Weaver

Garou glyph for the Weaver

The Weaver is one of the three primordial spirits of the Triat, alongside the Wyld and the Wyrm. The Triat is responsible for the creation, maintenance, and destruction of the universe. The Weaver’s role is to impose order on the chaotic creations of the Wyld, giving them form and function. However, many believe that the Weaver's influence has grown too strong, leading to an imbalance in the natural order, particularly following the Weaver's fateful attempt to imprison the Wyrm, which resulted in the Wyrm’s descent into madness.

In Garou mythology, it is said that the Weaver, in its frustration with the Wyrm’s constant destruction of its works, attempted to encase the Wyrm in its webs. This act of hubris not only failed to permanently restrain the Wyrm but also corrupted the Triat, driving the Wyrm to insanity and turning it into a force of unchecked entropy and corruption. As the Weaver’s influence has expanded, it has increasingly encased reality in webs of stasis and rigid structure, leading to the proliferation of cities, technology, and mechanized industry at the expense of nature and the Wyld's creative chaos.

The Weaver’s avatars and children often manifest as spiders, symbolic of the Weaver’s web-spinning and its control over the threads of reality. Insects, too, are commonly associated with the Weaver, representing the regimented and orderly aspects of its domain. The Weaver is venerated, though cautiously, by certain groups such as the Web Walkers tribe, and the Ananasi (spider-shifters), who refer to her as Grandmother Spider. The Ananasi believe that the Weaver created their progenitor spirit, Queen Ananasa.

Mankind is often seen as the Weaver’s adopted child, granted gifts like Dogma, Science, and Technology to impose order upon the world. This has led some among the Awakened, particularly within the Technocracy, to revere the Weaver as the embodiment of their goals—namely, the creation of a perfectly ordered and static reality.

The Weaver's Incarna

The Weaver's influence is further extended through her Incarna, powerful spirits that embody different aspects of her nature:

• The Machine: The Incarna of Technology, the Machine represents the relentless advance of industrialization, mechanization, and the digital age. It manifests in the precision of automated processes, the cold efficiency of artificial intelligence, and the relentless drive towards a future where even organic life might be subsumed by synthetic forms. The Machine does not merely represent technology as a tool, but as a pervasive force that seeks to integrate and control all aspects of life. The rise of cybernetics, artificial intelligence, and the Internet are all seen as the Machine’s influence growing stronger. Some Garou believe that the Machine is actively working to bring about a world where everything, even the Wyld and Wyrm, is under the Weaver’s control.

• The Patriarch: Known by many names, including "Sugar Daddy" and "The Man," the Patriarch is the Incarna of corporate power and industry. He embodies the cold, calculated power structures of capitalism, particularly those that exploit and oppress. He is seen by some as the spiritual force behind the Abrahamic religions' more dogmatic aspects, but this is a misunderstanding. The Patriarch is actually a facet of the Weaver, representing her seed of Dogma. His influence was particularly strong during the Dark Ages and the Renaissance, when rigid social hierarchies and oppressive religious institutions held sway. Today, his power is resurging in the form of corporate dominance, where ritualistic lifestyles and harsh, unforgiving systems of order prevail. Among the Black Furies, the Patriarch is seen as the Incarna of jealous men, a servant of Abhorra, the Urge Wyrm of hatred.

• Science: The Incarna of Science embodies the Weaver's gift of empirical knowledge and rationality. Science is the lens through which humanity and other beings seek to understand and categorize the universe. However, in the Weaver's context, Science becomes a tool of control, reducing the mysteries of the cosmos to mere data points and equations. It is through Science that the Weaver tightens its grip on reality, explaining away the inexplicable, and bringing even the most chaotic phenomena under its dominion. The Incarna of Science is neither inherently good nor evil but represents the potentially dangerous application of knowledge without wisdom, the drive to dissect and control the natural world without regard for the balance that once existed between the Triat.

References

• WTA: Umbra: The Velvet Shadow, p. 16, 69, 122-123
• WTA: Book of the Wyrm First Edition, p. 63-64
• WTA: Book of the Wyrm Second Edition, p. 17-22
• WTA: Werewolf: The Apocalypse Revised Edition
• WTA: Ananasi (book)
• cMET: Laws of the Wild: Changing Breeds 3, p. 9-13, 41