Realistic or Modern Werewolf Slot Open

[Grey]

This story is true.

• Pangaea
• The Decline of Father Wolf
• The Fall
• Forsaken

• 
  
  
  Everything we are and everything we were began in Pangaea. You already know what Pangaea was. You’ve heard stories of the Garden of Eden — that’s the best that humans could do trying to remember it. You catch glimpses of it in your dreams, and sometimes you smell something — maybe a whiff of a healthy plant, or something about the scent of your prey — and you almost remember.
  
  
  The scents are the hardest to forget. You can’t remember it fully, though, can you? Nobody can. Only the first of our kind walked in Pangaea.
  
  
  And they were the ones who had to destroy it.
  
  
  Can you remember the scent? The world was lush and full of promise. Spirits could enter the realm of flesh easily, and animals and humans could walk into the cool spirit shadow of the world. Pangaea wasn’t the joining of continents that geologists talk about, but the world in its first form. Humans and spirits shared a common language, the First Tongue.We can’t remember whether Pangaea was a time, a place, or both.
  
  
  All we can recall is that it was glorious, and it was lost.
  
  
  When Pangaea was in full bloom, its beauty seduced the heart of the moon itself. Mother Luna — Amahan Iduth — grew enchanted with the world growing beneath her. She took the form of a woman of flesh and descended to earth. She walked among the jungles and swam in the seas. She was the most beautiful creature in the world, and she had countless suitors. The greatest and most valiant was Urfarah… and you know that name, don’t you? He was Father Wolf.
  
  
  Pangaea was glorious, but it wasn’t a world of perfect peace and gentleness. It was a hunter’s world. The lion still hunted the lamb; the spirit still took what it needed from the world of flesh. Death was a part of this hunter’s paradise, and the greatest hunter of all was Father Wolf. He was a warrior of the Shadow Realm and the muddy world of air and earth. He roamed the boundaries of the physical world, keeping everything in its place. Spirits roamed into the world of the flesh, but not far or for long. Urfarah was all too ready to give chase when a spirit overstayed its welcome. When necessary, his teeth and claws pushed mortals and animals back into the relative safety of the flesh world if they strayed too far into the spirit world. His heart burned with supernatural strength and conviction, a righteous Rage that made him unstoppable. But he was the master of that Rage. He was first above us all, and greater than any other.
  
  
  Father Wolf loved Luna as she rode across the skies, and was overcome with joy and love when he encountered her walking through the borderlands between the spirit world and the physical. He was not alone in either of these sentiments. For her part, Luna found Father Wolf to be valiant and wise, strong and handsome, and she loved him in return. They knew one another, and she gave him children of both spirit and flesh — the first werewolves. Although she wore a human body, Luna gave birth to the first werewolves as a litter of nine pups, a sign of their future fate.
  
  
  From Luna our ancestors gained the power to change shape, just as she changes her own shape every month. From Father Wolf they gained senses, strength and speed that went beyond those of flesh-born wolves. From both parents they gained a measure of spiritual power, for Mother Moon was Queen of the Shadow Realm and Father Wolf was Lord of the Border Marches.
  
  
  After giving birth, Luna returned to the skies and Father Wolf raised the First Pack. He taught the first Uratha the ways of wolf and man, flesh and spirit. He showed them the roads from the Shadow Realm through forest, mountain or desert into the world of flesh, down trails to the tribal homes of men.
  
  
  Father Wolf raised the First Pack to aid him in his duties as guardian of the Border Marches. They took to these duties and helped bring order to the spirit world and the muddy
  
  
  world. They were shepherds of human, animal and spirit. They culled any herd, tribe or pack that got too large or too dangerous, playing the role of first among predators.
  
  
  Of course, some spirits and some tribes of humanity didn’t take well to this treatment. Some fought back, and through force of numbers, magic or strength, some wouldn’t die so easily. Father Wolf and his pack banished the worst to the far reaches of the spirit wilds, including mighty spirits, lesser servants of those spirits and tribes of men who worshipped dark powers and committed blasphemous crimes. Others, such as the Plague King and the Spinner-Hag, opposed Father Wolf when they could and fled when they found they could not take on his entire pack.
  
  
  We were lords of the dawn world. Our great strength and our ability to take different forms allowed us to dominate any man or creature. Few predators could challenge us. No prey could resist us. Even the strongest mammoths and fiercest predators of that era were no match for a pack of werewolves.
  
