accept an honorable surrender. The Black Spirals have no such injunction. They give their conquered foes a chance to look into the Spiral Within — the darkness in their own hearts — and see the truth of the pointlessness of their struggle. Beyond despair, the physical Black Spiral awaits, ready to take the Garou to a place beyond pain.

It may surprise some that the Spirals do not always summarily dismember and devour Garou who surrender but do not submit. Long ago, the Black Spirals learned that such actions deify the ruined Garou, elevating them to the status of martyr. Such empowering myths drive their enemies’ rage, making them implacable and dangerous, whereas releasing a broken and beaten captive creates a general horror in the Garou populace. Each Garou believes that they will go down fighting; none wants to believe that he or she will be the one who breaks and falls to her knees in surrender.

Moreover, the Garou tend to lose trust, faith, and respect for one the Spirals threw back, seeing him as a seed of corruption, a traitor, or worse: an example of spiritual failure.

### Respect the Strength of the Mighty

Like the Garou, the Black Spiral Dancers have a rank and renown system to separate the alphas and omegas of a pack. Spirals give due respect to packmates who have distinguished themselves in the eyes of their fellows, for such commendations suggest a greater closeness to the Wyrm. In practice, this rule exists to minimize the occasions on which a young Spiral provokes an elder werewolf into ripping her heart out.

### The First Share of the Kill for the Greatest in Station

As with the Garou, the strongest among the Spirals gets the primary claim to the bounty of any conquest, be it choice of territory, choice of treasure, or choice of mate.

### All that is not Forbidden is Permitted

The world belongs to the Black Spiral Dancers. Anything not forbidden by the Song of the Spiral is allowed and even encouraged. This tenet, and the one that follows, form the cornerstone of the philosophy of the Princes of Ruin.

Notably, the Black Spiral Litany features no moratoriums on eating human flesh or mating with anyone a Spiral wishes to. The Spirals make much of this element of the dark Litany when they take captives. As a result, more than one Garou has defected to the Wyrm’s tribe in the hope of pursuing forbidden love without censure, willingly blinding themselves to the degrading atrocity that love soon becomes in the coils of the Wyrm.

### Indulge Your Desires — This is Your World

The Wyrm has supplied the Black Spiral Dancers with hungers, passions, and desires, with the expectation of their vigorous fulfilment. By sating these urges, the Spirals feed the Wyrm within. This is the most elemental form of communion the Black Spirals have, and the one that looks most like freedom to Garou who feel their own Litany closing in on them like the walls of a cell. It is also the tenet the Princes of Ruin stand on when challenged on their derelictions.

### The Veil Shall Not Be Lifted

The Black Spiral Dancers dream of a time when they might cast off the Veil and bring a new Impergium to the world. However, before the world can accept the ascendance of the Wyrm’s wolves, it must accept the death of Gaia and the pointlessness of struggle. Only when the skies are black and the cities are silent except for screaming, will humanity be ready to look upon the face of the God it has fed so well and made so mighty. Until then, the Black Spiral Dancers must lurk and fear the rousing of humans, who might gather with fork, flame, and silver and, by hunting and slaying werewolves, deny the Wyrm’s power on Earth.

### Suffer Not Thy People to Tend Thy Sickness

As with the Garou, but with a more selfish bent; many of the Spirals do not consider themselves “at war” in a general sense. Therefore, they do not waste time on the wounded or the daunted, and are far more willing to throw away the lives of packmates. Conveniently, they usually cite some weakness or physical or mental failing to excuse the decision.

Note that this is not a tenet that excuses murdering Spiral children, or killing someone who has broken their leg, or has taken ill but might recover. The Spirals will generally nurse and harbor those who have a strong chance of recovery, particularly if they have proven themselves strong in the past. Rather, the abuse of this rule surrounds some legitimate claim to weakness in a particular Spiral’s character, in which infirmity becomes grounds to eliminate a wolf who might have otherwise remained to weaken a pack. Such abuses, along with several tactically reasonable cullings, occur less frequently due to the widespread belief among Wyrmish fanatics that madness is a divine blessing of the Wyrm, rather than a form of infirmity.

### The Leader May Be Challenged at Any Time During Peace

Like the Garou, the Spirals recognize the absolute necessity of a hierarchy to keep the pack safe. This includes a routine, violent changing of the guard to ensure the dominance of the pack. However, many Spiral alphas keep their packs in sustained states of active war footing, much to the disgust of the Princes of Ruin, while many more have begun to operate in very loosely allied packs that might share a single territory with clearly divided boundaries, roles, and duties, but with each member acting as his own leader. In such associations, an alpha directs the pack when it works together, and directs his packmates in an overall agenda for their territory and their association, but otherwise leaves each packmate to pursue his ambitions autonomously. Such associations have been finding greater and greater success and popularity in newer generations of Black Spirals. A few packs have gained enormous prestige for rotating Garou members in and out of their operations without the Gaian werewolves realizing who or what they were associating with until they found a claw in their back or the Spiral Within opening in their hearts.

### The Leader May Not Be Challenged During War

This tenet describes situations in which violence is imminent, or during actual combat. Many Spirals vigorously pursue a stance that individual battles do not indicate that the tribe is embroiled in a larger conflict for the fate of Gaia, that war is over and done. They consider any conflicts with the Garou purely temporary, local matters, even when they initiate that conflict. As a result, efforts to refuse challenges indefinitely, citing a state of perpetual war, work much less frequently for Black Spiral alphas than for Garou warlords.

### Take No Action That Violates the Security of a Pit

Spirals follow this tenet almost without fail, as it highlights the paramount importance of a Pit to a hive’s survival. The Pit is the home of a Black Spiral Dancer, his sanctum and his place of power. The Spirals cannot win without their Pits and they cannot live without their Pits, and they treat their Pit’s location, nature, and information about its core spirit as their greatest secrets. Pack leaders often set the rules to protect a Pit’s safety. Those who compromise a Pit find themselves branded as traitors and hunted as prey.