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I was reading a adventure idea in the Adventure Guide and one mission (pg172) has a demon possessed Windigo with ~200 wolves, some other Windigo,a dn Loup Garou along for the fun.

What danger do the hundreds of S.D.C. wolves pose to the characters if they are in full M.D.C. gear? Is it primarily knock-down and entangle?

masslegion wrote:I was reading a adventure idea in the Adventure Guide and one mission (pg172) has a demon possessed Windigo with ~200 wolves, some other Windigo,a dn Loup Garou along for the fun.

What danger do the hundreds of S.D.C. wolves pose to the characters if they are in full M.D.C. gear? Is it primarily knock-down and entangle?

Of course in reading Vampire they often have packs of wolves at their command

Using the chaos earth rules, dogs do MD to all supernatural MDC beings, I imagine wolves would be the same.

The knockdown/entangle threat of dogs against enemies they otherwise could not harm (least not reliably) is a factor of Chaos Earth, entangle to immobilize a limb is definitely a big part of it.

They could also presumably disarm your weapons. Can't remember if that is a default technique anybody can do or if it requires HTH training.

They could still swarm you and bear you over, hold you down, etc. They couldn't actually harm you through the armor, but armor doesn't make you impervious to being wrestled to the ground.

Bring grenades.

Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:They could still swarm you and bear you over, hold you down, etc. They couldn't actually harm you through the armor, but armor doesn't make you impervious to being wrestled to the ground.

Bring grenades.

yep AoE for the win, so you focus on other baddies

masslegion wrote:

Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:They could still swarm you and bear you over, hold you down, etc. They couldn't actually harm you through the armor, but armor doesn't make you impervious to being wrestled to the ground.

Bring grenades.

yep AoE for the win, so you focus on other baddies

Vehicle are also a good way to avoid a wolf warm the wolves can not get you inside a closed vehicle. And I am sure they make a nice crunchy sound.

They can harass you by disrupting sleep and prevent you from resupplying your food while in the wilderness (well unless you decide to eat dog for dinner).

which Windigo is it? Rifts has several.


The Windigo from WB15 Spirit west (pg126?)
the Demon Windigo from WB20 Canada (pg117?)
The Spirit Sasquatch from WB20 Canada (pg160?)
the True Sasquatch from WB20 Canada (pg162?)

all are known as "Windigo"

depending on which it is, the Windigo in question might have powers or knowledge that could make the wolves much more dangerous.

and regardless of which it is, they Windigo would be smart and cunning enough to not wait for the player's to find it before sending wolves after them.. SDC wolves would be a great opportunity for encounters as the players are camping for the night, and thus out of their armor. (if they are dumb enough to not leave a sentry.. even more so)

though it is worth notign that most wolf-packs only run 5-15 members, of which about 1/3rd to 1/2 will usually be juveniles. so if the Windigo has 200 wolves working for him, that would basically be every wolfpack for a huge region around. the windigo probably wouldn't be able to make the packs ignore their mates and juveniles, so odds are they'd only have 100-140 adults, of which maybe 60-80 are free to actually fight for it. the rest would be holed up in their dens or out hunting to support their sub-pack.
a typical wolfpack would hold about 50-100 square miles of territory, which is about as much is needed to support a single pack. so this Windigo's super-pack would need about 1000-2000 square miles minimum of hunting territory.. roughly an area the size of the State of Delaware. and most of its wolves would be spread out over that territory hunting. (since a single kill would generally only support a single pack of about 10-15.)

so instead of an encounter of a single windigo and a couple hundred wolves, you'd be looking more at several days worth of opportunistic attacks by 4-5 adult wolves at a time.. maybe maybe 10-12 if several groups were nearby each other.

given the size of the territory involved, odds are good that some other dangerous animals might be around, possibly even some MDC ones. it wouldn't take much to have a small group of wolves annoy a nearby threat of that kind, and lure it into the player's path. (actually, this could be a way for animals that otherwise would ignore humans to become a dangeorus threat.. if the wolves antagonize it, steal its eggs, or what have you.)

glitterboy2098 wrote:which Windigo is it? Rifts has several.