  
  It was a dark time to be human, but it was our age of glory, a golden age painted with the bright blood of our prey.
  
  
  And like every golden age, it was doomed.
  
  
  
• 
  
  
  You see, it began with Father Wolf. Before our time, before the humans arose and when most spirits were still young and weak, only Father Wolf was necessary to keep the two worlds in check. No spirit managed to linger overlong in the physical world or gather too much power. Father Wolf’s personal power diminished a little as he brought forth progeny both by Mother Luna and by other spirits. He was still strong and fast — for a time.
  
  
  It took many, many years, more than could be counted, but gradually Father Wolf began to lose his strength and speed. His fangs began to dull, and his wisdom did not reach as far. More spirits escaped his notice, setting up their terrible kingdoms among the humans and bloating with power. When he caught these would-be gods of suffering and gluttony, it took him longer to finish them off. Some even escaped — lessened by the struggle, but free all the same. Gradually, Pangaea was becoming a paradise for the spirits and for those humans who accepted their rule, and a purgatory for all the rest. Our forefathers and foremothers saw all this, and doubt began to gnaw at them.
  
  
  And what happens when a wolf pack begins to fail at its hunts because its alpha is too weak, too slow, too blind to lead? Either the pack dies, or the alpha must be replaced. This question was the same, but the stakes were the whole world.
  
  
  What happened next was a horrible thing that should not have been necessary — but it was.
  
  
  
• 
  
  
  Every spirit has bans — unbreakable laws that govern their very nature. A spirit of pain is forbidden from healing a living creature; a shark-spirit is forbidden rest. Father Wolf was one of the most powerful spirits in Creation, but even he had a ban. He felt such a strong connection to his duty that he would not close his eyes until someone could take his place. His ban’s strength was such that if those who could do so were to rise against him, he could not defend himself.
  
  
  Of course, the ones best suited to take Father Wolf’s place were his own children. Now, tales of this time make it quite clear that Father Wolf could unsheathe his claws and bare fangs against his children in ordinary struggles for dominance. Yet if Father Wolf’s pack truly desired to bring a killing blow against him, his very nature left him powerless. He would not be able to defend himself actively against such treachery, and his thick hide and powerful muscles would prove to be no more help than the wind and rain. So the only way to overthrow Father Wolf was to strike to kill.
  
  
  And we slew him.
  
  
  With his last breath, Father Wolf let loose a howl that shook both worlds. Humans collapsed sobbing at the sound that stirred nothing but fear in their hearts. Spirits cowered in their dens, struck with terror that something could have slain the great merciless wolf-spirit. They say the werewolf who struck the killing blow was himself instantly slain by the sheer force and emotional weight of the howl. Upon hearing the death-howl of her favored lover, Luna herself cried out in anguish and betrayal, cursing all the children she had ever borne. That curse would never be fully lifted.
  
  
  It is said, then, that the soul of the planet itself stirred. As the denizens of the Shadow Realm and the mortal creatures of the physical realm recoiled in terror, the two worlds were sundered. The earth shook and storms lashed the land. Ice broke free from the north, and islands sank into the ocean. Pangaea was no more. After the Fall, the hunters’ paradise was gone forever.
  
  
  
• 
  
  
  That’s why we are what we are. That’s why we’re wolf and human. That’s why we’re children of the Shadow Realm, but Forsaken by spirit. The spirits have feared us — and most have hated us — since that day. They fear and hate the thought that creatures part flesh and part ephemera now have the power to police them, and that we once had the strength to destroy the one spirit they all feared. The humans would go mad if they knew we’re not just movie icons, but real creatures that walk among them.
  
  
  We destroyed the greatest thing we ever had because it had to be done. We keep the spirit world in check, and spirits can’t stand us for it. We do our best to keep humans from maiming the spirit world in turn, and humans would despise us for it if they knew. Our own brothers have turned on us, hating us for doing what they lacked the courage and compassion to do themselves. Only fickle Mother Luna and our wolf totems stand with us, but that’s enough. We are the People. We are Uratha. We are the wolves who hunt in both worlds.
  
  
  We are the Forsaken, and heaven help anyone who draws down our fury.
  
  
  

Need one new player to fill a slot in this game. Set in the countryside Wicklow, Ireland. I'll help with all necessary material. Newbies welcome.

 

[CrimsonEclipse]

I'd like to try it!