Surely the Weaver would make for a greater enemy than the Wyrm?

[MyWifeIsScary]

Wyrm: wants to destroy society
Garou: wants to destroy society
Weaver: Society.

Sure, the Wyrm is all the nasty things and is a far greater issue from the perspective of conventional norms. Fighting the advancement of AI or nuclear power or medicine is far more nebulous than killing perverse criminals and vile abominations and men who want to make money from addiction and human misery. However, it's pretty clear to Garou that the Weaver is the one that made the Wyrm mad, and a good chunk of Garou really see themselves as above and seperate from the masses of sheep and don't really care much about human suffering beyond their kinfolk. The Wyrm is unfortunate for Garou, but the Weaver is more of a threat. Without the Weaver, the Wyrm wouldn't be able to commit industrial scale attrocities on nature.

Thinking about the minions of the Wyrm and the Weaver: the Formori are self destructive and most will die before meeting Garou claws, while drones are tough, organized, and can amass much more easily. If we talk Werewolves, the BSD can be seperated into distinct groups but the main two are the self-centered kings who happily abuse their incestuous harems but who don't really move much in the name of the Wyrm or beyond their own interests, and then you have the true believers who mostly breed and indoctrinate relatively weak metis to throw at their enemies. Yes, they're threats and they're disgusting and horrifying, but the vast majority of BSD lack the motivation and skill needed to seriously threaten the Garou. In contrast, if we imagine Die Ultima or Cyber Dogs falling to the weaver and getting a little time to build up their forces, they would exterminate the Garou with motivation, skill, and firepower superiority. Why then does it so often seem that the Wyrm is the main enemy?

[Asmodai]

Because you're missing the point. Society is moot here. Society is a social construct and you don't see the Garou wanting to tear down the Nation or the cultures they belong to.

Wyrm doesn't want to destroy society. It wants to destroy existence, and due to it being in horrible, agonizing pain it wants everyone and everything to suffer along the way. It may seem chaotic and disorganised at it when its poster boys are maniacs, but it's actually insidious and corruptive dragging everything down along with itself. The Wyrm is completley fine with the Weaver as it is because for all its efforts it cannot stabilise and fix things faster than a whole world acting like selfish autodestructive idiots can. And that's why the Wyrm is the big bad.

The Weaver is dangerous, but at least it wants things to BE. The Wyrm just wants things to suffer, rot and dissapear.

[MyWifeIsScary]

Think of it another way.
The Wyrm wants to destroy things in general and isn't very effective. It wants to destroy the Garou and it's success can largely be attributed to the Garou's failings rather than it's own successes.
The Weaver wants to put everything in it's place, and it's agency are highly effective. It should and could contain the Garou that occasionally thwart it's expansion, but it doesn't because... writers.

[Asmodai]

I think you're coming from a very weird reading of the material if you believe the Wyrm is not winning. On the scale that the world is in the Clutches of the Wyrm and how efficiently it uses Weaver structures to become even more effective, the Garou are insignificant. Especially while they're fighting each other about petty things and doing stupid shit that warms its cackles.

The Garou are dangerous only if they get their shit together and actually start changing the world instead of just killing the cannon fodder.

[TwoDSix]

It's also not like the Weaver isn't on the Garou's list of enemies (the Wyld isn't, but it's still considered dangerous). It's just not the priority, and something they can do less about than the Wyrm (who they can theoretically free).

As for the potential of Weaver Garou, it's not impossible for a Camp or Tribe to fall to her. However the Tribe in the most likely position to do so is small, very aware of that exact risk, and in the habit of policing themselves. There's a couple of other candidates, but nobody particularly likely, so unless we have another Black Spiral incident we're looking at Camps and packs falling. Most likely we're looking at a network of essentially Ronin packs with Weaver totems, useful tools but nowhere near large enough to be self-sustaining. Most likely carve out their territory and keep it as static as possible. An interesting idea for a session, but unlikely to get out of hand in the way the BSDs have.

