StormWolf
Elder Member
SWALLOWED BY THE MOON
Something about you has always been different. You can feel it in your bones, you can feel it in your marrow, and in something even deeper. A call that transcends hearing, a sign that defies sight. Perhaps you know what this means, or perhaps you simply think it a discomfort in your own skin. A discontentment with what and who you are. Perhaps you tried to bury it under work, stuff it down with food, drown it with drink...
But you cannot run from your birthright. You cannot deny our Mothers' cries.
One day, as you went about you daily attempt as living with the Herd, the feeling of unease that has been steadily growing in your core simply cannot be ignored. Your skin grows feverish and sensitive to the touch, your heart begins to race, and the low roar of your own blood in your ears grows to a deafening growl. "What is happening?", you might ask. "Why is it happening to me? Dear God, make it stop!"
That's when you hear it, a voice from within your ephemeral self that you might call your subconscious at first, but it is not your voice that speaks. It is the voice of a mother and a father, a sister and a brother, the whisper of the wind through the trees and the calls of all the beasts in nature.
Not all who wander are lost, young one. Not so long as they hear our Mother. Life among the Herd – among the mundane mortals – is not meant for you. I can feel your anger and fear, though you might deny it or not know its source. Our Mothers, our World, is dying. She is poisoned by corruption of body and spirit. She is scarred by the sins waged upon her flesh. The maw of Oblivion looms over our kind, our very reality, and you are among the Chosen who keep it at bay.
Will you be lost in blissful ignorance? Will you remain prey for that which hungers for our World?
Or will you answer the Call?
But, the most important question of all, my dearest Child...
When will you RAGE?
“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods. There is a rapture on the lonely shore. There is a society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar. I love not man the less, but nature more.”
"Gather 'round, cubs. There is a tale that old Eyes-of-the-Sun must tell you, the story of our Kind, the oldest and most important story you will ever hear..."
Before there was primordial form, before there was Wolf or Man, all existence occupied a single plane. All were as flesh and spirit, and the greatest among them were the Celestines; Lord Helios, Lady Lune, Lady Agartha, and their court of stars. Youngest and most beautiful among them were Lune and Agarta, destined for great things, for terrible things. Lune could never stray far from her celestial sister, and when the first great beauty of nature appeared, Lune wept with joy and envy, for she could have no sapphire seas, no emerald forests, nor beasts to call her children.
Still, she as happy for Sister Agartha, basking her with the glow of her smile.
Drawn by that glow, hitherto came Father Wolf, a primordial and wild spirit from the depths of the Wyldes - the Spirit Domain. He was beautiful and graceful as he as dangerous and ferocious. While Lady Agartha slumbered, it was Lady Lune who say him first, and was smitten. Father Wolf was hungry and alone, and weary from his travels, so Lady Lune took pity on him. Taking the form of a kindred creature of purest silver starlight, Lune guided Father Wolf to the fertile lands beneath the boughs of one of the World Trees.
The sky was dark for that night, as the Moon found something new. She found love.
When Lord Helios awoke in the morning, he was furious! Wherefore had Lady Lune gone?! Fearing the blazing temper of Lord Helios, Lady Lune left Father Wolf as he slumbered with a final kiss upon his brow. Lady Agartha, whom had awoken with Lord Helios' fearsome blunder, bid her sister hide behind her until night fell, and Helios fell asleep once more. It was in this time that Lady Agartha, tending her Sacred Glens, found Father Wolf sleeping beneath the boughs of her World-Oaks, and she too was smitten.
As the cycles passed, Lune and Agartha grew gravid with evidence of their liaison, bearing the brunt of Lord Helios' wrath, and fostering resentment for each other. Each gave birth to three beings of great power, but Lady Lune, being closer to Lord Helios, was forbidden to return to her celestial sister, denied the chance to show her children to their Father. Denied the chance to even raise them, for she could not foster life like her sister could. So, from afar, she had no choice but to watch as Agartha and Father Wolf frolicked in their glen with their young, and in jealousy and shame, Lune turned away from them.
There was a time when Lady Lune's own children never knew her face, for the pain of distance was too great to bear. In seeing her loved ones so close, but unable to touch them or speak to them, it filled Lady Lune with such unbridled Rage that even the unblinking stars trembled.
Father Wolf felt this Rage as it stormed through the air. He had silently wondered where the beautiful she-wolf had gone, and in the absence of the Moon, he knew. So he gathered his children, those sired with Lady Lune and Lady Agartha, and their Children's Children, and scaled the highest mountain. Atop its crest, Father Wolf lead them in a Song for their Celestial Mother. The First Howl, and how haunting and beautiful it was.
Lady Lune heard such a mournful chorus and could not keep herself away, and so she turned her face back to her sister and her beloveds, and she smiled down on them with a Mother's Love.
You can see her now, though, with every rotation, turning to cast her gaze once again upon us - her Children and her sister's Children - to ensure we are well, and to bask our burning spirits in her radiance.
