Silent Striders

*"Trust me, I've seen things you don't want to know about. This, though -- this you need to know."*

Restless and haunted, the Silent Striders roam from caern to caern, always searching, always listening. They are messengers and advance scouts for the Garou Nation, rooting out things hidden to the other tribes and bringing word to the locals. Even in the modern days of electronic communication, the Striders prove themselves vital by bringing swift word of threats better spoken of face-to-face. They have a reputation for being taciturn and aloof, which lends extra weight to their words. When a Silent Strider has something to say, it’s often dangerous news.

The Silent Striders had their origins in Africa and the Middle East, particularly Egypt, but lore has it that they were exiled long ago. The tales have it that they were cursed by an ancient evil — a Wyrm-thing, an ancient vampire, perhaps both — a malignant force they called Sutekh. Now no Strider can rest within the boundaries of their ancient Egyptian homeland — and no ancestor-spirit of theirs can be found. Driven from their homelands, haunted by the spirits of the dead, severed from their ancestor-spirits and fated to wander until the end of days, the Silent Striders bear an immense burden on their shoulders. They have not rejected this burden — they still serve the Garou Nation, and take it upon themselves to aid the ghosts that pursue them — but any vampire that crosses their path runs the risk of feeling millennia’s worth of vengeance.

The tribe’s grim reputation earns them a mixed reception from the rest of the Garou Nation. It’s technically expected to offer hospitality to a Silent Strider, and wise leaders understand that any wandering follower of Owl may have critical information for them. But at the same time, Garou find it difficult to trust wolves that often don’t run in packs, and that defend no territory of their own. The curse on the tribe also concerns other werewolves, who have every reason to believe in such things. If the Striders are always on the move to keep two steps ahead of disaster, then will disaster come and visit wherever they rest? Most septs welcome the Silent Striders out of pragmatism, but it’s rare that the wanderers ever feel fully accepted.

But even though they may feel some longing for a permanent home, the Silent Striders have difficulty resting anywhere for too long. They refuse to compound their troubles by laying claim to territories that aren’t rightfully theirs, and after so long, they have developed restless souls. Many join packs for a while, to stave off the solitude, but few can stay in one place for years. Usually they stay and listen for as long as they can — and the Striders are patient, perceptive listeners — and then move on.

While they remain, though, the Striders are fiercely loyal friends. They may not be fully at ease in large groups, but they value the true companions they earn, especially packmates. They feel much the same way about their Kin — some Striders have a lover at every crossroads, but many more have brief and intense relationships with a single partner that will see the Strider far less often than they might like. Homid Striders thus often grow up with rare and conflicting memories of their Garou parent, who visits rarely and often seems distracted even then. The tribe has comparatively few metis, as the Striders are more likely to pair with other Garou than with their own, and thus many metis cubs with Strider heritage grow up in the other parent’s tribe. The rest are usually carried and concealed on their parent’s travels, taking what education and socialization they can at the septs where they can be revealed, and becoming acclimated to the road at an early age. Still, the lupus Striders have comparable problems to face — it’s not easy for a wolf-born to accept a life without pack or territory.

With the road in front of them and their ghosts behind them, the Silent Striders can’t help but keep moving. They can stay in a place for a time, but if bound against their will, they become despondent and withdrawn, often falling into Harano. Even those who keep moving usually meet lonely deaths somewhere on their journey — it’s said that the aged or sorely wounded of the tribe walk into the Umbra on a final quest to find their ancestors, never to return. Whether they succeed or not, none can say.

## History

The Silent Striders appear to have roots in Africa and the Middle East. Alongside the Children of Gaia, the Silent Striders were among the first of the tribes to protest against the Impergium, although the reason for this was more pragmatism (humans getting increasingly hostile, stronger, and aggressive with every passing generation) than actual concern for them. In their tribal homeland of Egypt, the Silent Striders were among the few tribes still on terms with some of the remaining Fera following the genocides of the War of Rage. The River Pact between the local Mokolé and the Silent Striders ensured a clear division in territory and allowed for a peaceful coexistence. The Silent Striders allied themselves with the Osirian League to stop the Antediluvian Sutekh, a vampire of immense power and deeply tainted by the touch of the Corruptor. Their struggles lasted centuries, until Shu-Horus managed to wound the great vampire, who in turn spoke out one last terrible curse that severed the tribe from their ancestor spirits and banished the tribe from the ground of Khem. The curse took one year to scatter the Silent Striders to the four corners of the earth, forcing them to abandon most of their caerns and making them homeless vagabond in the eyes of their peers.