The other issue is essentially from an out of the game universe perspective. The Garou are already justifiably seen as ecoterrorists by many and the Weaver is the patron of modern society, making her the main enemy massively increases the luddite implications. It's much better to frame the game as her being an issue without being the big reason everything is messed up.

[Shakanaka]

The Garou are too distracted by the Wyrm day-to-day to commit significant fighting attention to the Weaver. While they're distracted, the Weaver just grows stronger and stronger..

[MrNatas]

It's not like the Wyrm, Weaver, or Wyld can actually be killed. These are cosmic forces that have to exist for the universe to function. I think framing them as you "enemy" is like framing "war" as you enemy. You can't kill war and seeing it as something you attack won't stop it or make things better. You have to tackle why the things are happening and address them.

For Garou in particular this is difficult because the nature of what they are and the problems they face. Creating a long term plan to radically change how societies work in the modern era along with the ideologies of the people that inhabit modern spaces isn't as fast, easy, or glorious as blowing up the PenTex factory down the road. With how their own Tribes, Renown, and values are they would gave to completely rebuild how their Nation works in order to be more effective at healing the world(Gaia). And the tribes that are trying to do this (Children of Gaia, Glasswalkers) are often hated by other Garou for their stance. Garou idea of "healing" is by stomping on the problem until it goes away.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

Most would probably like it if they could concentrate on just one, but that's probably not tenable, because the Wyrm's psychological issues - which are themselves Celestines, and give rise to lesser psychological issues that manifest as Maeljin Incarna - are lurking amidst the webs, not separate from them. The Defiler in particular slips along them with great ease, so most of the time, unless you're explicitly playing the Weaver Acendant scenario from Apocalypse, you're fighting the overt forces of the Wyrm, and also Weaver-stuff bent around by the Defiler.

[Ana Mizuki]

A good way to think of the Wyrm is to see the fomori/banes/BSDs/etc as minor polyps of its wider cancer.

The Wyrm isn't really a bunch of redneck fomori driving around and shooting wolves with a shotgun, the Wyrm is the poverty that drove their father to drink after he got black lung. The Wyrm is their father's choice to beat the boys and kill their mother. The Wyrm is the local school that does not having enough money, resources or staff to offer the help these boys needed to finish high school. The Wyrm is the lack of options these boys had to find work as dropouts. The Wyrm is the company that was happy to hire them, only to corrupt them.

Basically, far before they became fomori, these people were hurt and affected by the Wyrm. And that is why the Wyrm is the bigger threat, because while Weaver is certainly trying her best to calcify the world, she does not feed off cruelty. The Wyrm feeds off every single abuse, every single cruelty or act of greed and every single corner cut that pollutes and causes poverty.

The Wyrm stands for the wrongs of society and how large they are. That is why it is the main foe.

[Koronus]

Well depending on who started both make actually good antagonists. The weaver want to turn the whole world static and the wyrm want to end whole existence. The better question is who started.
Did the wyrm like Deathwing suddenly went mad and the weaver tried to stop him only making him rage more. Or did the weaver suddenly wanted to weave everything including the wyrm because he is ending where she is conserving.
Now if we say the weaver started the real question is why she started. Did she suddenly got overzealous wanting to weave even more and more? Did she felt some dangerous entity approaching and so she wanted to become even stronger to become strong enough to survive?

[Asmodai]

A good way to think of the Wyrm is to see the fomori/banes/BSDs/etc as minor polyps of its wider cancer.

The Wyrm isn't really a bunch of redneck fomori driving around and shooting wolves with a shotgun, the Wyrm is the poverty that drove their father to drink after he got black lung. The Wyrm is their father's choice to beat the boys and kill their mother. The Wyrm is the local school that does not having enough money, resources or staff to offer the help these boys needed to finish high school. The Wyrm is the lack of options these boys had to find work as dropouts. The Wyrm is the company that was happy to hire them, only to corrupt them.

