House Rules for Quoth the Raven: Baltimore Garou
General Rules
It is the players' responsibility to familiarize themselves with Quoth the Raven: Baltimore Garou’s (QtR) House Rules and Policies. Ignorance of the rules is not an excuse.
All house rules are at the discretion of the QtR Storyteller staff. Storytellers have to make split second decisions sometimes when presented with an abnormal situation and may have to make a “non-precedent setting” rules call. Do not expect something to work the same way twice unless it is specifically written in these house rules.  
Unless otherwise noted in this document, we use the rules from MET Laws of the Wild 3rd Edition, MET Laws of the Wild Changing Breeds 1-4, and Book of the Wyrm. Book of the Auspices, Tribe books, Axis Mundi, Freak Legion, and all other source material may be used at the Staff’s discretion. 
All combat or anything else that might involve PC or NPC death requires a Storyteller to be physically present.
You may only play one character per game session unless you have permission from the Storytellers to play more. Permission should be requested before you go IC with any character. If your character is deemed "unplayable" (removed from play through plot, death, etc), you may play a second character. In any case where you play more than one character, regardless of reason, you may only apply XP towards one of them.
Character Creation
All characters may start no higher than Rank 2 at ST discretion. Characters may start higher with Staff approval. 
Characters may start with a max of 60 build points per OWbN By-Laws. This does not mean the Staff will always allow for 60 build points. Players will have an opportunity to earn build points up to the full 60 with background stories, portraying scarce or needed tribes/breeds/auspices, starting as a cub, etc.  at ST discretion. 
New characters will receive 1 dot of the following abilities for free as long as the 2 "free" abilities would not take the Build XP to above the 60 allowed by OWbN Bylaws: Appropriate Tribe lore and Garou/Appropriate Fera Lore.  (For example, if you have 50 build, this would technically count as 52 build. So if you earn 60 build somehow, you cannot have these traits for free, but can still buy them with your build XP.)
Players are allowed to have more than one PC based in QtR, but may not exceed a max of 3 based in the game. A max of 2 PCs may be active at any given time. 
At any time, the Staff may deem a specific Tribe or Fera as capped based on the number of active PCs in the game. 
Types of Characters

Active Character: A character which has earned XP within 6 months of the current date.
 
Inactive Character: A character that has not earned XP for 6 months or more from the current date. 