The Striders profited from the road network of the Roman empire, but preferred the wilds to civilization. During the time of the rise of the prophet Muhammad, the Theurge Fire Walker received a vision which foretold Gaia's death by fire and smoke under a Red Star, while the Garou desperately put Metis into the world to defend a lost cause. Fire Walker succumbed to Harano a short time afterward.

### Dark Ages

Most Silent Striders stayed in the boundaries of the Caliphate, following its conquest into Asia. Some managed to gain the trust of a local Beast Court, while others began to roam the Central Asian steppes, even taking Kinfolk from the nomad barbarians there. When the Crusades reached the Middle East, many Striders followed them back to southeastern Europe, bringing with them the grim tales of the Flaying Plague. It was a terrible disease unleashed by the wizards of the Circle of Red, who found themselves destroyed by angry Garou. Many Silent Striders also followed the Mongols in their conquests against the Europeans.

### Victorian Age

Although the Silent Striders were aware of the Pure Ones long before many of their European brethren, they had always respected the territorial boundaries. When America was colonized, many younger Striders followed them out of curiosity, establishing Kinfolk families and enjoying the unspoiled lands. Strife with the natives led to bitter grudges, although the Silent Striders were among the more progressive tribes that actually tried to make amends to the Pure Ones.

### Modern Nights

The Silent Striders were faced with a serious drop in Kinfolk population during the Holocaust and when the surviving Jews managed to establish their own nation, opinions in the tribe over the incident as well as the rising Islamic tendencies in the Middle East and the growing power of radical groups began to diverge. When Fire Walker's prophecy began to seemingly fulfill itself, with Anthelios appearing in the night sky in 1999 and the Underworld wrecked by a storm of unmatched fury, many Striders were convinced that the End Times had finally begun. Also, the first children in centuries had been born that could hear the voices of their Ancestors since Sutekh had spoken his curse upon the tribe.

The Silent Striders were also among Kisasi's allies against Black Tooth and the Endless Storm, and later became official members of the Ahadi.

## Appearance

No matter where they were born, Silent Striders are almost universally lean and fit from constant travel. Those with high Pure Breed have long, lean wolf forms that resemble the jackals of ancient Egyptian art, and Crinos forms reminiscent of the Egyptian deity Anubis. Sleek black coats and yellow eyes are also a mark of high Strider Pure Breed.

## Kinfolk and Territory

Striders keep infrequent contact with their Kin, who are often dispossessed drifters themselves. They have no real territory of their own.

## Tribal Totem

Owl, the wise hunter who flies silently by night. Owl has a small, subtle brood of spirits to her name, peculiar creatures such as the Darklings and the tiny skeletal mice called the Twice-Born

## Character Creation

Silent Striders tend to be lean and hardy rather than thick and bulky. They pick up a wide variety of Abilities in their travels. Resources is a discouraged Background; Ancestors is restricted, thanks to the Curse of Sutekh.

**Initial Willpower:** 3

**Beginning Gifts:** Heaven’s Guidance, Sense Wyrm, Silence, Speed of Thought, Visions of Duat

## Organization

The Silent Striders have little in the way of formal organization. As the tribe is almost completely made up of wanderers and exiles, a formal hierarchy is of little practical use to the Striders. They communicate with one another mainly by leaving Garou glyphs, graffiti hieroglyphs, or similarly cryptic signs behind; a Silent Strider can sometimes learn where the local vampires' hunting grounds are just by scanning the walls of a subway station.

Striders congregate only when chance brings them together, save for the occasional grand moot, which all members of the tribe try to attend. The location of this moot changes with every occurrence, though such events are usually held on a desolate stretch of untraveled road. No outsider could say which Striders decide that a moot is necessary, nor is it known exactly how word gets passed from Garou to Garou. It simply happens, and the details of how are a tribal secret.

