Sample

file

Sample

file

Sample

file

Sample

file

Sample

file

Sample

file

Sample

file

Contents 9

Keepers of Sun’s Wisdom

By Jim Comer

Sample

file

Mokolé10

© 1999 White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden, except for the purposes of reviews, and for blank character sheets, which may be reproduced for personal use only. White Wolf, Vampire the Masquerade, the Dark Ages, Mage the Ascension and World of Darkness are registered trademarks of White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Werewolf the Apoca-lypse, Wraith the Oblivion, Werewolf Players Guide, Silent Striders Tribebook, Hunters Hunted, Bastet and Mokolé are trademarks of White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. All characters, names, places and text herein are copyrighted by White Wolf Publishing, Inc.

The mention of or reference to any company or product in these pages is not a challenge to the trademark or copyright concerned.

This book uses the supernatural for settings, characters and themes. All mystical and supernatural elements are fi ction and intended for entertainment purposes only. Reader discretion is advised.

For a free White Wolf catalog call 1-800-454-WOLF.Sun says check out White Wolf online athttp://www.white-wolf.com; alt.games.whitewolf and rec.games.frp.storytellerPRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES

Special ThanksNot a lot of jokes this time, just a fond farewell to two

of the greatest gentlemen who ever edited or developed a White Wolf book (and they write a mean Changing Breed or two as well), and who have made the offi ce a genuinely better place to be during the time they stayed here:

Ed “El Tiburon Gigante” Hall, for making damn sure that any book he worked on, particularly those stupid ol’ Werewolf books, was going to be done right.

Richard E. “Eye-Drinkin’, Black-Wearing, Wisecrackin’ Raven” Dansky, for just about everything, including movie reviews, Seder hospitality and the killer cat.

All our best, fellas. You know where to fi nd us if you ever get nostalgic for the old grind, and want to stop and laugh at the rest of us still doing this for a living.

To Mark and Chris.Thanks to the clutch: Chad, Mike, Meegan, Dean, Liz,

Steve, Troy and Christopher; thanks to Patrick and Gregg for encouragement; thanks to Conrad for India, and to John C. McLoughlin for the Kings. The dragons in this book are yours; the errors are all mine.

CreditsAuthor: Jim ComerAdditional writing: Rick Russell, Chad Imbrogno, Conrad HubbardDeveloper: Ethan SkempEditor: Aileen E. MilesArt Director: Aileen E. MilesComic Book Art: Joe CorroneyArt: Jeff Holt, Larry MacDougall, Steve Prescott, Ron Spencer, James StoweLayout & Typesetting: Aileen E. MilesCover Design: Aileen E. Miles

Sample

file

Contents 11

Contents

Sunrise: Dragons in our Midst 12An introduction to the Dragon Breed

Morning: Was 18The tale of history as Gaia’s Memory remembers it

Noonday: Us 30The four streams of Mokolé, and the tale of their society

Afternoon: Dragon Making 48Character creation, with Mokolé-specifi c Merits, Flaws and fetishes

Evening: Dragon’s Eye 78Dragon magic; the rites and Gifts of the werecrocodiles

Sunset: Dragon Lore 96Storytelling notes and elaborations on Mokolé-specifi c affairs

Night: Lizardskin 110Roleplaying notes and Mokolé of interestSam

ple file

Mokolé12

Sample

file

Sunrise: Dragons in our Midst 13

Sunrise: Sunrise: Dragons in Dragons in our Midstour Midst

These dragons grow exceeding big, and from their mouths cast forth a most pestilential breath, like unto thick smoke rising from a fi re. At their destined time they gather together, and developing wings they begin to raise themselves into the air. Then, by God’s good judgment, being too heavy they fall into a certain river which springs from Paradise, and therein they perish wholly. All those who dwell round about attend the season of the dragons, and when they see that one has fallen they yet wait seventy days. Then they go down and discover the bare bones of the dragon, that they may take the carbuncle that is rooted in the forehead thereof.

— Jordanus, The Wonders of the East.

Coils.They fi lled his mind’s eye as glass crunched beneath

his Pumas. How much glass, how many nights, how many cities? His head felt heavy as he shook it, heavy with horns and crests, heavy with the Was. Sun reddened the glass and steel of Sydney’s skyscrapers as he paced along trying to make up his mind. Should he take Jeffo and Morwangu’s offer? Would he still be Peter if he did?

He was full of time. Christmas dinner didn’t com-pare to the way it bloated him. There were days when the mammalian heat of his own body felt wrong. He dreamed of jungle swamps older than the Amazon. The fetish cellphone he carried was silent now, its technospirit angered. He saw tropical plants in corporate lobbies, and felt a longing for the Sun.

Why, Mother? Why?

Dragon had called him, with Jeffo and Morwangu as His agents, and done more to Peter than Nyi and Trees Dream could hope to. Dragon had steered him to the airport, bags packed for he knew not where, half dazed. In the Pacifi c night he had shaken awake and realized that this was a fl ight to Australia. On a street corner two Aboriginal musicians had known his name, told him why he was here. They had said that they had the answer, the way he should go, and had completed the gift of their Amazon cousins. Now the bequest was more than a fl ood of unwanted memories. It was the training manual for an army of dreams, the scripture for a church millions of years old. It was the creed of his deadliest enemies.

