The Path of the Black Spiral

Since the days of the Roman Empire, werewolves have "walked the spiral" to commune with the spirits of the Wyrm. This spirit quest is usually performed in the Shattered Labyrinth. The largest entrance to the maze is a great inlaid spiral on the floor of a Gothic cathedral known as the Temple Obscura. Inside, the stench of sulphur and monoxides is overpowering. Rows of sickly green balefire ceaselessly churn lava and effluvium. On the floor of the cathedral is an intricate, interweaving pattern stained in blood.

As a dancer weaves back and forth along this elaborate path, he enters a trance, one that gives him visions of an insane realm stranded outside of space and time. The valiant cultist then pursues a visionquest towards the center of the labyrinth. His Black Spiral Dance allows him to permeate the membranes that separate the concentric circles of this realm. As the initiate pursues the mysteries of his order, he follows an Umbral journey through a series of underground tunnels. His ordeal tests his inner wisdom and answers his doubts with madness.

Method to the Madness

Black Spiral Dancers are always abhorrent and deranged individuals to say the least, but the mental maladies that afflict them are not limited soley to the Wyrm-tainted fallen Garou. As is their nature, Black Spirals recruit from all manner of supernatural and mortal beings that show true "potential". These twisted souls are always forced, if they prove to be unwilling, to dance the Spiral of the Shattered Labyrinth and the Urge Wyrms are perpetually hungry. Those that survive are never left the same; a truly fearsome soldier of the Father emerges to take its place among the swelling ranks of the army of darkness.

Common Black Spiral Dementations and Dementia

Amnesia or Delusion: These dementia are blessings from Pseulak, the Urge Wyrm of Lies. The terror of your former life is gone, now Pseulak has dreamt a new identity for you.

Berserker: The Beast-of-War has chosen you. In violence, you find ultimate freedom. All of your Rage rolls are at a -2 difficulty.

Grandeur: Your mind has been kissed by the fetid lips of Mahsstrac, the Urge Wyrm of Power. You believe that your role in the tribe is much greater than what other suspect of you…obviously a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Hallucinations: Kirijama, the Hidden Foe, has shown you things which should not be. Only you can see them; they mock everyone else.

Klazomania: The voices in your head won’t stop, and you can only quiet them by screaming at the top of your lungs. You can’s speak without shouting, and your glorious words echo through the polluted air that H’rugg taints each day.

Masochism: Pleasure and pain are one and the same. Karnala, the Urge Wyrm of Desire, has shown you the way.

Misomania: Your hate is constant and focused against everything. Abhorra, the Urge Wyrm of Hate, can guide you in your dementia.

Multiple Personalities: You could never choose one head of the Hydra, so you now serve all three. Each of your personalities should have a different name, follow a different auspice, and obey a different Hydra of the Dark Trinity.

Paranoia: Sykora, the Urge Wyrm of Paranoia, wants to drive you insane. Her minions are everywhere, so you had best live up to her ideals.

Phagomania: You hunger constantly. Any meat you kill is quickly devoured. The Eater-of-Souls may even show you the glories of cannibalism.

Sadism: You adore the reactions of others in pain. The suffering of others satisfies Angu, the Urge Wyrm of Cruelty.

The Nine Circles

Theurges speak of nine thresholds of wisdom in the Spiral Labyrinth, nine concentric circles of unspeakable ordeals. Each circle offers a test that a dancer must overcome before she can advance in Rank. If she is particularly ingenious, she may even learn a deviant gift from the servitors of the labyrinth. The experience often resembles a little story; a surreal vignette set within endless corridors and presented by a host of treacherous Umbral spirits.

The First Circle:

The Dance of Insight

Before a werewolf can be recognized as a true Black Spiral Dancer, she must survive this first ordeal. The experience always begins in darkness. The dancer then receives visions representing dark truths within her soul. Often, these secrets have been hidden for the sake of the initiate’s sanity. Blasphemous revelations offer the promise of further understanding, but the dancer must first overcome the limitations of her own mind. If she is weak, the experience shatters her sanity.

Blessing: Smashed Mirror: The Dancer becomes immune to all forms of madness inducing powers simply due to his sanity already being that corrupted and wyrm-tainted that other effects simply slide off him like water off a ducks back. This is a permanent alteration.

The Second Circle:

The Dance of Rage

In the second circle, the initiate learns the strength of her anger, allowing her to indulge in violence as no mere Garou ever could. Overwhelming problems besets a dancer who enters this portion of the labyrinth. The only way to overcome them is through frenzy. Utter psychotic ultra-violence is the only path leading out of this circle, encouraging the Black Spiral to enact any act of violation or destruction to achieve her goals.

Blessing: Rageful Soul: The Dancer who has passed this Circle is gifted with such potent control of his boiling Rage that he can light it into a bonfire of such raging proportions that he is capable of sudden bursts of frenziedly fast activity that make Celerity pale in comparison. Focused use of this Blessing allows such effects as an additional action in a turn, or a speed that exceeds Celerity 8. This power does require activation (though does not count as an action) and use more than once per combat can result in extreme Frenzy, though while within Frenzy the Rageful Soul takes over completely and all actions occur at this blinding speed.

The Third Circle:

The Dance of Endurance

In this realm, the dancer must endure tests of physical and mental anguish. The experience is often a twisted version of a test the dancer underwent in her previous life, ultimately showing that she is too strong to fall before such opposition now. Physical anguish results in a higher tolerance to pollution, radiation, or sheer pain. Mental anguish allows communion with the Urge Wyrms, increasing understanding of the spirit’s tactics so that the dancer may use similar methods against her foes.