Among all the tribes, the Striders hold the smallest number of caerns. Few of these werewolves have any lasting love for a place (apart from those tales of his ancestral homeland a Strider might preserve), and most are born with a wanderlust deep in their blood. When a Silent Strider finally chooses a home to call his own, he intends to die there.

## Camps

Strider camps tend to be brotherhoods that specialize in a single broad field. Striders in camps recognize each other as members, aid and support each other when possible, and sometimes keep their own unique secrets and lore. Most recruit new members from cubs and cliath, finding young Garou whose interests are similar to theirs and convincing them that doing this one thing is vitally important to the health and safety of the tribe.

### The Bitter Hex

Members of the Bitter Hex wield one of the most controversial and dangerous tools known to the tribe: the curse. While members keep their association with the camp secret, the camp as a whole makes no bones about its existence. They want the rest of the world to know that their tribe has suffered enough, and the Hex has plenty of mojo to avenge any wrong, no matter how slight, against the Striders and their Kin.

### The Dispossessed

Since the day the Striders were banished from their home, the Dispossessed have sought a new one for them; unfortunately, they cannot agree on where that new homeland should be. They’ve tried to establish replacements for Khem several times over the past thousand years, but each one has (thus far) been a dismal failure. Dispossessed are mostly homid; wolf-born rarely understand the camp’s obsession with one patch of land over any other.

### Harbingers

Part of the Seekers until the tribe was driven from Khem, the Harbingers carry warnings of danger to those wise enough to listen. Wielding the twin swords of prophecy and fortune telling, Harbingers seek new ways of interpreting old warnings. Harbingers are renowned as some of the tribe’s most lethal warriors, venturing where others fear to tread in order to reap — and deliver — their deadly messages.

### Seekers

Originally travelers who quested for odd scraps of spirit lore, unique fetishes, or news of foreign lands, in the days since the Striders were driven from Egypt, the Seekers have dedicated themselves to finding a way to break the tribal curse. They are some of the cleverest, best informed, and most knowledgeable members of the tribe; they gather lore like misers gather gold.

### Swords of Night

Striders hate the undead, but none more fervently than the Swords of Night. This camp, spawned long ago as the Daggers of Nut, want nothing more than the impossible: to destroy every Leech who mars the face of Gaia with their unclean presence. While many Garou respect their fervor, they sometimes stir up problems for septs that have resigned themselves to an impasse with the vampires in their area; wary peace is an unacceptable compromise to the Swords. All Leeches must die.

### Wayfarers

Loyal to Gaia, to the tribe, and the Garou Nation, Wayfarers ply their mercenary trade as a way of compensating for the curse that drove them from their homeland. Unable to build the support structure that possessing multiple caerns and established flocks of Kinfolk can allow, they barter their skills on the battlefield (and beyond) with those whose are not so hampered. In doing so, they not only enrich the Striders with the resources they claim, but with the ties they build to other tribes as well.

*Additionally, there is a secret Camp that practice ways that are not orthodox with the culture of the Tribe at large.*

### Eaters of the Dead

Consume the brain of your enemy and learn all of his secrets: a vile but useful ritual. Unfortunately, the burden borne by those who practice such rites is often heavier than the knowledge they gain. All who consume the flesh of others slowly go insane and reek of the Wyrm’s stench. Some even develop an addiction to fresh brains, and will kill innocent and guilty alike in order to feast. Other Striders seek out and destroy those suspected of being Eaters of the Dead. These efforts have driven the remnants of the camp underground where they are rumored to practice their profane rite amongst the shadows.

## Silent Strider Caerns

* Arkwasiye Caern (just below Arkwasiye Pass, Ehtiopia)
* Sept of the Etesian Winds (Tanta, Egypt)
* Sept of the Wheel of Ptah (Mosque of Anfa, Casablanca, Morocco)
* Tallu Demtu Caern (Mount Tallu Demtu, Ethiopia)
* Boma Caern (Boma National Park, Sudan)
* Sept of the Western Flame (50 km west of Siwa Oasis, Egypt)

## Tribal Culture

Striders are rarely found in the company of other Striders, perhaps occasionally pairing up with another for a difficult journey. More often than not, a Strider in a group is found in a pack composed of many tribes. Otherwise, they tend to remain loners, never settling down.