Garou had fought Mokolé for ten thousand years. Since before there were Glass Walkers, before there were even tribes at all, packs had taught their cubs to fear and hate the great reptiles. In the Wars of Rage, Garou had killed so many Mokolé that the Crescent Moons had fi nally declared the crocodile-shapeshifters extinct.

Sample

file

Mokolé14

That belief had betrayed them in the Amazon. Both the Garou and their enemies had been ambushed, trapped, destroyed without quarter by hidden foes mightier than them by far. Only Peter’s friends, the Ghost Raptors, had managed to communicate with the Dragon Breed at all, and then only imperfectly. Nyi Feathered-Thunder and her grandson Trees Dream had saved them from the deadly snow plague, fi lling Peter’s head with memories, the ancient Mnesis of the Mokolé. He had remembered things he never could, that no one could. He was more than himself, more than any Garou since the beginning of time.

He wasn’t happy with it.Peter turned another corner and saw them again.“Took y’ long enough, dinnit?” The younger Aborigine

took another swig of cane spirit and offered the bottle to Peter, who shook his head. “Y’wanna hear more, then?”

“Yeah. Uh, yeah, I think I better.”Morwangu quickened the beat of the click sticks and

began to chant, not Lardil or Pitjantjara but an older lan-guage, one Peter had heard half a world away. His words were impossible to understand, then impossible to mistake, and Peter’s eyes blurred. I know what he’s saying. I learned it...Within.

Was and Is were one.

Where Are All the Dragons?

Everyone knows that there are dragons. And, if you think about it, you always knew. Remember? Lurking in the corners of folklore and fairy tales; every creature in your dinosaur books. Under your bed, under the pond, under the surface of your mind? They were there.

You started to ask questions and the grownups told you there weren’t any such things. You didn’t believe them and looked for yourself. Looked into yourself for the coils and scales. The dragons were real.

You were a dragon.The Mokolé are shapeshifters: beings with three forms

who can change between them at will. One form is human. One is reptilian: crocodile, alligator, perhaps monitor liz-ard. The one in between is a beast out of time — dinosaur, dragon, sea-serpent, or some other living fossil, an amalgam of dreamed-of power. But the Mokolé are more than just shapeshifters. They are the Memory of Gaia, the living record of “all that’s past,” and they carry within them millions of years of history. Memory is the ocean wherein they swim and the wilderness they explore; they are living treasures of wisdom and power. This book will help you bring Mokolé into a role-playing game. It is a players’ guide, a book of rules, and a book about the Dragon Breed.

The Mokolé are immensely powerful creatures, but they are more than just living battle tanks who rampage over the bloody World of Darkness. Their true work is

memory, the Last Art, and they remember like no others. However, the Wars of Rage have slain so many of them and so damaged their “great work of time” that, according to them, Gaia is now almost mindless. If the decay is not halted, the Memory will be destroyed, and even saving Gaia will not be worth it.

The Dragon BreedFor I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.

— Job 30:29The Mokolé are the oldest of the Changing Breeds.

Paradoxically, they are at once the most unifi ed and the most divided. Unlike their old enemies, the Garou, who are one wolf species worldwide, they are many species and many genera: monitors, gavials, alligators, crocodiles and Gila monsters. Their human forms are divided likewise among the human peoples of the tropics. Each Mokolé lives by the “moment of the sun” which marked the time of her birth in the day or year. The absence of Sun at night means that some Mokolé follow Luna instead; in all, they are the only Changing Breed to revere both Helios and Luna. Complicating things further, the Mokolé are further divided into streams (the four great regional alliances of their kind) and individual clutches (local groups). Unifying forces, however, are stronger. All Mokolé speak the Dragon’s Tongue, and all share Mnesis, memories inherited from ancestors which connect them to the distant past when dinosaurs walked the Earth.

There are no “tribes” to command the loyalty of Mokolé. Mokolé are neither pack creatures like the Garou, nor solitary like the Bastet. Instead, they are united into clutches, family-like groups of Mokolé and Kin. The clutches are localized and preserve the Memory of a certain area. Wanderers pass between them to unite what remains of Gaia’s Memory. Clutches ally into streams, the four great “rivers out of Eden” which are the Mokolé. The four streams are:

The Gumagan, the Stream of the Forerunners, are the ancient Mokolé of Australia and Oceania. Now few in number, they are more adept than others at entering the Umbra and at deep Mnesis voyaging. They are Aborigines and Melanesians in their Homid forms, and saltwater crocodiles or perenty monitors in their Suchid forms.

The Makara, the Stream of the Folk, are the complex patchwork of Mokolé lineage and clutches native to the Indian subcontinent. They are skillful at negotiating the turbulent waters of Indian politics, religion and mysticism, and are Indian natives in their human forms. Their Suchid forms are gavials, mugger crocodiles and saltwater crocodiles. They use the motions of the Sun through the year, not through the day, to distinguish their auspices.

The Mokolé-mbembe, the Stream of the Fighters, are the largest and best known stream. They are the stream famous for their deeds and sufferings in the Wars of Rage. They are the Mokolé of Africa and the Americas, who are Native Americans and Africans in their Homid forms, and crocodiles, alligators, caimans, or even Gila monsters in their

Sample

file