Difference between revisions of "Wolfen"

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(→‎Chronology of the sedentary Wolfen packs)
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'''Yilia's choice'''
 
'''Yilia's choice'''
 +
 +
Yllia listened but was not willing to answer their
 +
request as it meant jeopardizing the existence of an
 +
entire species to end their war. Torn between her
 +
duty to the gods and the love for her children, Yllia
 +
went into isolation to meditate. She chose the shores
 +
of a lake near an imposing rock at the heart of Diisha.
 +
She observed her reflection in the pool, looking for a
 +
sign to direct her choice.
 +
Her presence did not go unnoticed. A wolf was
 +
gazing upon her. He was the leader of a great pack
 +
living in these woods. But Yllia ignored him. So he
 +
sat there, unable to take his eyes off
 +
her, while a voice
 +
wormed inside his head trying to make itself heard.
 +
The strong and firm voice closed upon his mind and
 +
held the wolf under its powers. Disoriented, the animal heard many alluring promises. He eventually
 +
gave in to the voice and was rewarded with the right to know the name of the voice, Vile-Tis. Vile-Tis
 +
was a powerful being from a distant Realm. He could
 +
not take a tangible form on Aarklash for reasons he
 +
could not understand. He had therefore been forced
 +
to possess the creature he knew was dearest to Yllia’s
 +
heart in order to pursue his plans.
 +
This is when the other members of the wolfpack
 +
awoke, sensing something unusual was going on.
 +
Realizing the absence of their leader, they sought
 +
him for several long minutes before reaching the
 +
banks of the lake in time to witness, powerless, an
 +
uncanny scene. Facing Yllia, their leader stood erect
 +
on his hind legs. His body transformed, taking on a more hu-
 +
manoid shape. Under the features of this man, Vile-Tis walked
 +
over to the moon goddess and sweet-talked her into letting
 +
him approach. Seduced by the handsome stranger, Yllia surrender herself to him in a passionate embrace. Mesmerized,
 +
the wolves assisted in this union, without understanding their
 +
leader had become Vile-Tis’ puppet.
 +
Yllia was still deep asleep when Vile-Tis released his host.
 +
The moon goddess never got to see the light of day on her
 +
lovers face and neither did she see him revert to his animal
 +
form. She did not see the disorientated wolf make it back to
 +
his pack.
 +
 +
'''The children of Yllia'''
 +
 +
Knowing she was pregnant, the moon goddess remained
 +
hidden in the forest for a time to conceal her pregnancy from
 +
the other gods. She gave birth to a litter of humanoids with
 +
wolf-like features. Frightened by her offspring, the goddess realized she had been cursed. In the absence of the vile seducer,
 +
her anger was directed at the only beings present: her pups.
 +
However, she could not fi nd the strength to kill them and,
 +
tormented by her destiny, she condemned them to be constantly torn between the instincts she had given them and the
 +
greed and arrogance of humanity. She then set out to fi nd the
 +
wolves which she had seen that night. When she found them
 +
she transformed them to give them the same features as her
 +
descendants. When she returned to the other gods, she offered them what they had been waiting for: an army that would
 +
obey the orders of Vile-Tis and overthrow the Craftsman, who
 +
would become forever her army’s number one enemy.
 +
She called her progeny and the wolves she had transformed worgs. Instilled with part of her essence, she promised
 +
the gods that they would be victorious. In her heart she still
 +
wished to see them die in war and thus end her torment.
 +
Having remained in the background, Vile-Tis was issued
 +
orders by the gods to train the worgs. So he gathered them
 +
and undertook their martial education. Seeking to break the
 +
chains of their passion and instinct, Vile-Tis gave command
 +
to the former pack leader whom he had possessed that fateful
 +
night, and called him Ekynox. The latter played his role perfectly.
