Roleplaying Inherited Memories

The werewolf physiology states:

The virus has the capacity to hold ‘memories’ that can pass from one werewolf to another, going back multiple generations. These memories are generally thought to be physical, chemical, in nature, buried below the level of conscious thought. They may invoke emotions in given situations, and in some cases déjà vu. Werewolves may find that learning skills their ancestors knew comes more naturally to them. There are also certain social and cultural mores that are ingrained into a werewolf from these inherited memories.


We felt it necessary to further clarify inherited memories from a role playing standpoint. Here are some things that inherited memories are, and are not.

Inherited memories CAN cause a werewolf to recall feelings their creator associated with a person/place/thing.
Inherited memories CAN NOT cause a werewolf to inherit their creator's overall disposition.

Inherited memories DO provide a way for werewolves to remember their pack's core values and culture
Inherited memories DO NOT provide exact memories of specific historic events

Inherited memories DO enable a werewolf to learn skills their creator knew more easily
Inherited memories DO NOT enable a werewolf to instantaneously know how to do something their creator knew.

Inherited memories CAN cause werewolves to feel nostalgic or experience deja vu.
Inherited memories CAN NOT cause werewolves to experience multi sensory flash back visions from the past.

For example:
This COULD potentially occur in role playing:

Lash walked up to the front of the restaurant and felt an odd sense of forboding. She knew enough about her inherited memories to take the feeling seriously and so she proceeded with caution.

This WILL NOT happen

Lash walked up to the front of the restaurant and suddenly recalled how her creator was ambushed in this very spot by their rival pack. She knew immediately that this was a place that the others used as a safe haven.

This COULD happen:

Roger had been feeling very strange. The whole damn week had been weird since that encounter with what he had thought was a prostitute. He had felt a restlessness crawling just underneath his skin since then. It was what caused him to be outside...staring at the moon.

Roger was suddenly gripped with an understanding. It was not something his conscious mind could grasp but he KNEW that there was somewhere he needed to be. With his eyes still locked on the moon, Roger began walking. Feelings of fierce pride and protectiveness welled up inside him from some deep place that he didn't understand. Soon he found himself turning into.. was that? Great, Roger felt disgust with himself; he had walked through Nachton staring at the nightsky and it led him to an asylum.

" I came...." He was talking to the darkness or himself; he wasn't sure.

"Home" A unseen voice answered back.

This WILL NOT happen:

Roger had been feeling very strange. The whole damn week had been weird since that encounter with what he had thought was a prostitute. He had felt a restlessness crawling just underneath his skin since then. It was what caused him to be outside...staring at the moon.

He suddenly understood everything. Roger realized with a sense of disbelief but understanding none the less, he was a werewolf. He was not sure how he knew but it was all in his mind like memories rising to the surface. The restlessness was a need to find his pack.

Roger began walking with a sure step. He knew where they were. His family. The one who made him and the others. There was an overwhelming amount of knowledge running through his head, seeming to take over his being as he continued on his way to his new beginning.

Stepping onto the asylum yard, he announced to those waiting for him in the shadows.

"I'm home."

This COULD happen:
Lucy adjusted the popcorn in her lap and settled down to watch the movie. Some three hour foreign film that would no doubt put her to sleep thirty minutes in. Really, who wants to ‘read’ a movie?

However, she noticed something interesting as the movie progressed; she was starting to pick up words here and there, and remembering what they meant when they were repeated in the dialogue. She knew she would still be lost without the subtitles but she thought she was absorbing some Spanish fairly well, and more quickly than she had learned Latin in high school. Hey, maybe she was getting smarter!

By the end of the movie, Lucy had learned a few new words and thought it might be a good idea to get some books and tapes to learn more.

This WILL NOT happen:
Lucy adjusted the popcorn in her lap and settled down to watch the movie. Some three hour foreign film that would no doubt put her to sleep thirty minutes in. Really, who wants to ‘read’ a movie?

Her eyes widened in disbelief, however, when she discovered that she didn’t need to read at all. She could understand the dialogue perfectly, as though they were speaking in her native tongue. Sure, she knew how to say a few words in Spanish, but nothing like this. Lucy reasoned that it was the memories of her creator that made her able to understand the language.

By the end of the movie, Lucy had remembered a good deal of the language and felt she could communicate in it with ease.