Shelved Character: A character which is unable to be affected by NPCs or PCs in any way. They may not participate in downtime scenes and cannot gain XP. Characters can be shelved at the request of the player or at the action of the staff related to a disciplinary action. 
Retired Character: A character which is no longer active in the Org. This character may not be played again, “un-retired,” etc. A character may be retired at the request of the player. 
XP 
XP may be earned via game attendance at 4 points. It may also be earned through Role Play at 1 point. Travel will be awarded based on distance to the other game, for a max of 4 points. Players may also turn in downtimes to earn XP from 1-3 points per downtime. No character may go above the max of 8 points per OWbN. 
Players who hold the position of ST in QtR may apply 8 points to a character based in QtR or another game which allows for ST XP from other games. 
A player who holds the position of ST in another game may apply a max of 8 points to 1 active PC in QtR as long as they do not receive ST XP on another PC in another game. 
A player who holds the position of Coord or Sub Coord in OWbN may apply a max of 4 points to an active PC in QtR as long as they do not receive Coord or Sub Coord XP on another PC in another game. 
Abilities and Backgrounds
Any extra abilities granted by Tribe, totem, etc. must be noted on the character sheet explaining where the extra traits came from. For example, if your Pack Totem grants you an additional survival, it must be listed in your Physical trait section with the note (1 from totem).
A specialization must be a narrow focus of the ability and cannot incorporate a group of actions. For example, a character cannot buy the Melee specialty Swords but can buy a specialty in Broadswords, or the Katana. Specializations may also be based on styles. For example, a character may have a Melee specialization in Two Handed Weapons.  Characters may only have one specialization per ability.
Awareness: 
This ability allows you to detect if a supernatural ability was used against your character. It does not, however, allow you to know what that ability was or who used the ability. Additionally, if a power has a visible recognizable effect in your vicinity, but is not used against you, you can use Awareness to discern the bend in reality. Occult may be used to cancel an Awareness retest.
Blind-fighting: 
This ability is only used to counter darkness as it applies to brawl and melee attacks. It does not apply to ranged combat. The ability works by being used as a cancel for the shroud retest when it is called against the character. If a character has the Blind flaw he must have the blind fighting ability to initiate physical challenges.
Etiquette: 
This ability can only be used to correct a faux pas; it cannot be used for obviously rude or insulting actions.
 In the case of a written message, Etiquette can cover up one mistake per Etiquette spent.  One Etiquette may not be spent to fix all mistakes.
Linguistics: 
Each point of Linguistics represents one language that the character is fluent in: reading, writing and speaking. There is no limit to the number of languages a character may learn.
Lore: 
If a character does not have a lore ability on their sheet, he or she does not know what that lore incorporates. If the character hears about something above the lore level they have on their sheet, the player may ask an ST to buy that lore. The STs will determine if that lore is allowable. 
Fame:
Each level corresponds to an increasingly broad geographical area.
Fame 1: Surrounding Suburbs and cities
Fame 2: State: Maryland
Fame 3: Region: Mid Atlantic
Fame 4: Time Zone: Eastern Standard Time
Fame 5: Nation: US
This background allows the character to use influences outside of Baltimore. Remember, high Fame levels means people know who you are and that is not always a good thing. 
Traits
Any extra traits granted by Tribe, totem, etc. must be noted on the character sheet explaining where the extra traits came from. For example, if your Pack Totem grants you three extra physical traits, they must be listed in your Physical trait section with the note (3 from totem).
Rituals
Players may purchase basic rituals for free as long as they are taught by a PC. 
Rituals are subject to learning times. You may learn 1 basic ritual every week, 1 intermediate per two weeks and 1 advanced per month. 
Creation of rituals is determined by the Staff and will be subject to creation times. 
Gifts
Characters may not have more than 5 gifts outside of tribe, breed or auspice. There may be exceptions to this rule such as a change in tribe, breed or auspice. 
Where appropriate and not noted in the book, Occult may be used to retest any gift. If the gift has a designated retest, that retest must be used. 
Call to Duty: If you spend 2 Gnosis, you may summon a specific category of spirits to you, however, it has to be relative to your location. For example, you cannot summon all nearby Electric spirits if you are in the middle of the woods. 
Armor
A character may not have more levels in Armor than their rank plus 5. Keep in mind that Health Levels and Armor Levels are two different things. Health Levels are subject to this rule as well. A character may not have more than their rank plus 5 in health levels. For example, at most, an Elder Garou may have 10 levels in armor and 19 Health levels with the right gifts and rituals. 
Challenges/Combat
Rage, gnosis and will expenditures must been announced at the top of the round. You must also state how much you are spending.
Your initiative is the total number of traits you will be bidding at the time of your challenge (weapons add to traits for this purpose).
Eye Contact in Combat:
Eye Contact is assumed, as long as you are not behind the target (ST will adjudicate in cases of positioning).  The defense against eye contact is to keep them behind you or close your eyes and accept Blindness penalties.
Messaging in Combat:
A mass combat in Werewolf might take 2-5 hours OOC, yet is almost always less than 60 seconds in IC time.  Unfortunately, what happens is someone NOT in the combat gets a message, and they are stuck IC with no option to react to it, and thus have to just spend the 4 OOC hours “waiting” to arrive at the fight which lasted 30 IC seconds.  
Communication out of a Time Stop Combat, and communications immediately prior to a combat will be restricted.  If you want to send a text or phone call to someone elsewhere, it will be logged with the STs, but the message will NOT be delivered until the combat is over.
This communication blackout will be invoked by the STs, primarily for mass PVP combats rather than ST Plot stuff, where we are more likely to try to find ways to be inclusive, but will be more on a case by case basis.
Surprise Rules:
When an aggressor successfully declares Surprise against a target, the target character may not use ability retests in the Surprise challenge, and the aggressor receives one free "Surprise" retest against the target. 
Failing Rage On Challenges:
If your character meets death and fails to rage on, you will be considered incapacitated for a number of actions equal to your stamina related traits. You will not be able to act, but others may take actions to heal you before you run out of time. Should no aid come to you, the PC will die at the end of those actions.