u/noelwym

It's Weretober, so just sharing my W20 Garou characters, also known as the Lang Gang.

From left to right: Marco Makela, Victoria Freeman, Edward Freeman, Jason Lang

Marco Makela

Tribe: Bone Gnawer
Auspice: Galliard
Place of Origin: Central Oregon
Age: 25

The third of ten siblings, Marco was born into a Kinfolk family of distant Finnish origin. His eldest brother Alexander was hoped to be the family's next Warrior of Gaia, but in a funny twist of fate, Marco, considered the most lackadaisical of his siblings, ended up receiving Gaia's Gift instead.

It actually came at a rather important time for him, when he was struggling with matters related to his own identity. His desired identity was properly affirmed with how his supernatural forms presented as masculine, and his human body started undergoing changes afterwards, much to his delight.

Unfortunately, while his parents had wanted one of their kids to serve in Gaia's ranks, they were not expecting Marco would be chosen, and that their "daughter" turned out to be a son instead. Though Marco tried to get them to hear him out, they refused to have any of it. Only when he caught his father discussing bringing in someone who could "fix" him, did Marco decide he needed to leave.

He would spend several years sleeping in the rough in nearby Portland, where he would meet his mentor, a senile and abandoned Bone Gnawer Elder who taught him to use his wits, charm and looks to get an insight into what people are and how they think. Even after the old Garou's demise, those skills remain very valuable to Marco.

Best described as a prankster and flirt, Marco deliberately plays the role of idiot, cracking jokes at the worst times and looking as though he cares not for the world. In truth, he is arguably the most street-smart of the Gang and knows more than he lets on. It is just more beneficial for everyone to underestimate him, because when people let their guards down around him, that is when he gets to know every dirty little secret they may prefer hidden.

Victoria Freeman
Tribe: Black Furies
Auspice: Ahroun
Place of Origin: Manitoba, Canada
Age: 30

Compared to her mild-mannered brother, Victoria, or Vicky as she prefers to be called, comes off as brusque, direct and ruthless to most of her peers. Appropriately for her auspice, violence is always on the cards for her, and she relishes the opportunity to get into a good scrap against anyone capable of giving it to her. But behind the rage she exhibits is a lot of unresolved pain and grief.

Unbeknownst to her brother, both the siblings actually came from a small town outside Winnipeg, Canada. Their father was a member of a Swords of Heimdall pack, who fell in love with their mother, a Black Quebecois woman who also practised hedge magic for her tarot reading business. Her childhood was surprisingly happy and she had the same hopes and dreams any child her age could have had.

Then came the night of her mother's murder. Vicky still does not know the whys behind it, but she knows the whos. Her father's pack cheered as they strung up the lifeless corpse of her mother as the 14-year-old Vicky watched on in horror and grief. And then the Rage came, as did her First Change. Such was her fury was that she forced the pack into a hasty retreat, having killed one of their number in the melee.

It was during the chaos that she had spotted her father. If he had not stopped his packmates from murdering her mother, it meant that he was involved all along. Determined to get away far from him as possible, she grabbed her five-year-old brother and fled into the night, traversing through hills and forests until she crossed the border into North Dakota. There, she would be picked up by a Black Fury motorcycle gang, which would provide shelter to the exhausted teenager.

The most martial of the Lang Gang, she has very little care for pack leader Jason, whom she views as arrogant and delusional. The only reason she has not contested his position is his relationship with Edward, whom she loves more than she hates Jason. She remains very protective of Edward, but simultaneously laments his meek nature. The possibility that the way she raised him might have caused him to turn out that way has not registered with her yet.

Edward Freeman
Tribe: Glass Walker
Auspice: Ragabash
Place of Origin: Manitoba, Canada
Age: 21

The younger of the Freeman siblings, Edward, referred to as Ed by most of his friends, is the likeliest to be mistaken as human by other Garou. Calm, collected and approachable, no one would think that he of all people could turn into a killing machine if he had to. And he generally would prefer not to, having said, much to his sister's chagrin, that if not for his Garou heritage, he would have adopted pacifism in its totality.

As far as he knows, he has lived under his sister's watchful eye throughout his life. He remains somewhat in the dark about the fate of their parents, with his sister being evasive with her answers. He is even unaware of the fact that he is not American by birth, though he is not one to know that his own papers are forged. And in any case, by this point, he has lived in the States for a majority of his young life that he might as well be.

It is because of Vicky's untold sacrifices and endless nights of work that Ed has actually lived a relatively normal life, Garou heritage aside. He has completed high school, has human friends, including a monster hunter his age. And while he has not enrolled in college just yet, he intends to. And even before then, he is already running a successful online clothes reselling business.

When it comes to Garou matters, he finds the Garou propensity for killing first and asking questions later to be unnecessary and counter-productive. He believes that much of the Nation's problems are self-inflicted and could be solved if they were willing to talk to people rather than just biting everything that looks mildly suspicious. His naivete has yet to be tempered by the realities of war.

There is also the matter of his relationship with Jason that may cause trouble with more conservative members of the Garou Nation down the line. But the fact of the matter is that Ed finds the idea of coalition-building with other supernatural groups to be a noble prospect and he is willing to work with his partner to accomplish that. But he remains somewhat oblivious to the fact his partner has problematic views of his own, pertaining to the Garou's place in the hierarchy of things.

Jason Lang

Tribe: Silver Fang
Auspice: Philodox
Place of Origin: Northern California
Age: 24

The only Lupus-born member of his pack, Jason hails from a long line of Chinese Garou nobles who have been playing at both Garou and human politics for millenia. Of his particular branch of the family, however, he is the sole survivor, as his immediate and much of his extended family met an untimely end at the hands of presumed hunters. It is a legacy that weighs heavily upon him.

Jason's mother, the daughter of an influential mayor and magnate, had mated with a Kinfolk wolf as an act of protest against her father, who had wished to marry her off into another family. Jason was the result of said protest and was treated with cold indifference by his mother's family. This was up until the moment of his First Change, after which he became available as a pawn in his grandfather's machinations. He lived a very comfortable life, though he was never comfortable in the garbs of humanity his family seemed to cling onto.

Everything seemed to come crashing down in a single night, when a wildfire swept through his hometown. And when assumed firefighters revealed themselves to be armed mercenaries, Jason's family stood little chance, with the teenage Jason barely escaping, losing his mother in the process. After this, he sought shelter with some distant hulijing (kitsune) relatives in San Francisco, who put him to work as a waiter in their supernatural-frequented club. Quite a change for someone used to noble raiments.

It was here that he would be found by Alpha Alek Davout, the leader of a small pack based in Minnesota, consisting of a pair of siblings and a bizarre miscreant. Eager to escape his circumstances, he joined the pack and would later ascend to its leadership position when Alek was killed by a vampire. Eager to prove himself and to avenge Alek, Jason organised a successful counterattack, personally slaying the vampire responsible.

At present, Jason hopes to claw back the prestige and influence his family once had. He hopes to do so by building a coalition of Garou, humans, vampires, mages and other supernaturals that could possibly serve Mother Gaia's best interests. However, he is resolute in his belief that while not necessarily malicious, humans are helpless and stupid without Garou leadership. And thus, even in an alliance, the Garou man's burden is something that he thinks he will have to deal with constantly.