Basically, far before they became fomori, these people were hurt and affected by the Wyrm. And that is why the Wyrm is the bigger threat, because while Weaver is certainly trying her best to calcify the world, she does not feed off cruelty. The Wyrm feeds off every single abuse, every single cruelty or act of greed and every single corner cut that pollutes and causes poverty.

The Wyrm stands for the wrongs of society and how large they are. That is why it is the main foe.

Those are some perfect examples. The biggest monster of the game are not Garou or the things they fight - it's us.

[AnubisXy]

Why then does it so often seem that the Wyrm is the main enemy?

You're not wrong. In the prior editions there was some talk among werewolves that they had made a mistake somewhere along the way, and that the Weaver was just as much an enemy as the Wyrm, if not possibly more so. They'd spent thousands of years fighting the Wyrm, because they believed the Wyrm was the greatest threat to Gaia, and largely ignoring the Weaver because they didn't view the Weaver as doing anything that bad. That was was the result of some humancentric thinking in that many werewolves were Homids and they didn't necessarily see things like cities and the march of progress as a bad thing because their kinfolk benefited from it. So they were more willing to look the other way.

Now the world is clogged with Weaver creations, the Wyld is vanishing rapidly and the Weaver has started twisting and turning the Wyrm to its own ends. So you do see some tribes suggesting that maybe the Weaver is the bigger enemy. Certainly the Red Talons would say that's always been the case and it's nice to see the other Tribes finally waking up to it.

Ultimately Werewolf was designed as a game for players to battle the problems of the modern day world - pollution, profit-driven corporations, dumping of chemicals, mental health issues, etc. It didn't always hit those very well, but at the core that's what the game was about. The Wyrm was written to embody most of those evils. But as the game went on, writers and players started to realize that some of those evils were more systmetic and simply the result of modern society. So you started to see more focus on the Weaver as the enemy than the Wyrm as the gameline progressed.

At the same time though, werewolves aren't intended to be anarchist-luddites who want to burn all of the cities down and destroy modern society. Oh, there's a few who do, but they're very much intended to be extremists. And you can't really make the game about opposing the Weaver and seeking to burn civilization to the ground, because the theme and mood of the game change pretty dramatically.

[Gryffon15]

I think part of the Garou’s problems and their views has to do with the legacy effects of the implied setting that the Garou originally were in the ‘golden age’ when the world was young (whatever that means).

My reading is that the Garou and most of the other changing breeds only really manifest as entities distinct from World-Possessions (Kami) around the time that the Gauntlet goes up and the Changing Breeds have to become materially concrete to continue working on their task. IMO the point where the Gauntlet snaps up in every game line is meant to be largely analogous to the point where, to use the terms of pulp horror writers like Howard or Lovecraft, when humanity emerged from the primordial ooze as thinking beings distinct from other animals and the unknowable mad-gods that had previously dominated life.

That primordial ooze was the ‘Golden Age’, like the classical Greeks wrote about, before everything went down hill. It was the state of innocence before humans started thinking in ways that meant they would need to collectively organize, labor with the earth, strive to master the world, and create rules which would define how they could and couldn’t live their lives. In the various game lines there are points made where that Golden Age ends; Adam & Eve eat the forbidden fruit and are forced to leave Eden, the Mages of the Golden Age destroy the paradise of Magick, the Children of Light and the Elder Dark drive each other into the furthest recesses of the Dreaming along with the Dreams of the Inanimate World. This is the time when all the Changing Breeds are basically just animal spirits riding humans (and vice versa) and making sure that the more destructive of the elder forces don’t actually cause reality to dissolve or become the domain of the Neverborn Children.

