[ST Ruling] Clarification on Penitence

Quote :

Losing Renown

Garou do not inflict lasting shame lightly. Nonetheless, sufficiently foolish, destructive or wicked deeds bring acknowledgement just as heroic ones do. Minor transgressions warrant minor losses of Temporary Renown — which a Garou can avoid altogether by persuading elders of mitigating circumstances — and punishment in the form of assigned duties, tests, ordeals and quests. The effort to restore a packmate’s lost Renown can provide stories for the whole pack, if Storytellers and players want to.

As per the source materials, Negative Renown can be, on occasion, reduced or mitigated by the intervention of 'the Elders'.

Our interpretation of this, pending clarification and/or guidance from the Addendum, is that characters may approach a Galliard of equal or higher rank or holding a Sept Position to speak to the renown spirits on their behalf. The spirits will then come to an arrangement with the Galliard for the appropriate chiminage that must be completed for the Neg Renown to be forgiven.

We will allow this to be done for a character only once per lifetime of the character. Restitution can possibly be made after this, but the chiminage would be of a difficulty that the character's death would be a strong possibility.

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Discussion:

We've had this pop up in the last two sessions for the first time.  Especially with the the new Renown system; which provides severe caps on Gains, but no commensurate block on Losses, we felt it was important to have a safety net in place in the name of game balance.  
As with any local ruling, this will be superseded by guidance from National and does not constitute a 'house rule', it is simply how I am instructing my staff to interpret an ambiguous section of the current rule set.

how much negative renown do you consider minor ? also a local ruling is what ever the sts says is a local ruling and that makes it ok ? It also means its a local rule but how is it not a house rule?