Zhe War of Rage

‘Zhe War of Rage

“Not everyone agrees with this, but I will say it: Humans have always loved the Weaver, the first of the three primal forces. As men and women continued to evolve, they learned to weave clothes, to make tools, to build homes. Picture their hands, if you will, as the wriggling of a thousand spider legs.

Instinctively, most humans believe in order.

“Early in the history of the world, the Weaver went mad.

The vast overpopulation of the human race has magnified this madness a thousand-fold. Reflecting the rapid ascension of the human race, the Mad Weaver attempted to bind everything within her lifeless webs. The primal forces of the Wyld were stifled, and minions of the Wyrm were bound for millennia, driven to insanity by their confinement.

“To oppose the Mad Weaver, the servitors of the Wyld must sever the webs that proliferate everywhere. As the humans build up their civilization, they despoil the wilderness; this stokes the rage of the werewolves to a fever pitch, forcing them to the rapturous abandon of Wyld violence. Yet whenever rage surges, the foul corruption of the Wyrm sets in. We are more careful in our dealings with the spirits. Not all of my brothers and sisters agree with me, but I will say it: We have preserved the true force of the Wyld, raw energy returning into the world. Whenever human civilization grows too strong, we are the ones who must correct the balance, just as we did in the springtime of the world.. .

“Forgive me. I’m getting ahead of myself, and ruining the story ....” ‘Zhe War of Rage Gregor listens, and his mind starts to race. Worms? Weavers?

The Wild? What the heU is she talking about? It’s all too much. He can hardly keep aU the words straight. He barely listens anymore.

The fever is growing worse. It bums like fire; he dreams offire. More painful memories return.

His memories. Greatpain. Sleepingcurledup on thefior. His fatherslashinghimas thebackwithhisbelt. Hidingalittkmoney in a secret phce, for the day he would leave. A house in fimes.

Broken glass. Shouting at people on the street. Freedng under a bridge. Giant rats in a dumpster. A brawl in an alkyway; he can’t quite remember. Somehow, he k w s , he is not like this gentk woman who tells him pretty stories. e . .

“All of the Changing Breeds upheld their tasks, but the Wolves set themselves above all others. If you ask one of the Garou today about this, he will be loathe to talk about it, but he will remember. And he will feel the same way today as he did thousands of years ago. We were all equal in Mother’s eyes, but the Wolves always believed they were first among equals, that they were Mother’s favored children. The Wolves, consumed by furious anger and false pride, set out to prove they were the greatest of Gaia’s children. They already held the most sacred sites, and the strongest tribes of breeding stock, but they demanded that as the greatest of the Goddess’ creations they had the right to rule over everything.

“Long ago, the Garou pledged to defend mankind against evil, and for them, the greatest of these evils was the Wyrm. Suffice it to say that even then, there was evil in the world. The Chapter One: Ratkin Legends werewolves knew it. They could smell its foul stench. They jealously guarded their flocks from thls danger, and justified it by saying they did it in Gaia’s name. And whenever they were consumed with this false pride, whenever they slaked their lust on the human breeding stock, the foul corruption of the Wyrm set in.

“Each of the Changing Breeds has its own story of why the War of Rage began. Some say it is because the Wyrm corrupted the Garou, and that ever since then, any werewolf in a frenzy of anger acts as a creature of evil. Some storytellers like to say that the different tribes began to war against each other, and that some cunning werewolf tricked them into fighting all the other tribes to bring the Garou together again stronger than ever. It doesn’t really matter. Our distant ancestors, the Ratkin bards, remember the true tales, but they have all been killed by the werewolves. It doesn’t matter which version is true. The Garou made war against all the other Changing Breeds, and in the end, they claimed dominion over the Earth.

“And in this war, we were the most desperate of all those who fought. Our sacred task was to keep down the population of the humans by whatever means Mother entrusted us. If that meant stealing a little food, so be it. If that meant spreadingone of Mother’s diseases, so be it. What we did wasn’t evil - it was part of the way of all things. Unfortunately, the werewolves didn’t see it that way.

“The Wolveswere the hunters, theguardians, the protectors.

They stalked the night, searching the evil that would prey u p n Mankind. The Earth Mother told them that evil would come, that they would find it among themselves, and the Garou swore to defend humanity against the minions of the Wyrm. For millennia, the werewolves have believed that they have been amassing armies to oppose the Wyrm. The greatest enemy to the world, however, was not without, but within. The anger that gave them strength, that is the most destructive force in the world. The pride that set them against the other Changing Breeds, that was the most dangerous threat to our world. To this day, the Garou succumb to corruption, not from the talons of creatures around them, but form their guilt, their pride, and their rage.

“The Wolves could never accept the idea that the Wyrm could have infested them. And ever since then, child, they have set themselves against the world, trying to cure it of a disease that has infected them since the days of the Impergium.

The rest of my kind know that it’s dangerous to hold too much anger. It will give you strength, surely, and speed and instinct, but it will also poison your mind and taint your soul. Even a Ratkin knows that the path of rage can unleash a fury of destruction.. . but it will destroy you as well.

“In short, the werewolves use the Wyrm as their scapegoat, blaming it for all the evil in the world, but you must know the truth.. .” ‘Zhe Cxobus The vision: Afire again. It bum like the sickness in Gregor’s blood. A watch fire, lit in front of a dark cavern. Shapes inside.

Chittering. Whuffling. Madness. Massive monstrous shapes slouch about ins&, furtively sniffing the air, watching for danger. Ready for battle. Notwolves. Notmen. Bloatedratsscurry aroundthefire.

Tiny paws reach for sharp things, shiny things. Paws curl mound handles. A tail lashes around, snatching up a burning branch.

