7zi TUHM

lating in Italy froom trading with the Byzantine Empire, fortified by refugees from Constantinople had absolutely nothing to do with it. Nor did the prevailing market system in Italy, which kept out the worst aspects of the soulsucking, advancement-crushing system that was Feudalism. And it was absolutely, entirely unrelated to the vast amounts ofmoney possessed by the Medici family and their willingness to sponsor great thinkers like Francesco Petrurch. But then, you already knew this, Natalia. Indeed, I did. Although they didn’t sponsor Petrarch, the founder of Humanism, he was around well before they were going ahead and founding the Platonic Academy and so forth. Nor did they really grow weary of the church; Petrarch oftentimes noted that he felt torn in two by his desire to learn set against his hunger for salvation. And as I said earlier, the Dark Ages were hardly a morass, although they did not compare to the Renaissance. But all of this is details. The point is that these times were something that the tribe had been starving for. The Brethren of the Book went from being seekers of knowledge, trying to find that which was worth recording; and became editors, wondering what among so much they should write down, and what they should leave out. The Golden Wheel went from desperately trying to maintain the market system of Italy to reaping its rewards. The tribe started forging new alliances in these times, and migrated heavily to Florence, whilst gleefully seizing upon every new idea and invention the humans created. Perhaps the best way to show exactly how much the Renaissance influenced our tribe is to simply state: The Warders were gone by the end of the Renaissance, replaced by a new tribe. 7zi T&UH?M Humanism was the philosophical backbone of the Renaissance, believing in the fundamental rationality, dignity and worth of mankind whilst holding the classical Greek and Roman texts in the highest regard. It was also the origin of one area of modern teaching: the humanities. This is, incidentally, the area that covers the study of history. So I guess I have a lot to owe to it. The reason this is important is that it helps to understand how the Tetrasomians came about. They were founded by a collection of Italian Warders inspired by the works of Petrarch; the most notable among them including the prolific inventor and Theurge Nicolas Medina, poet and Galliard Merlin0 Rufillo and Vittoria Zuccaro, an Ahroun and translator of Ancient Greek writings. These three were fascinated by the ideas of humanism and the possibility of “Garouism,” a philosophy that would champion the rationality and responsibility of Garou. Krauthammer was the first to extrapolate alchemical concepts to spiritual ones. Alchemy held that all metal was a mixture of sulfur, salt and quicksilver; and by changing those mixtures you could, as the legend goes, turn lead into gold. Didn’t work, but when buthammer took those concepts and observed that sulfur was prone to hosting Wyrm-spirits, salt often held Weaver-spirits and quicksilver was a conduit for Wyld-spirits, he was cooking. His capabilities won his a spot in Frederick‘s court, and Krauthammer promptly invited along about twenty other Warders from around Europe to join him. You can’t call his merry band a camp, because they encompassed nearly all Warders camps of the day. They were more like a gigantic pack, and when you read the accounts of their behavior, the only one who wasn’t a Ragabash was Krauthammer. They called themselves the Grandi Pazzi, or the Great Lunatics, and the experiments and debates they conducted quickly tended to turn into a debauch of irrational “logic” that made sense to no-one but their own number, alchemical mixes that defied common sense and worked perfectly, and far too much alcohol to be plausibly healthy. They were the maddest men of the madman’s court, and there’s no question that if you lived in the thirteenth century and desperately wanted to push the limits of just about any human or Garou learning, you really wanted to be there. Oh, and Frederick eventually went on a Holy Crusade despite being excommunicated (twice!) and forced the pope to excommunicate the whole of Jerusalem, the holiest city in Christian culture. Elizabeth Genereader shakes her head with a massive smile on her face: Wherever human spirits go when they die, I hope his is restingpeacefully . I wish we had more humans like that, froankly . Backup Circuit agrees: Ditto. Ditto. As does Slick Sim: Ditto. These are the kind of guys who actually sign budgets now and then, bless ’em. a2&m&m And then out of the morass of the Dark Ages, suddenly sprung a vast and powerful revolution of artistic, scientific and cultural upheaval! Thinkers in our very homelands of Italy grew weary of the church and its constant pleading with us to wait for our just reward in Heaven, for these thinkers wanted to create greatness here and now, spawning a wave of invention like the Western world had never seen before. The world was born anew by the sheer force of human will, and this world would exalt the human above all else! Elizabeth Genereader innocently whistles: And the strong presence of Greek and Roman philosophy circuRufillo was the one responsible for much of the camp’s doctrine. He drew heavily from the Greek philosopher and scientist Empedocles, who believed that the world was divided into the classical four elements. Empedocles went further, however, and ascribed mythical figures to each element: Zeus was associated with air, Hera claimed earth, Hades fire, and Persephone was correlated to water. These four forces were pulled back and forth by the two great forces of life: Strife and Love, which were associated with Ares and Aphrodite. He believed that in the beginning, the entire world was made of Love in a perfect sphere, but Strife shattered Love into the four elements that made our world as well as our souls, and we were slowly heading back to a time when Love would form a second perfect sphere. From this base, Rufillo created muchof the essential Tetrasomian philosophy. The four elements stood for the Triat and Gaia: She was Hera and Earth, the Wynn was Hades, the Weaver was Zeus and Persephone represented the Wyld. These were, however, the “minor” incarnations of the Triat and Gaia, contained within our souls and opposed to the “major” incarnation of Gaia and the Wyrm, represented by Aphrodite and Chnpfer O w : Myfholo5ical h 5 i c Ares. Just as humanism believed in the ability ofhumanity to better itself with rationality, Rufillo believed Garou could better themselves by balancing the four elements in their soul. This did not negate the responsibility of the Garou to fight the greater Wyrm and defend the greater Gaia, but in their own souls it was better to be balanced between Gaia and the Wyrm, able to draw off both spirits original worthy values. If Rufillo was the brains behind the Tetrasomians, then Medina was the hands and Zuccaro was the mouth. Medina was more concerned with the alchemical traditions that Empedocles was influenced by and spent his time creating some of the most wondrous fetishes of the age. Zuccaro worked like a madwoman on researching Empedocles and the Greek mystery traditions that influenced him. She was the one who came up with the structure of the camp, which was highly reminiscent of an Orphic, mystery cult. Moots were held under moonlight, and Rites of Passage were ended by nearly fatally wounding the cub with a silver dagger. This near-death experience was meant to jolt the soul and help the cub toward balance. Perhaps because of the demands upon rationality (and its cousin, objectivity), balance was seen as some-