One of the reasons for their frequent wandering is to find and destroy the influence of the Wyrm. To meet these ends, the Striders have pierced into the Umbra and into the realms of the dead. They are the only tribe to have mastered this art, and for this reason they have an unsettling air about them that tends to disturb other Garou.

With the usual exception of Banes and Black Spiral Dancers, the Striders hold their greatest hatred for vampires. Tribal legend holds that the Striders fought an army of vampires led by a dark undead godling called Sutekh. Sutekh supposedly cast a great curse on the tribe that drove them from Egypt, scattered them to the winds, and worst of all, severed their bonds with their ancestors. Since then, many Striders take Egyptian names as a link to their past, and search the Umbra in vain for some sign of their forbears. The Silent Striders do have a relationship with the Restless Dead. The origin of the relationship is unknown, but Striders tend to attract ghosts' attention when passing through the Gauntlet into or out of the Umbra. Rare is the Silent Strider who does not have at least one wraith tagging along as he travels. Out of a sense of respect and politeness, the Striders will generally avoid mentioning such ghosts in front of strangers.

### Political Culture

Perhaps no other tribe is as adept at gathering and spreading information than the Striders. As much as many of them talk, telling stories and bearing messages, they are also, on the whole, excellent listeners, and will pick up subtle details in a conversation others might miss.

Since they are usually the most well-traveled Garou of all the Tribes, the Silent Striders categorize the Tribes into four groups. First of them are the Pariah Tribes, who are different from the other Tribes and include the Bone Gnawers, Red Talons, and Glass Walkers, along with the lost Bunyip. The Tribes of Honor, who act as leaders for the Nation, include the Children of Gaia, the Shadow Lords, and the Silver Fangs, along with the lost Croatan. The Tribes of Glory, who are the greatest warriors of the Nation, include the Get of Fenris, the Fianna, and the Wendigo, with the former White Howlers as the lost members. The last group are the Tribes of Wisdom, which include the Silent Striders themselves, the Uktena, and the Black Furies, with the Stargazers as the lost ones who have turned away from the Nation. Each lost member is hold up as a cautionary tale against falling to deep into one of these pursuits and losing sight of the greater good of the Nation.

### Religious Culture

Because they are wanderers, the Silent Striders have the fewest caerns of any tribe, and the few that exist tend to be along roads or popular points of travel. It is often the guardians of these caerns that prove to be the rare example of a Silent Strider who actually stays put.

The Silent Striders believe that originally the Triat was in a state they refer to as Ma'at, balanced and in accordance with Gaia's will. In the state of Ma'at, the Wyld was *Ptah*, who formed new things; the Weaver was *Djehuty*, who gave order and structure to the universe, and the Wyrm was *Apep*, who returned the old and weary back to cycle. The modern Triat is twisted into Chaos, Stasis, and Corruption, and only by bringing these forces back into Ma'at will the original Harmony return.

Each Silent Strider who passes his Rite of Passage adopts a "Name of Remembrance". The Name of Remembrance is usually a Greek form of an Egyptian name, done to remember their lost Ancestors and their place of origin. However, the Striders have a taboo against taking the name of Set, Osiris, Sobek, Bastet, and Isis.

## Sterotypes of Other Tribes

### Black Furies

Brave and committed women, but they still miss things when they let anger cloud their vision.

### Bone Gnawers

Generous hosts with what they have, such as it is.

### Children of Gaia

Good folks, but could stand to listen more and talk less.

### Fianna

They know more than most, and they’re more willing to share their stories than any.

### Get of Fenris

They’re always there for you when you need them. Just kind of difficult to deal with when you don’t.

### Glass Walkers

They know the Scabs almost as well as the Gnawers do, and can find out anything a human knows. Don’t understand us much, but we don’t need them to.

### Shadow Lords

They can’t help treating you like you’re hiding something from them.

### Silver Fangs

The world is widening and their vision is narrowing. Not a good combination.

### Stargazers

They understand the immensity of the world and the reality of the ground under your two feet. Just not as good with the people living in between.

### Uktena

Like us, they don’t talk about half of what they know. Not sure I like the reasons.

### Wendigo

Some noble souls lie under all that bloody ice.