Blessing: Mega-Stamina: The Dancer of the Black Spiral who has passed the Third Circle, that of Endurance, becomes beholden of such vastly increased stamina that shotguns and other mundane weapons become relatively useless against him, and pain is nothing to a Dancer who has reached this understanding. Only supernatural damage poses any kind of threat to a Dancer of this rank, and all bashing and lethal damage is halved against the Dancer. This is a permanent alteration that needs no activation.

The Fourth Circle:

The Dance of Cunning

The guardian at the threshold of the fourth circle is a treacherous Bane, one who must be mislead in a test of wits before the dancer can pass. This draws upon the dancer’s Gnosis, requiring her to twist wisdom into false logic. Surviving this test allows the initiate to see through the deception of others, especially the spirits who serve the Wyrm. The Dance of Cunning may also involve realizing the truth behind a great lie.

Blessing: Wyrmish Logic: The Garou is capable of twisting his words and corrupting their meaning in such a way that what he says becomes total verbatim and unbreakable law for the target of this Blessing, they will fully believe in the Dancers words with everything they are. Additionally, lies and deceptions, including Dominate-enforced falsehoods and the use of Obfuscate and Chimerstry become as easy to see through as a clear window.

The Fifth Circle:

The Dance of Combat

Before crossing the threshold of the fifth circle, the petitioner must overcome a legion of foes. This ordeal is more of a symbolic epic battle than a blow-by-blow brawl. Sometimes the dancer tries to impress her tormentors by using violence in the most imaginable ways possible. If she can overwhelm these enemies without betraying her fear, her prowess in battle increases dramatically.

Blessing: Art of Combat: A Dancer who is potent enough to have passed this Circle becomes even more of a death machine than other Garou, capable of engaging multiple opponents with a full set of actions, and can never be surprised or attacked from behind, all attacks count as frontal,

The Inner Mysteries

Only a truly gifted werewolf can overcome one of the four Inner Mysteries. As part of this, very few Black Spirals are recognized as being above 5th Rank. The Dance of Corruption, Dance of Loyalty, Dance of Paradox, and Dance of Deceit are pursued in the four innermost circles. In the history of their order, only two Black Spirals have allegedly crossed the threshold of the final circle. The first, Hakaken, was invested by the Wyrm as an Incarna. The second is rumored to be Number Two, the former ruler of Malfeas.

The Sixth Circle:

The Dance of Corruption

The dancer’s sense of self is distorted through vast physical mutations and mental schisms. The most secure aspects of her identity must be systematically destroyed, rebuilding the Spiral into the reflection of the Wyrm. Those who conquer this circle often undergo radical personality shifts. The journey may even resemble a little Kafkaesque story, one where the dancer realizes that a seemingly sane part of reality has become utterly corrupted.

Blessing: Corrupted Essence: The taint of the Wyrm in Dancer of this potency is that strong that attempts to reach or affect his mind or soul fail unless he lets them within. Attempts to bridge to his soul or mind without permission are retaliated by a pure blast of Wyrmish corruption that tears at the sanity of the targets mind and the integrity of their soul.

The Seventh Circle:

The Dance of Loyalty

The dancer is presented with a situation where he must show how willing she is to sacrifice for the sake of the Wyrm. She may have to overcome her greatest taboo, sacrifice her greatest love, or face her greatest fear. Often, the dancer sacrifices a link to the sane, human world, one that she has kept hidden all this time.

Blessing: Unswerving Purpose: By possessing this Blessing, the Dancer is made immune to all forms of coercion. Vampiric Dominate and other such diversionary powers, such as Contradict, fail to work, hitting the impenetrable barrier of the Garou's fanatical loyalty to the Wyrm.

The Eighth Circle:

The Dance of Paradox

Very few pass this test, wherein the dancer must overcome a riddle contest posed by the Bane of Enigmas. Upon returning, any understanding the dancer gained during the test is lost. No one who has survived the test has even been able to repeat the mysteries discussed, though many suspect that it has something to do with the true nature of the Triat.

Blessing: Harnessing the Triat: This powerful Blessing is bestowed only upon those who have been able to dance the Eight Circle of the Black Labyrinth, and through its invocation, for a short time, the Dancer literally becomes one aspect of the Triat, Weaver, Wyrm, or Wyld, gaining access to every power of every kind of creature that falls under the respective Triat Member's auspices. A Garou that harnesses the Triat in this way is truly something to be feared for it, shifting to resemble the Triat Member in question, the Weaver is an immense spider, the Wyrm is a great Dragon, and the Wyld is a constantly shifting, changing chimerical being that has no real form. Under this power, the only thing that can harm the Garou is something anathema to the member of the Triat he is embodying.

The Ninth Circle:

The Dance of Deceit

The dancer must conquer a manifestation of the Wyrm. , destroying it in single combat. Some believe that in the ninth circle, the dancer must briefly become the Wyrm, and that the revelation of the Wyrm’s true form is quickly forgotten. Regardless, only two Black Spiral Dancer’s have ever passed this ordeal; the rest were presumably devoured.

Blessing: Eating Your Own Tail: The Dancer that is fortunate enough to receive such a blessing as this from the Wyrm ascends to a level of power concordant with the Maeljin Incarna, great potent Lords of the Wyrm that are immortal and possessed of myriad powers of spirits and other Wyrmish creatures. When a Dancer of this power level is killed he does not truly die, the Wyrm keeps him locked in an endless cycle of servitude, not wanting to lose a servant of such power, and thus, he will be reincarnated in Malfeas, and must find his way home.