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“No; we are not Get of Fenris Berserkers. We are dental-floss salesmen from
Montana.”
- Alleged actual documented in-game quote.

“We are the Garou, guardians of Gaia. We dedicate ourselves to combating the
Wyrm, to freeing the world from the grip of corruption and pollution. This is our
vocation, our sacred duty; our very lives. Nothing can be allowed to hinder us in the
execution of our task. So I ask again, Render-of-Foes; why didn‟t you pay the damn
gas bill this month?”

It‟s a tough life being a Garou.

It‟s bad enough that you have to fight tooth and nail for the survival of Gaia and
your species, but the real bummer is that after all you do for them and their world, you
don‟t get any recognition from society. Not only does everyone think – rightly or
wrongly – that you are a dangerous, violent sociopath, but battling the Wyrm doesn‟t
get you any tax-breaks or even any social security support. This means that as well as
saving the world, you have to pay taxes, earn at least a basic living and possibly
support a family.
Great. You go through the world‟s worst puberty, get hit with the „Gaia-is-
dying‟ cosmic responsibility stick, and you‟re still going to have to get up at six on
Saturday and go to work at the Ultimart, with all the stress that that entails.
It‟s a tough life being a Garou.

So; you‟re young and full of life, just raring to get up and pop that mean ol‟
Wyrm in the kisser. Unfortunately, Social Security are starting to wonder if you‟re
serious about finding a job at all, and your parents are starting to say things like: “We
just can‟t afford to keep you forever,” and: “It would do you good to stand on your
own two feet,” or, worst of all: “I‟ve got one word for you, son; aggregates.” This is
bad, this is worrying. You‟re actually going to have to stand on your own two feet (or
four paws) and earn your keep. Besides, living at home ain‟t good when you get so
mean at the full moon and its going to be tricky when you try to explain to your mum
why you need to be out until all hours of the night, and why you‟re coming home
covered in stinking, black, pestilent gore.
First things first; you need a place to live. No address, no work. Then you need
a job. The desperate and thankless quest for these two things has plagued teenagers
and „young adults‟ for generations, even the ones who don‟t need space to get out and
rip things up from time to time. For young Garou, it‟s a nightmare.
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So we start off with a place to live; this is never easy, and being a werewolf just
adds to your troubles. Best case scenario, you‟re still living with your folks and one of
them is a Garou. Worst case, you‟re out on the streets because a) Black Spiral
Dancers killed your parents and burned the house down, b) you killed your parents in
your first Frenzy. In between the extremes of cosy extended pack bliss and life as a
fugitive parricide is a whole spectrum including already having a place of your own,
never having lived anywhere but the streets and of course living with parents who
don‟t know jack about the Garou.
First thing to remember; living with anyone who isn‟t Garou is risky. It‟s
unfortunate, but you have to face the fact that you never know when you‟re going to
bug-out, and you don‟t want to be around those you love when that happens. It‟s a sad
fact of our lives that this means we can‟t afford to spend much time with those we
love. Therefore you can forget those plans of moving in with your girlfriend. As for
that thought you had of letting her support the both of you while you‟re out saving the
world? Well, it‟s a good one – low, maybe, but basically good – but its troublesome to
rely on someone else for your livelihood, especially if you never know when the curse
will cut between you and drive you apart, and then the party‟s over.
For these and other reasons, it is quite common for young Garou to find a house
in a pack. This is a very good plan, for several reasons. Most importantly, everyone in
the house is more-or-less able to look after themselves, and no difficult explanations
are ever required. In addition it can help to bond the pack together, and means that all
of the young Garou are together for mutual defence, as well as the purely economic
advantage of splitting the cost of living. Against the idea, it can aggravate tensions
between pack members and has the potential for the entire household to explode into
violence at the full moon.
Other options do exist. In particular, most Septs will keep a communal hall for
their guardian packs, and a few scattered safe-houses are held by each tribe (except of
course the Red Talons). There is always the option of living rough, with all of the
difficulties that entails, but some do choose this over struggling to make ends meet in
a town or city. Then there are the streets, a common choice – or lack of choice –
among the Bone Gnawers. Again, this has basic survival problems, but of a different
sort than are dealt with here. These latter options may be all that is available to you,
especially if you are wanted for one violent crime or another, but believe me, it‟s
better to start off with a place of your own.
Or you might be lucky. You could be a person of independent means. In this
case, you don‟t really have a problem. Just one thing. Share the wealth; spare a
thought for your breadline packmates and remember that greed is the way of the
Eater-of-Souls. For preference, you should help out the Tribe or Sept running one of
those halls or safe-houses. But that‟s an ideal, and I just know that at least half of the
well-heeled Garou in this sorry world prefer to charge their packmates rent.