 +
 +
'''When wolves dare'''
 +
 +
Forged by the martial skills of Vile-Tis, the worgs had become killers, combining the art of combat with the thirst for
 +
blood dictated by instincts unrivalled in the Realm of mortals. Under the guidance of Vile-Tis, they learned to manufacture and manipulate metal weapons. They covered themselves in plate armor and trophies. Their natural qualities as
 +
well as their godly ascendants made them the best warriors on Aarklash. Only a handful at first, the worgs created by Yllia
 +
reproduced and gave birth to further litters. Over the generations the power of Yllia’s blood thinned. The direct consequence was the appearance of smaller worgs, whose parents
 +
called them wolfen.
 +
Fortunately, the wolfen had not lost the predatory instincts
 +
of their forefathers and were not rejected by their parents.
 +
So worgs and wolfen followed the teachings of Vile-Tis who
 +
ensured their cooperation. The latter set his bloodthirsty
 +
beasts loose on Aarklash. The first wolfen packs, led by the
 +
worgs, massacred anybody showing even the slightest sign of
 +
the Craftsman’s influence or having anything to do with the
 +
Ishim’Re Empire. Like starving wolves they stormed the borders of the empire, attacking it on all sides with thousands of
 +
assaults followed immediately by strategic retreats.
 +
With the wolfen snapping at its neck, the Ishim’Re Empire sent into battle experimental weapons and unfinished
 +
automatons whose strength was ten times that of its regular
 +
soldiers. Battle was raging everywhere. Forests were burned
 +
to the ground while the earth shook in pain. The conflict opposing the wolfen and the Ishim’Re Empire was so
 +
violent that many peoples tried to leave Aarklash.
 +
Some were attempting to escape the massacre, the
 +
others were trying to take the fighting into the other
 +
Realms.
 +
The gods were taken aback by the way things had
 +
turned out. The Incarnates were not just bearing
 +
their message anymore; they were improvising their
 +
own solutions. The gods tried to re-establish some
 +
form of order and told their troops to calm down,
 +
but the wolfen advance was far too great; the wolf
 +
people, led by Ekynox, besieged the Ishim’Re capital.
 +
Vile-Tis was by their side and he was determined to
 +
crush his personal enemy. But Vile-Tis was already
 +
dreaming of his victory when the Craftsman revealed his last trump card. With a terrifying rumble,
 +
the Craftsman and the Ishim’Re Empire disappeared from the face of Aarklash.
 +
 +
'''The Winter of Battles'''
 +
 +
Determined to get rid of his enemies once and
 +
for all. Vile-Tis left Aarklash, along with the wolfen,
 +
in pursuit of the Craftsman. The worgs and their
 +
descendants, freed from his influence, went back to
 +
doing what they did best: hunting. It did not take
 +
long before they made the other nations of Aarklash
 +
their prey.
 +
The gods observed in fear the wolfen hunt down
 +
every living creature they came across, washing the
 +
land with the blood of their victims. Over time, the
 +
nations of Aarklash stopped making a distinction between the worgs and the wolfen. In their eyes both formed
 +
a single people, that of the Wolfen, who had become the most
 +
numerous representatives.
 +
While the war did not seem to end and the wolfen gave in
 +
more and more to predation, a scourge slowly stretched its
 +
white curtain over Aarklash. Freezing winds and everlasting
 +
snow fell over the nations still standing, forcing the herds to
 +
migrate and the mortals to follow them. This phenomenon
 +
was a manifestation of the father of all gods as he wished to
 +
end the games of his children and the consequences these games had on the wolfen. The nations deserted the battlefields to
 +
fight for survival instead. Only the wolfen seemed unaffected
 +
by this mystical winter. Their enemies had fled the fight, or
 +
had died from the biting cold, so the wolfen travelled back to
 +
Diisha.
 +
Winter came and should have gone but the snow covering
 +
the land did not seem to melt for years. The wolfen believed
 +
time had been frozen. The rigor of such a long winter eventually took its toll, even the tough wolfen started having problems providing for themselves. Worried, Ekynox turned to Yllia, begging for answers.