Forget not that we are all Children of Father Wolf, but we are also children of Mother Moon and Mother Earth. It is through them that we are connected to the Spiritual and Material, and as our Father did before us, we are sworn to protect our Mothers both, from this day to the end of days.
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While our War is eternal, we have suffered more losses in the last century than we have in the whole millennium before it.
The Great Wars. Wars of Man against Man, fueled by rapacious industry and the hubris of mortality, has laid us low. Of the nine Sacred World-Oaks, only three remain. Where we once held court with our fellow Thera and the other supernatural denizens of our world, we are now a disjointed and endangered species on the cusp of eradication. Our holy sites and places of power, our ancestral homes, have all but been destroyed.
Such is the folly of Man, the traitorous Little Brother we are sworn to protect. Such is the fetid fruit of gas, fire, blood, greed, and the terrible power of the Atom.
Of those who can take Shape and fight, we number less than Ten-Thousand the world around. We are dying, gazing down the yawning maw of extinction... but if we do not fight, if we do not keep the Long Vigil, then all of Reality might buckle. No matter the fire nor the flames, we must endure for the sake of our children, and our children's children, and all those who come after us.
We are the vanguards and the sentinels of life, and we water the roots of the World-Trees with the blood of the treacherous.
"Thrice we are born, thrice we are sworn."
We are born, not bitten. If we could make more of our number through a bite, we would not be facing extinction. We are a people, a breed. Werewolves are not parasites like the Strigoi.
Of our progenitors, we have garnered Gifts and Curses. Boons and Banes. When Father Wolf grew weary and weak in his old age, so did we take up is vigil. For while he coveted the natural splendor and the miraculous works of nature, Father Wolf knew that his time was done. There were others rising to be Mother Earth's children, but they were greedy and hungry, taking more than Mother Earth could give. So it was the parting Gift of Father Wolf to his brood to give unto his Children three Shapes. Three Forms to protect Mothers, Brothers, and Sisters.
The Human - The man-skin, the Ape. One's own hominid shape with which to blend in among the Herd. The Form to drive a car, wield a gun, and hold their children to their breast. Since the time of the First Fire, the First Spear, this Form has been of dire necessity. In the modern day, most of our Kindred know more of their human lives than the histories, fables, and cultures of our dying breed. Many rage against this dying light, while others see this as the purest tenet of our survival.
The Wolf - The animal-shape, running on four clawed paws with keen senses and the greatest connection to the Mothers. The Hunter, the Prowler, the fangs in the darkness. There is nothing purer in its closeness to nature than the Wolf, and nothing more sacrosanct than their songs to Mother Moon on a clear solstice night.
The Warrior - The Blessing of Father Wolf. Gifted and Cursed by Mother Earth and Mother Moon. Primal urge, instinct, and Rage on two legs. Ferocity and fury, the stuff of mortal nightmares. It is the Form that drives us, that dooms us. With it comes unbridled Rage and Fury, a hatred for things that spit in the face of natural order. As the Warrior, you are the defender of your resident Reality, and you take no prisoners. Even the smallest Werewolf towers over the tallest man in their Warrior-Form, capable of visiting raw devastation upon their enemies...
The First Change
We are born, not bitten. If we could make more of our number through a bite, we would not be facing extinction. We are a people, a breed. Werewolves are not parasites like the Strigoi.
A True-Born - a werewolf with two werewolf parents or the winner of the genetic lottery with only one werewolf parent, will undergo their First Change under two circumstances. The first, and the most common, is during puberty. The body is already changing in more ways than one, allowing the Blood to manifest. While painful, it is rare for one to lose control during this type of change. Tightly knit werewolf communities will throw celebrations for the Cub as they assume their True Self.
The second circumstance is, in all honesty, just as common as the first. If not more so, in the last century. In a word: trauma. Something triggers a life-or-death fight/flight response, or a life threatening injury occurs. It is in this that the Wolf-Spirit stirs to protect itself and the host. The transformation is violent and frenzied, acting on pure survival instinct.
Either way, the First Change is always the most painful. At least, that is what the Crones say. Bones will break and tissue will tear, organs shifting and warping in a fever pitch of agony. The body tears itself apart and puts itself back together. A slower change takes an effort of will and control, and will reduce the pain, but sometimes one needs to shift on a moment's notice. It is the quick-shifts that hurt the most.
The Wolf-Blooded
There are Kin and Kind of ours that may carry our blood, but never undergo their First Change. These are the Wolf-Blooded. This is the typical outcome of a werewolf and a human mating, often falling to a 50-50 chance on whether the child will the a True-Born, or Wolf-Blooded. Many in our societies look upon the Wolf-Blooded with pity, or treat them as lesser beings, holding to traditional vestiges from centuries prior.
While a Wolf-Blooded cannot shape-shift as a Werewolf would, it is far more frequent for a Wolf-Blooded to be able to Channel the Mother's Magics to become Shamans, Druids, Witches, and Seers. Wolf-Blooded are mortal but for their greater chance of commanding Spirit and Earth Magic, and do not suffer from the Curses of Lycanthropy. They do not suffer the instinctual fear of being around a werewolf, for the spirits recognize Kindred.