Anyway, the last few options aside, you rent a place. Now, as far as choice
goes, it‟s like they say in real estate: Location, location, location. For preference you
want a place in a quiet area. The vicinities of old people‟s homes are particularly
good. The neighbours are in bed early, scared to look out of the window even if they
do hear those „young hooligans‟ coming in late at night or early in the morning. No
common ground, no contact; all for the good. Avoid getting to know your neighbours
– again, one of those sad facts of life; Garou don‟t mix well with non-Garou. Socialise
away from home, and if it needed saying; always go back to their place, never yours.
 Anyway; that‟s location, now on to… location! Suburbia tends to be expensive,
but try to steer clear of the city centre. There‟s nothing worse for a Garou than living
in the middle of the city (unless you‟re a Glass Walker or a Bone Gnawer, they don‟t
get it as bad). It drives you up the damn wall, all the noise and the smell, and the
close-in buildings and the huddled mass of humanity. For preference, choose
somewhere near some greenery, the wilder the better. You may not have thought
much of going back to nature up to now, but believe me, you get to appreciate the
open spaces pretty quick.
And finally – shock, gasp – location. It may be just perfect for you and your
pack to be living out in the wilds in a log cabin away from civilisation, but don‟t go
nuts. You gotta be close enough to get to work for one thing, but more importantly
you gotta be somewhere you‟re doing good. So if you‟re watching over a wolf pack or
two, that‟s just dandy, but if you disappear and never come out to fight, the rest of the
Garou start looking at you cross-eyed and wanting to know what the hell good you
are.

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Right; now you have a place. Time to start paying for it. Ideally you find a job
while you‟re waiting to move in, but you may have to stretch for a bit „cause
unemployment‟s a bitch in these days. Give some thought to what you‟re going to do
as well. Some Garou figure they just need to pay the rent, but trust me, a Garou can‟t
just take eight hours of crap a day and go home, sleep it off like a human does. If you
hate your job, chances are you will end up force-feeding the boss his own swivel-
chair.
What you need is either a job you love, or just a job that‟s free from stress.
Well; relatively free from stress. If you‟ve got a job already, you‟re ahead, but you
may still have to look for something else if it‟s too much of a drag. Here‟s the bad
news; most people don‟t get a job they love straight out of college, and the chances
are you haven‟t even been to college. So, low stress.
If you have the patience, go for lug work. Basic physical labour can be tedious,
but you can usually get into a rhythm with it and make the time pass quicker. It can
also be remarkably calming, and there‟s usually a good sense of camaraderie in the
workplace. That‟s important too, because if you get too pissed off at one of your
work-mates, things get ugly, fast. Besides, you‟re a warrior against the Apocalypse
now; it‟d do you good to get a bit of muscle on you.
Some packs swear by working as a team, in everything. This is a pretty good
idea, and can go as far as setting up in business for yourselves. The one problem is
that this leaves you with no buffer between you and the public (unless you can find an
amenable kinfolk to mediate). Dealing with the public is bad because a) the Curse can
strike at any time and, b) customers are convinced that they are always right, and
some of them might not back down when they really should if they value their health.
Consequently it‟s best not to work in retail or the service industries, because nothing
makes you want to forget that bit of the Litany about not feeding on the flesh of
humans like a tupenny-ha‟penny moron in a suit telling you his soup was cold and he
hopes you don‟t think you‟re not getting a tip for this.
But for my money, the postal service is the way to go.
Now, why do you think it is that everyone laughs when I say that? I know what
you‟re thinking: hardly stress free, everyone knows postal workers go nuts and kill
people. Wrong. A few postal workers do that, but its usually not because they‟re
postal workers. You see, the main elements of postal delivery are routine and solitude,
making it the perfect job for schizophrenic personalities.
Yeah; laugh it up. But you‟ve got a lot of the same problems as your work-a-
day schitzo right now, and a job that doesn‟t take much concentration, where you just
go through the motions without having to deal with people is just the sort of thing you
need. Plus it works short hours, leaving you plenty of time to battle the Wyrm and still
have time for sleep and recreation. „Sides; what are you worried? You think you‟ll get
savaged by a dog?
It‟s your call of course; it‟s your life. Just don‟t neglect it. I‟ve known a lot of
young Garou get pretty miserable when they find out how little they‟re valued by the
humans. See, it‟s not like we‟re superheroes or nothing; we kill people. We kill people
for reasons no human can really understand, and that makes us bad. So, we have to
keep our heads down and toe the line. Settle down, and be Mr or Ms normal until you
get the call. Like really early Batman, but with added gore and without the perks.