This game was compared to Warhammer 40,000, but with werewolves. This view is correct.
- The main enemy of Garou Nation, The Wyrm. A sentient principle of destruction who went mad because of its imprisonment by the Weaver (another sentient idea, but of order), and in its desperate attempts to escape spawned a vast quantity of evil spirits (banes), ranging from lesser demons to the godlike Triatic Wyrms. Its minions are everywhere and do their part to corrupt and ruin the world, all to free their lord or get power to do so.
- One of its main pawns? The mega-corporation named Pentex. It is a demonic corporate organization which aims to ruin the Earth and corrupt humanity, including making them into fomori - demonically possessed humans. You can become one simply by buying one of its products! Oh, and if you think you can avoid that, they own so much of the world economy that it is nearly impossible to avoid their products if you participate in modern society. Worse yet, they act through shell companies so most of their products don't actually have any way of showing it's made by Pentex.
- The Wyrm has its werewolves too. The Black Spiral Dancers are a fallen tribe of deranged descendants of the White Howlers, the ancient Pictish Garou tribe who went to stop the Wyrm by going through the portal in their lands to Malfeas and got corrupted. Rape, torture, depravities and murder of their kin are very common among them, which only barely diminish their threat, as they still remain cunning, powerful and extremely dangerous opponents.
- Remember the Nephandi? There is a faction of them, named Malfeans, who serve the Wyrm. They seek the ultimate destruction of the world and can masquerade as anyone, from the CEO of a medical corporation to a simple cultist.
- The First Metis. Take everything we said about a Black Spiral Dancer, make them single-mindedly dedicated to hunting down and killing the best of the Garou, give it silver fangs and claws, then make it both completely immortal and near-impossible to kill. You now have the vague idea of the First Metis. Oh, and did we mention he can appear behind you at almost any time?
- The Garou themselves are pretty terrifying: they're all seven-plus foot masses of Unstoppable Rage, muscle and claws capable of ripping an average human to shreds in the blink of an eye, cause instinctual terror in humans at the sight of them (more on that below), and most of them are very much not friendly toward humanity, with even the nicer ones generally viewing mankind as a race of idiotic sheep they need to herd while the nastier ones see them as tools to exploit or a blight on the world that ought to be eradicated. Almost all of them are violently sanctimonious hypocrites who can and will tear your head off if you disagree with them. And these are the good guys.
- The Red Talons. The vast majority are bent on the genocide of humanity by any means necessary, the "moderates" kill any humans who end up on their land (regardless of age, circumstances, or reasons), and at least a few are actively using Wyrmish rites involving Cold-Blooded Torture of humans to "cleanse" the land of human influence. Once again, these are some of the good guys.
- Why does humanity suffer from the Delirium, an overwhelming fear of werewolves when seeing them in their wolf form? Because thousands of years ago, the werewolves were engaging in the Impergium, a genocidal "culling" of the human race so long and brutal that they can't help but feel primordial terror of the Garou... making the Wyrm's activity all the easier.
- The War of Rage. Because of their own pride, several unfortunate misunderstandings, racism (both fantastic and otherwise), and the Wyrm's manipulations, the Garou launched a war of genocide on the rest of the Fera. All of this are some of the major reasons why they are slowly losing against the Wyrm, as they exterminated three races of Changing Breeds (the Apis, Camazotz, and Grondr) and one of their own tribes (Bunyip).
- Kinfolk can have some pretty nightmarish experienced under the Garou:
- Kinfolk to the Silver Fangs? Coupling with anyone outside of the tribe will get you either executed or sterilized to protect an already-failing (due to inbreeding, no less) bloodline's "purity". Even worse, it's implied that this occurs regardless of circumstance - so a Kinfolk who copulated outside of the tribe in less than willing circumstances gets executed or sterilized, while the one who put them in that situation gets off scott-free.
- Kinfolk pretty much confirms that the Kinfolk don't get much of a say in matters of childbearing, with social pressure, physical violence, and systematic oppression all being used to keep them in line. Multiple other tribebooks have the Garou narrators openly state that they're entitled to taking Kinfolk as mates regardless of their marital status, and at least one faction of Black Furies full-on kidnap indigenous kinfolk men to serve as unwilling breeding stock.
- Several of the more overtly warlike tribes consider their Kinfolk to be little more than numbers to be expended as they see necessary. So not only are they second-class citizens at best and breeding stock at worst, there's also the possibility of being sent to invariable death for senseless reasons.
