Black Spiral Dancer
In the World of Darkness fictional universe produced by White Wolf Game Studio, the Black Spiral Dancers are a tribe of werewolves (or Garou) who have become corrupted by the Wyrm. They draw their name from their own traditions of the Wyrm, and the transfiguring "Rite of Passage" that a Garou must undertake to become a Black Spiral Dancer. They are, typically, physically monstrous, incurably insane, and viciously sadistic.
Black Spiral Dancers gather into small packs like Gaian Garou, and these groups make their homes in a Hive, places desecrated and sanctified into the service of the Wyrm. Hives are often underground, connecting to the surrounding countryside through extensive tunnel systems dug by the Spirals; however, Hives have been known to exist exclusively in the Umbra or in other exotic locations including the belly of a massive Thunderwyrm named Grammaw. They are among the Wyrm's most enthusiastic and aggressive agents in the physical world, using tactics of ecological terrorism, spiritual warfare, and outright violence. Their weak point, however, is their own degree of corruption. Many Black Spiral Dancers are self-destructively insane, while others are so unstable that they are put down by their hivemates. Similarly, the Black Spiral Dancers (having no rules relating to procreation) have a disproportionately large metis population, and have their bodies further riddled with deformities caused by the taint of the Wyrm. As a result, they often seek out young Garou still of Gaia and attempt to convert them into Black Spiral Dancers. These Gaian Garou are usually saner then most Black Spirals, but the majority of them are driven mad by the mad revelations they experience through the initiation process, where a Garou dances a facsimile of the Black Spiral Labyrinth located in the Umbral Realm of Malfeas.
The two most notable Black Spiral Dancers are Zhyzhak, easily the single most powerful canon Garou alive at the dawn of the Apocalypse; she is slain by the Silver Fang King Jonas Albrecht; and the Perfect Metis, who, depending on the different scenarios offered in the final supplement, is either slain as a sacrifice to one of the Triatic aspects of the Wyrm, or else he kills Zhyzhak and unites the cause of the Black Spiral Dancers and the Gaian Garou in a final attempt to release the Wyrm from the clutches of the true evil: the Weaver.
The Dark Litany
The Black Spiral Dancers have a general code of conduct. A corruption of the code maintained by the Garou Nation, its enforcement is somewhat lax in reference to some rules while others are met with strict punishment (i.e. rending the Veil). There are four laws of the Dark Litany which are not corrupted versions of the Litany held by the Garou, and in fact are identical to those used by the Gaian Garou. They are marked with a plus sign, below.
- Serve the Wyrm in all its forms.
- Beware the territory of another.
- Slay those who will not join you.
- Respect all those who serve the Wyrm.
- The Veil shall not be lifted. +
- Do not suffer thy people to tend to thy sickness. +
- The Leader may be challenged at any time in peace.+
- The Leader shall not be challenged in time of war. +
- Ye shall take no action that causes a Pit to be violated.
Gameplay
The Black Spiral Dancers never received a tribebook supplement of their own. While the early developers considered the mini-sourcebook included in the 1st Edition Book of the Wyrm to be sufficient, players never stopped clamoring for a full source on the fallen tribe. However, White Wolf never acquiesced to the requests, citing that any player who would both want to play a Black Spiral and could do the job of roleplaying one legitimate justice should not be playing the game at all. Black Spiral Dancers delight in the most corrupt and perverse of activities: revelling in rape and incest and craving blood, disease and destruction. Such a monstrosity provides an easy adverserial presence for Gaian Garou player characters, but should not be one for actual human beings to play. Additional supplements, such as The Chronicle of the Black Labyrinth and expanded and updated information in the 2nd Edition Book of the Wyrm fleshed out the fallen tribe, and fan-made character sheets surfaced occasionally on the internet, but no sanctioned complete rule and sheet set for player characters of the Black Spirals was ever released.
On a side note, Freak Legion: A Player's Guide To Fomori and Possessed did give full rule sets and character sheets for players and storytellers interested in a campaign surrounding the Wyrm's human shock troops, the Fomori.