That’s the path the werewolves have taken - they’ve allowed rage to overcome reason. If, however, a shapechanger spends too much time in the world of spirit, then he will eventually become pure spirit. Thousands of years ago, thousands of our kind became ephemeral, living on in the Umbra as shadows of their former selves.

“Suffice it to say that from that moment on, we have been steadily breeding our human instincts out of our flesh and blood. Don’t get us wrong - we still like a bit of human breeding stock once in a while -but we don’t need it. We’ve got Kin, just like anyone else, but we need them far less than the other Changing Breeds do. We can fend for ourselves , j ust as our Kinfolk can get by without us.

Che Concorb Giant rats, rising up on their hind kgs. Hundreds of them, scuffling out into a wooded glade. Sniffing the air fur danger.

Frantically combing out their fur. Grasping at something with tiny paws.. . with tiny.. . thumbs? A tiny knife? Yellow teeth.

A howl in the night. Scurrying! Take cover! The Wolves are stalking the night again! The moon is fuU, prepare fur attack!

Thousands of rats, cowm’ng in a circle. Howls of wolves in the forest . Huge hulking shapes, lumbering through the trees. Scatter!

Squeal! Bloodshed!

Gregur evn’thes, and Julia can barely hold him down. 0 . 0 “Be still! Listen to the sound of my voice! If you listen, the pain will go away. Listen and remember.

“Listen to what happened next, an atrocity so great that we had no words to describe it. Humans now do, because they’ve learned from the Wolves’ example. They call it genocide. Like I said, the Garou already had dealings with our Bards - they were the easiest to hunt down. Ratkin were hunted, harried and herded to places where they were slain en masse. Once there was a time when the Garou knew where the Ratkin kept their nests and sacred places. Messengers from the largest septs would come to petitiontherats. .. sometimesthiiswouldbedonetoenlistafewrat packs in a strike against the others. Of course, the wererats who acted so openly were the first to die. Fearing retribution for the slaughter, the werewolves rationalized this by claiming the Speakers were diseased, and that the killing was an act of self-defense.

“We all remember the details differently; the bards who could have remembered them perfectly were the first to die. We do remember the story of how the last of them perished. They gathered together at a sacred site - the Field of Nettles - and began to compose one last epic tale of what the Garou had done to betray the Changing Breeds. And at the end of it, they spoke an epic prophecy of what the Garou’s treachery would lead to. The Ratkin bards chanted curses about the Childrenof Wolf. When at last the Garou found them and slaughtered them, the Ratkii bards spat out curses of how their children would have revenge. They spoke of deadly plagues that would rage throughout the world.

“The Wolves tried to kill us all, and the killing continued until they couldn’t find us anymore. They thought they had wiped us out. We weren’t dead, of course. We just left. What do you do when a place isn’t fit to live in anymore? What do you do when someone starts killing off all your brothers and sisters?

You leave, just as we did, bolting to wherever else you can find.

Our ancestors knew that the Wolves would one day hunt them down, so they had already started digging their tunnels when the War of Rage started, tunneling out of the physical world.. . and into the spirit world.

“The Umbra is like a vast palace, one with endless rooms.

Most ofMother’schildrenonly scum around the ground floor, like they do in many buildings. Maybe they’ll walk through a few of the rooms, admire the wallpaper, search the drawers. We don’t need rooms. We’ve infested the whole building, from the cellar to the attic. Our ancestors left the world, and from that moment on, they distanced rhemselves from humanity and human history.

“There was a danger, however. Shapechangers are creatures of two worlds, beings of flesh and spirit. If a shifter spends too much time in the world of flesh, then his soul begins to die.

“By the end of the War of Rage, the Garou had proven themselves the masters of the Earth through endless bloodshed.

Of course, not all of the Wolves supported this crusade for supremacy, but those who didn’t were cowed into submission.

After the killing began to slow down, and the Changing Breeds had learned to flee from the sight of Crinos Garou, the weakest of the werewolves slouched forward and mourned. Gaia’s creations had been wiped out, many to the point of extinction. And as the terror built to a fever pitch, the unthinkable happened.

“Man began to wage war against the Garou.

“The Wolves were furious. Across the three thousand years of the Impergium, all that they had done, they said, had been for the sake of mankind. The Wolves gathered in moots, and many of their tribes gathered together to debate what they should do in response. Red Talons came to the moots with packs of wolf Kinfolk - they preferred life among wolves to existence among the treacherous humans. They scratched the ground and growled in anger and called for another crusade, this time against the humans. The Get of Fenris, another tribe of savage monsters who reveled in battle, howled in approval.

“Yet for many, the thought ofvisiting the anger of the War of Rage against the very humans they swore to protect was unthinkable. One group of wolves, flaunting their heritage by calling themselves the Children of Gaia, sued for peace. The Stargazers, mystics who lost themselves in fascination with the mysteries of human society, joined with them. The Black Furies, a tribe composed almost exclusively of wise women, rushed in to defend the human females who had been abused as breeding stock for generations.

“The Sixteen Tribes of the Garou were divided on how to respond to humanity’s rebellion. In many septs, packs of Shadow Lords, Get and Red Talons joined with packs of their likeminded brethren to begin the slaughter. The nobles of Garou society responded by assembling the Concordiat. Unified, they opposed acts of genocide against the race from which the Changing Breeds learned reason and honor.

“Our scouts gathered what information they could of these decisions. We were still hiding in the spirit worlds, fleeing to find safer breeding grounds. When the news finally reached us, we learned that the Wolves had established the Western Concordiat, the basis of the Garou Nation. More importantly, they pledged to allow humans the freedom to act without Ratkin