For Werewolf imo the end of the Golden Age is the point where, somehow, the Weaver grants its blessings to humanity. The earliest Gauntlet springs up and the world becomes (comparatively) rational. The Kami still had their directions from the World-Spirit so some of them became manifest in a material/rational fashion to carry out their directions. After all it was around this time that the Wyrm would be getting trapped and so there are even more of these Neverborn-esqe monstrosities and witches trying to warm and destroy reality, which the servants of the World-Spirit need to stop from doing so. Given the nature of consciousness (or lack there of) in the Golden Age, it’s highly possible that the Changing Breeds of the newly born Silver Age wouldn’t even have been capable of rationally describing the transformation that reality had undergone.

When things really started getting noticeably Wrong would probably be a little bit after the Silver Age had begun when humanity realized that not only could it use rational force to consciously effect the world, they could use it against each other. In the language of Vampire and Demon, this occurred when Cain murdered Abel. That’s around the point I place the Silver Age as getting really nasty and degrading to the point where the Flood is required to sweep it all away. I think it’s reasonable to argue that it’s not until this point that the earliest Changing Breeds would even be consciously aware that Humanity and the Weaver had a role to play in why the World was starting to become corrupt.

This early realization could be taken as the cause of the Impergium and one of the root causes of the Wars of Rage. The Changing Breeds, particularly the Garou, realizing that somehow Humanity was involved in the transformations that the world was undergoing that kept the forces of the Wyrm constantly surging up to try and destroy everything. But just because they had a foggy idea that Humanity and the Weaver was involved, didn’t mean they had any idea what to collectively do about it, as the Impergium clearly showed. If the logic of the Impergium was to keep Humanity and the Weaver culled within certain limits to restrain their potential impact on the World-Spirit, that makes internal sense, but it failed to do anything to address the underlying changes to the nature of reality since the Golden Age and it effectively launched a campaign of terror which only served to reinforce the Wyrm and the Neverborn in the long term. I think one of the reason that the Impergium finally ended, aside from certain groups becoming more sympathetic to humanity, was simply that it wasn’t working - it wasn’t returning the World Spirit to the Golden Age and it might be actively feeding the Wyrm.

Which wasn’t to say that stopping the Impergium did anything to return to the Golden Age either. It simply changed course that ended one mistake and allowed Humanity to begin unleashing it’s collective energies, but this time with a highly conscious desire for vengeance and security against the forces of terror from the years of the Impergium. The rebound of the Weaver and Humanity would quickly make up for lost time as city-states flung up in every river valley that could sustain them and became nexus’ for vampires and sorcerers to congregate and pool their resources against the intervention of the servants of the World-Spirit.

But even with the cities popping, in the grand scheme of things, the impact of a patch work of city-states and classical empires couldn’t be compared to post-industrial civilization. The Changing Breeds had millennia to putz around with one another and argue about what should be done before either the Weaver or the Wyrm appeared to be a world-ending threat.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

I'm not really sure what bearing kami have on the conversation. They're rare, singular, and tend to be purpose-driven; the Garou and Fera are parallel in existence to their human and beast kin. The two are arguably further apart than Risen and Hungry Dead of KotE, those two themselves having a rather vast divide that people oddly seem to want to ignore all the time.

As for the dates, W:tA has a timeline that follows somewhat more concrete prehistoric dates, even given the Dinosaur civilization back in the Mesozoic, werespiders specifically targeting the Neanderthals for being tortured and killed and all. Shattered Dreams presents the initial weaving/strengthening of the Gauntlet, post-Banestorm (~70k BCE), as a necessary step to protect the physical world from the horrors of banes, though the Weaver seemed to have humans in mind, given the way the text is worded.

As for when the Weaver's touch fell on them... well, there's one potential event that we can associate with that, in enzymatically-modern humans, specifically. This would have largely left archaic Homo sapiens off the hook as far as "Weaver influence" goes, along with Homo nenanderthalensis. A small event, just one base-pair changed, just one amino acid residue... and look at how everything changes! So, that would have likely been by about 40 kya, possibly as late as 30 kya.

(I know that there's that infamous disclaimer in Shattered Dreams, but given how things have shaken out with W5, just about everything from all the pre-W5 material is now non-canon, so that's the last fig leaf!)