 +
 +
Caught between her motherly love and the anger of having
 +
been deceived, Instinct imposed itself as a stern and demanding goddess who would only reward the strongest. She requested that they abandon all their artefacts and all the marks
 +
of prestige Vile-Tis had given them, forcing them to forget
 +
their knowledge and to rely on their instinct and on the forces
 +
of nature. Seeping into their dreams,
 +
she told them of the gods’ quarrels and
 +
the curse to which she had been the
 +
victim. She had decided to make them
 +
the guardians of Creation, she offered
 +
them the possibility to channel their
 +
savagery and make the most of their
 +
human conscience. By making them
 +
her guardians, she was giving them a
 +
purpose, a reason to be.
 +
One night Yllia went to meet Tyresiax. She made this worg the first wolfen scribe. Untying ribbons from her
 +
hair, she handed them to him so that
 +
he could write down the fi rst wolfen
 +
runes. That night Tyresiax learned to
 +
draw each one of them. Yllia also revealed that some of them held great
 +
mystical powers that could be unleashed by uttering words of power. He
 +
also learned how to share the secret of
 +
magic and litanies with future generations.
 +
Returning with this gift, he told his
 +
kind of the goddess’ present. Keeping
 +
the ribbons safe, he told his companions how to reproduce the runes of
 +
power onto pieces of cloth.
 +
In time, runic writing spread to
 +
every pack and the wolfen learned to
 +
make ribbons and how to write the
 +
signs of Yllia on them. Since those
 +
ancient times this sacred heritage has
 +
been a medium used to commune
 +
with their goddess and to benefit from
 +
her favors.
 +
 +
Grateful to their goddess, the
 +
wolfen, still guided by Ekynox,
 +
raised a stone circle around the
 +
lake in the forest of Diisha. They
 +
called it Môrn in memory of the
 +
intense emotion his fight had caused during the Battle of Aureus.
 +
 +
== The dawn of a new world ==
 +
 +
Not only had the Winter of
 +
Battles struck Aarklash with
 +
never-ending winter, it had also
 +
forced the gods away. Th
 +
ey were
 +
to lose their immortality if they
 +
were ever to set foot on Aarklash
 +
again. Yllia could not take such a
 +
risk. So she trained the worgs to
 +
manipulate elemental energies.
 +
She also requested of Ekynox
 +
that he should fi
 +
ght the Winter of
 +
Battles since he was the strongest
 +
among the worgs.
 +
Th
 +
us the worgs gathered and
 +
called upon their new knowledge
 +
to support Ekynox. Standing in a
 +
circle, they whispered the words
 +
of power, making the freezing
 +
energies waver before gathering then. After some incredible
 +
eff
 +
orts, they managed to channel the divine cold and locked
 +
it inside Ekynox’ body. Seized by lethargy, the pack leader col-
 +
lapsed in the middle of the stone circle. And while Ekynox
 +
was deeply asleep, the eff
 +
ects of the Winter of Battles only
 +
began to fade after several more years of freezing cold and
 +
snowstorms.
 +
During these uncertain years, Ekinox remained fast asleep
 +
under the vigilant guard of some of his closest companions.
 +
But as time went by, the worgs grew tired of waiting for him
 +
to wake up. Th
 +
ey scattered. Some formed new packs. Others
 +
sought deep forests to lie down and get the rest they believed
 +
they deserved.
 +
Th
 +
en one day Ekynox awoke. It took some time before he
 +
became accustomed to the divine scourge now freezing his
 +
fl
 +
esh. Yllia whispered sweet and comforting words into his
 +
ears.
 +
As the Winter of Battles was coming to an end, the wol-
 +
fen who remained distrustful of Yllia encouraged their bro-
 +
thers to distance themselves from the gods, all of them. Th
 +
ey
 +
agreed that the existence of the wolfen was necessary to pro-
 +
tect nature; Yllia had told the truth then. However, they were
 +
doubtful of her intentions and they did not hesitate to remind
 +
every wolfen who would listen that there had been a time
 +
when the goddess had not been all that kind.
 +
Savage and primitive, these wolfen were considered as blas

Revision as of 15:47, 18 March 2013

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