Forsaken and (post)human morality

[lbeaumanior]

Greetings,

I am a bit confused on the regular morality of Forsaken when dealing with human issues, all the games I have been part or read online, show the Forsaken as behaving alien-like for the get go, I would assume that if I changed tomorrow, I would still deal with some compunctions that I have as a regular human today.

So, do Forsaken consider themselves a different species and behave just on how affects the spirit world for them? Some examples to make it clearer:

• Someone is brutally murdering homeless people, do my Pack and I get angry for the new murder resonance affecting our territory or can we express some compassion for the dead?
• A string of burglaries affects an area (not necessarily our territory), are we against the resonance, or can I act as a concerned citizen due to, well, increased insecurity?
• A human pack member is a child molester, do I get angry at them bringing the law or the child parents into our businesses, or can I righteously kill a f-ing child molester?

The examples are a bit shocking, but essentially, I keep seeing an attitude of "Not my Pack or Territory, not my problem".

I think that this is what new Harmony is supposed to be mentioning but I admit my extreme confussion.

[ArcaneArts]

Greetings,

I am a bit confused on the regular morality of Forsaken when dealing with human issues, all the games I have been part or read online, show the Forsaken as behaving alien-like for the get go, I would assume that if I changed tomorrow, I would still deal with some compunctions that I have as a regular human today.

So, do Forsaken consider themselves a different species and behave just on how affects the spirit world for them? Some examples to make it clearer:

• Someone is brutally murdering homeless people, do my Pack and I get angry for the new murder resonance affecting our territory or can we express some compassion for the dead?
• A string of burglaries affects an area (not necessarily our territory), are we against the resonance, or can I act as a concerned citizen due to, well, increased insecurity?
• A human pack member is a child molester, do I get angry at them bringing the law or the child parents into our businesses, or can I righteously kill a f-ing child molester?

The examples are a bit shocking, but essentially, I keep seeing an attitude of "Not my Pack or Territory, not my problem".

I think that this is what new Harmony is supposed to be mentioning but I admit my extreme confussion.

Someone is brutally murdering homeless people? Both.
String of burglaries? Both.
Human pack mate is a child molester? Both.

The big thing about the Forsaken's post-human condition is that things that are hunt-pertinent are not psychologically harming in the way they'd be for humans-if a human murders the child molester, that's probably going to need some years of therapy no matter how justified it was, where as a werewolf's psychology is wired to accept their personal murder of another sentient being with ease*. However, they were still raised human, and still by and large feel like humans do, with the aforementioned exception.

The older a werewolf gets, the more likely they are to get jaded and be more worried about the effect of it on the spiritual ecosystem, but that's in the same way that the longer a normal person understands their world in terms of their regular activities and rhetoric, the more they stick to it-a werewolf spend most of their time shaping their territory in terms of resonances, eventually you get tired of people moving your rivers. But if a werewolf keeps up the effort to connect to humans, remember their humanity, and otherwise live along them(and the pull towards the Flesh on Harmony does much to get them keeping a grip on all of that), then even as their monstrosity becomes who they are, it's not divorced from feeling and understanding them the way humans do, even if the concerns of the spirit are also factored into it.

*And I should note, since that runs into one of the example, that this allows for a sort of doublethink, where in a werewolf can be offended and appaled at someone else murdering someone but only have an intellectual objection to their own murders, if they're inclined to ask about it at all. THe ease of acceptance of their own personal acts that isn't covered by Harmony is, in fact, part of the personal horror of Werewolf-you know you should be horrified at all this blood on your hands, so why does it feel like just another Tuesday?

[nofather]

Greetings,do Forsaken consider themselves a different species and behave just on how affects the spirit world for them?

They are a different species.

Just like humans the way they behave is based on how they were raised and how they adapt to the circumstances they're in. Harmony is not a replacement for Morality, it's about how well your spirit and flesh sides are in balance (or: in harmony) and you can be the Joker at Harmony 5 or a saint at Harmony 10 or 1.

[*]Someone is brutally murdering homeless people, do my Pack and I get angry for the new murder resonance affecting our territory or can we express some compassion for the dead?[*]A string of burglaries affects an area (not necessarily our territory), are we against the resonance, or can I act as a concerned citizen due to, well, increased insecurity?[*]A human pack member is a child molester, do I get angry at them bringing the law or the child parents into our businesses, or can I righteously kill a f-ing child molester?[/LIST]The examples are a bit shocking, but essentially, I keep seeing an attitude of "Not my Pack or Territory, not my problem".

I think that this is what new Harmony is supposed to be mentioning but I admit my extreme confussion.

A werewolf can be angry about all these things if they want, but they can also have an entirely human-like attitude of, "People are dying all over," and dismissing more strangers dying with a shrug.

