#nuwisha

Everyone’s got a fuckin’ stain on their record as far as I’m concerned, haha. It’s easy to take the piss with the Garou, but the other Fera just looooove to pretend they’re squeaky clean. You look back far enough, you’ll see what I mean. When the Apis wore the crown, they were nepotists and holier-than-thou pricks who couldn’t take a joke. Rodens are pragmatic, sure, but speak to a couple about their practices of culling those who can’t do their job anymore and watch them hold back little mousy tears. The Rokea are swimming relics who also can’t take a joke, the Ananasi are if the Samsa weren’t as fun, the Bastet are too smug when it’s least convenient, and the Aquila are really starting to concern me with the nihilistic bullshit these days. At least we’ve still got the Anurana and the Corax.

But hey, you wanna know a secret? I heard this one from a Mokole-Mbembe I’m pals with down in The Big Easy, he said it really changed his perspective on things. Lemme finish this glass real quick and I’ll regale you. I’ve got all night.

Listen up kids, ‘cause I’m about to tell you about The Great Monkeying. Back before the Impergium, a long, long time ago— Shifters didn’t have Homid forms. Didn’t have Half-Homid forms neither. Makes sense, doesn’t it? We were just animals that could get bigger and smarter and tougher when we needed. There were outliers who could take weird-ass forms like the Dragon Kings could, but as far as we know, they didn’t look like Humans.

Have you ever wondered why we Fera can all turn into a single type of ape? It’s not like Homo Sapiens ain’t a fuckin species of animal too. It’s basic biology shit.

But, there were species of Were-Ape that existed, and that I’m pretty sure are still around. You might know them by the name “Yeren” or something. Their symbol looked a bit.... like.... this. Yeah, the ones that Pentex claims they invented. No, they didn’t invent a Shifter. The Wyrm can’t invent anything, didn’t you pay attention when your Elders were giving you lessons on the Triat, kids? Fuck. Where was I?

Yeah, the Yeren. They loved to push the boundaries, inventing crazy shit and diving deep into the Umbra with the best of us. Honestly they sounded like a hoot, but that kind of ambition can leave you open to some nasty customers. They got approached by a powerful Spirit at some point who made them an offer they couldn’t pass up.  It would teach them a powerful ritual that would grant their fellow Fera brand new forms to use in the fight against the Wyrm.

Imagine that! Granting every Fera that currently exists and will exist the capability to use entirely new forms?? The offer was too good to refuse obviously, and they entered a relationship with this new Patron. Time went on, and since nobody was really paying attention to them, they got to finishing their Ritual without a hitch.

Of course, the final step was to sacrifice themselves. Yeah, everyone. All at once. Hey, listen here. You might not think that it’d be a good idea, but these fuckin apes were crazy. They knew they’d die, but they also knew that they’d have committed such an incredible sacrifice that they’d live on forever. And, well. They kinda succeeded, just not in the way they might’ve wanted.

Here’s another thing you gotta realize too, kids. There were no mages or whatever before Humanity got its footing. There just weren’t. Not the way we know them. You can blame the monkeys for them showing up though, ‘cause their sacrifice essentially irradiated the earth around their Kinfolk with so much Gnosis that a bunch of them turned into the first mages.

And you know how mages can shape reality to whatever the hell their twisted perception is? It should be obvious by now where this is going.

These new mages saw themselves reflected in the Fera. Anthropomorphized them and shit. Like if steamboat willie were a cave painting. They applied Human characteristics to the Shifters, and as a result, they literally made them Human. One by one, as mythologies about men who turned into beasts and back spread across the earth, the Fera suddenly found themselves Human, in addition to being whatever animal they are. 

You really wanna call bullshit on this one? I’ve never been more honest in my life, it’s so hard to lie when I’m drunk. And it’s fucking HARD to get drunk! If you want the rest of this story without the bullshit, you’d fill back up my glass. That’s my explicit consent, by the way! Quit being shy with the pours!

Okay, so. Everyone’s obviously pissed that they suddenly can turn into naked apes. It’s a violation of just about every conception of consent out there. Everyone turns to the Homen to turn them to mush— wait, shit. I forgot something. The Yeren had a couple Tribes, and the one that did all this shit were Clan Homen. Homo sapiens. The gorillas and orangutans didn’t have shit to do with it. Anyways, the spiders tell everyone that Clan Homen had been working with an extension of the Weaver directly, and that they probably’d been tricked. 

That didn’t do shit to make anyone less angry. They wanted blood, and even more so after not even the greatest mystics around couldn’t figure out how to undo it. So, the Fera decided to turn on the other Yeren— just a little too late, though. About 99% of the bastards had fled deep into the Umbra before retribution could come ‘round, and we only rarely see them these days.

No, the Pentex-made ones aren’t real, I already said that. They’re not actual Shifters. It’s like if someone drew an evil crayon version of a Shifter and it came to fuckin’ life. No, I don’t know for sure, but I know a Fera when I smell one, and those guys just smell like cheap cologne and hate. You wanna hear the end of this story or not?!