Gifts and Curses
Even peerless killing machines are not without fault. The Power of our Mothers, the Strength of our Father, all comes with a price. Our Curses are our penance for bygone sings against Kin and Kind, and for the betrayal and the heartbreak of the First Born War.
Gifts
Might of Mountains - Werewolves are, in all their forms, terribly powerful. In Human and Wolf shapes, they are faster and stronger than a mortal human or wolf of the same size. When they don the Warrior-Skin, a Werewolf becomes an avatar of destruction, capable of rending steel and gouging concrete. Our claws and fangs are as steel themselves. When you are a Werewolf, all houses are made of glass if you aren't careful.
Predator Senses - Even should a Werewolf be blind, they can see the world as if they had one-hundred eyes. They hunt the greatest supernatural forces in (and beyond) existence. While the most potent in the Wolf-Form, to the point of being able to track the pulse of ones prey, every Form has the enhanced senses of an apex predator.
Regeneration - We fight Things That Should Not Be. If we couldn't defy death and shrug off wounds that would kill a mortal ten times over, our kind would have died off a long time ago. Our bodies can break down all but the worst supernatural toxins and contagions, can fight through evisceration, and stubbornly cling to life through obliteration. We are not indestructible or invulnerable, but we are about as tough as they come.
Tied to this is the chance of a long life. There are Werewolves alive today that have seen generations come and go, but centuries of what we endure on a physical, mental, and spiritual level will take a toll. Many of our Elders grow feeble or mad as they near their third century, and many more of our kind will never know their twilight years.
Mothers' Magic - All of our Kin and Kind are connected to our Mothers. Even after our Reality was rent into different planes, we can see Spirits and commune with them. These practices of Shamanism and Druidism are intrinsically tied into fundamental ritual and belief, and each Werewolf has some connection to the Spiritual Planes, but rare is the gift of a Cub who is a true Shaman.
Father's Fury - There lies in our blood the raw, primal fury of our ancestor. A Fury older than time, burning bright as the sun. It is a wellspring of seductive power, dark and terrible in its potency. Like the Magics of our Mothers, Father's Fury is a supernatural, primordial source of power that amplifies the body at great personal risk.
Curses
Sliver's Bite - Pure silver (80% or higher) is anathema to us. No matter how bullet-proof you think you are, a silver bullet will lay you low. It burns our skin and curdles our blood, and once it enters our system, it prevents our bodies from regenerating and muddies our connection to the Spirits.
Rage and Fury - Life among the Herd is not meant for us. There are many who try, but we can never truly be with beings that are not as dangerous as ourselves. Humans and animals can feel it, our true nature writhing just beneath the skin, and it fills them with a shiver of lambent dread. Individuals of particular discipline or will might not feel that true fear, but their hackles will raise all the same. We will never belong to the Herd, for we are the Wolf and the Shepherd both.
Lunacy - The risk of succumbing to our Mothers' Rage and our Father's Fury too freely, those primordial powers burn away at the mind and the spirit. In time, the Beast subsumes all identity, and the werewolf becomes a slavering, rabid animal that needs to be put down. It is a dangerous spiral when one also combats sanity-flaying monstrosities from beyond known creation.
Limitations - Mighty as the Werewolf is, there are things that we cannot come back from. One of the most terrifying things we have learned in the last century is that we are steadily falling behind Mankind's ability to inflict violence. An artillery shell or missile need not be silvered to kill a werewolf if the explosion turns them to mist.
Worst of all, though, is the Silent Death - radiation. Even as we regenerate tissue, the poision of radiation spreads even quicker through us than it would a mortal body because of it.
Our Mothers are dying. Reality heaves, and our kind faces eradication. Like draws to like, as the deep wounds upon our Mother Earth fester, luring the cosmic carrion-eaters from the Outside like flies to rot. Beings beyond mortal comprehension, creatures of nightmare and madness, corruption and consumption. Monsters of Mythos that burrow through the breaches in our reality like blood worms to sink barbs of poisonous malice into the hearts and minds of all.
We fight Vampires and Hunters, we slay our traitorous kin, and we shirk at Mages and wearily deal with the Fae and the Spirits...
But the Outside Forces are our True Adversary, for they are beings that have never known our world, and simply wish to corrupt, defile, and consume.
Ever since the Outer Gates began to crack after World War I, such unearthly forces have been more frequent. Where there may be a handful in a century, there is a handful every year, and they are getting stronger...
And yet, so many of our kind have forgotten and lost their way...
This was our Father's War, is Long Vigil, and we carry it now as he once did. We watch the Gates, the breach points between the planes of existence, we mind the fraying fabric that keeps these planes apart, ever stalwart against incursion from the Outside, from the Fae Realms, and the innumerable planes beyond. We were the first inhabitants of this world. We are Agartha and Lune's First-Born, and we will not go quietly into the maw of Oblivion.
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