But given their ability to see the impact (and cause) of things more than a human can it's entirely possible that they'll care more or care less. The murdered homeless could be some collective force of an entire city's human population enacting their will, and so dealing with it a challenge as insurmountable to the individual as the concept of 'modern civilization.' It's also possible they are entirely for inflicting lethal force on anyone who commits a violent crime in their territory, and that the packs of neighboring territories are more territorial and violent, so stepping outside of your territory to deal with something in theirs leaves your pack (because it's rarely just about yourself) open to harm. But those are decisions made about the matter, up to the individual character, just like the character's emotional reactions to them is up to the player.

[Satchel]

I am a bit confused on the regular morality of Forsaken when dealing with human issues, all the games I have been part or read online, show the Forsaken as behaving alien-like for the get go, I would assume that if I changed tomorrow, I would still deal with some compunctions that I have as a regular human today.

If you changed tomorrow, you would be undergoing the extremely traumatic experience of having your senses rewire themselves to not only be optimized for physical predation but engagement with a heretofore unconsidered extra dimension, having your body, mind, and soul painfully reconfigure themselves into a bestial shape, and almost assuredly killing at least one person with with the claws and fangs you didn't have yesterday.

Werewolf psychology optimizes toward being a supernatural hunter with a territory and a pack and threats to both. Becoming a werewolf is not a subtle or gentle or gradual process and the ones who manage to make it generally do so because they were able to hit the ground running if they weren't otherwise extremely lucky/unlucky, and helping freshly-Changed werewolves get to grips is part of the function of werewolf society. It's like changelings being savvy enough to pay attention to people's choice of words, except instead of long experience serving in a beautiful surreal nightmare-world it's the fact that they are literally no longer spiritually and psychologically human doing the heavy lifting.

[ArcaneArts]

If you changed tomorrow, you would be undergoing the extremely traumatic experience of having your senses rewire themselves to not only be optimized for physical predation but engagement with a heretofore unconsidered extra dimension, having your body, mind, and soul painfully reconfigure themselves into a bestial shape, and almost assuredly killing at least one person with with the claws and fangs you didn't have yesterday.

Werewolf psychology optimizes toward being a supernatural hunter with a territory and a pack and threats to both. Becoming a werewolf is not a subtle or gentle or gradual process and the ones who manage to make it generally do so because they were able to hit the ground running if they weren't otherwise extremely lucky/unlucky, and helping freshly-Changed werewolves get to grips is part of the function of werewolf society. It's like changelings being savvy enough to pay attention to people's choice of words, except instead of long experience serving in a beautiful surreal nightmare-world it's the fact that they are literally no longer spiritually and psychologically human doing the heavy lifting.

Or put another way, you have all the way you were raised up, but your instincts got replaced with those optimized for figuring out how to kill anyone in the room.

[Dark Archon]

Greetings,

I am a bit confused on the regular morality of Forsaken when dealing with human issues, all the games I have been part or read online, show the Forsaken as behaving alien-like for the get go, I would assume that if I changed tomorrow, I would still deal with some compunctions that I have as a regular human today.

So, do Forsaken consider themselves a different species and behave just on how affects the spirit world for them? Some examples to make it clearer:

• Someone is brutally murdering homeless people, do my Pack and I get angry for the new murder resonance affecting our territory or can we express some compassion for the dead?
• A string of burglaries affects an area (not necessarily our territory), are we against the resonance, or can I act as a concerned citizen due to, well, increased insecurity?
• A human pack member is a child molester, do I get angry at them bringing the law or the child parents into our businesses, or can I righteously kill a f-ing child molester?

The examples are a bit shocking, but essentially, I keep seeing an attitude of "Not my Pack or Territory, not my problem".

I think that this is what new Harmony is supposed to be mentioning but I admit my extreme confusion.

Uratha can feel for humans just as humans feel for dogs, cats, horses and various other domesticated animals - probably more, because at some point in their life Uratha were humans. Sure, they are pack predators wired for hunting and killing their prey now, but that does not automatically make them sociopaths, though they certainly would get more violent after First Change. As for "not my pack or territory, not my problem" mentality - I think that Uratha are more familiar with concept of long-term far-reaching consequences, being able to literally see them as change in Resonances and resulting spirit ecology. The thing is - territories are limited by pack's ability to hold, protect and care for said territory, so while pack will probably feel for child murder happening in other state, they probably will have their hands full dealing with murder-spirits spawned by actions of their local Slasher.

[Master Aquatosic]

Yeah, given that Uratha have a more holistic view of how consequences ripple out and are more likely to have the power, willingness, and time to intervene, through their magical and social advantages providing for basic needs that many humans have to spend all their energy on keeping up with, I'd argue they are more likely to care about things happening outside their everyday Sphere than humans


This is on average though, and individual levels of caring are also shapes by personality and level of immediate threats involved.

And yeah, territory is partly defined by their assessment of what they actually have the power to control, or at least steer. It's not arbitrary and it doesn't mean they pretend nothing exists outside of it