The Windigo from WB15 Spirit west (pg126?)
the Demon Windigo from WB20 Canada (pg117?)
The Spirit Sasquatch from WB20 Canada (pg160?)
the True Sasquatch from WB20 Canada (pg162?)

all are known as "Windigo"

depending on which it is, the Windigo in question might have powers or knowledge that could make the wolves much more dangerous.

and regardless of which it is, they Windigo would be smart and cunning enough to not wait for the player's to find it before sending wolves after them.. SDC wolves would be a great opportunity for encounters as the players are camping for the night, and thus out of their armor. (if they are dumb enough to not leave a sentry.. even more so)

though it is worth notign that most wolf-packs only run 5-15 members, of which about 1/3rd to 1/2 will usually be juveniles. so if the Windigo has 200 wolves working for him, that would basically be every wolfpack for a huge region around. the windigo probably wouldn't be able to make the packs ignore their mates and juveniles, so odds are they'd only have 100-140 adults, of which maybe 60-80 are free to actually fight for it. the rest would be holed up in their dens or out hunting to support their sub-pack.
a typical wolfpack would hold about 50-100 square miles of territory, which is about as much is needed to support a single pack. so this Windigo's super-pack would need about 1000-2000 square miles minimum of hunting territory.. roughly an area the size of the State of Delaware. and most of its wolves would be spread out over that territory hunting. (since a single kill would generally only support a single pack of about 10-15.)

so instead of an encounter of a single windigo and a couple hundred wolves, you'd be looking more at several days worth of opportunistic attacks by 4-5 adult wolves at a time.. maybe maybe 10-12 if several groups were nearby each other.

given the size of the territory involved, odds are good that some other dangerous animals might be around, possibly even some MDC ones. it wouldn't take much to have a small group of wolves annoy a nearby threat of that kind, and lure it into the player's path. (actually, this could be a way for animals that otherwise would ignore humans to become a dangeorus threat.. if the wolves antagonize it, steal its eggs, or what have you.)

Its a specific adventure where a malevolent nature spirit (effectively the essence of the predator) inhabits a Demon Windigo (Canada pg 117) from the Adventure Guide, #64 on page 172.

Dogpile....Your armor effectively becomes a fortified, but swamped, position, and they can blind you with their bodies from heavier threats coming your way(like a minion with a megadamage can opener to pry you out of your armor).
If you've got light MD/area of effect weapons that don't damage you too much, then, as others have pointed out, that's the time to use 'em to clear yourself some space.

One of the biggest dangers here?
Is not to the PCs.
Its to all the hostages around them... aka any NPCs in the general vicinity. Unless the group are the only intelligent beings for miles around and/or they are totally unconcerned about anyone else. That number of wolves may not threaten them but it could over run a homestead or six... all at the same time. It would be really hard to guard all of them... in fact the only way you could do that would be by splitting up and putting one MD person at each farm.
And we all know about splitting the group in horror movies right?

eliakon wrote:One of the biggest dangers here?
Is not to the PCs.
Its to all the hostages around them... aka any NPCs in the general vicinity. Unless the group are the only intelligent beings for miles around and/or they are totally unconcerned about anyone else. That number of wolves may not threaten them but it could over run a homestead or six... all at the same time. It would be really hard to guard all of them... in fact the only way you could do that would be by splitting up and putting one MD person at each farm.
And we all know about splitting the group in horror movies right?

good point. even in a remote region, a geographic area of almost 2000 square miles should have at least one town or tribal camp in it. probably several.
which would make sense.. wolves and the windigo preying on the townspeople's herds and outlying homesteads would be the most likely way the player characters heard about the thing i nthe first place.

Fog of War

Was that rumbling in the bushes another wolf, or your main target.
Do you waste your time and action and give away your position by firing

masslegion wrote:I was reading a adventure idea in the Adventure Guide and one mission (pg172) has a demon possessed Windigo with ~200 wolves, some other Windigo,a dn Loup Garou along for the fun.

What danger do the hundreds of S.D.C. wolves pose to the characters if they are in full M.D.C. gear? Is it primarily knock-down and entangle?

Physical danger is minimal but the swarm would prevent you from doing anything and you would be basically at the mercy of the wendigo or loup garou.

Depending on the particular demon and his lackies some of them might be able to shift into wolf forms as well. At which point it's a bit tricky to tell if those are just more wolves or something else until its still stand after an MD blast or starts nibbling the grenade pins on your belt.

There is a Summon and Control Canine spell that involves amaking a pentacle that allows the control, make several of those so you can just seize control of enough of the wolves to keep the rst back. Any of your wolves that fall just allow you to take control of another wolf.

Given how powerful that is, I would not be averse to charging 1 melee attack to 'designate' each wolf you are opting to shift your control to, sort of like how you spend an action to aim a gun.