Werewolf: The Forsaken - Blank It
Werewolf: The Forsaken - Blank It
Werewolf: The Forsaken - Blank It
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22<br />
Chapter I: <strong>The</strong> World of the <strong>Forsaken</strong><br />
THE WEREWOLF IS NEITHER MAN NOR WOLF,<br />
BUT A SATANIC CREAT URE WITH THE WORST QUALITIES OF BOTH.<br />
To become a werewolf, to undergo the First Change,<br />
is to enter a darker, more menacing world. Werewolves<br />
grow up with a sense that something is… peculiar about<br />
them and that an unusual tension hangs over them. <strong>The</strong>ir<br />
instincts tell them of danger just out of sight. <strong>It</strong> is only<br />
once they’ve discovered who and what they are that they<br />
begin to learn about the shadow world of moonlight and<br />
instinct and Rage that has always surrounded them.<br />
This is that world. This is the world of the Uratha.<br />
SHADOW HISTORY<br />
What makes a werewolf a werewolf? Why are the<br />
blessings of animal power and the curse of Rage transmitted<br />
by blood, rather than a disease as the movies would<br />
have you believe? How can these creatures even exist?<br />
<strong>The</strong> answers may lie deep in the distant past, before history<br />
began. Everything a werewolf is — the source of his<br />
strength and speed, the curse of silver and the bloodstain<br />
that speaks the word “<strong>Forsaken</strong>” — is all said to tie back<br />
to the legend of Father Wolf.<br />
Once, as the legend goes, the world’s werewolves were<br />
its guardians. <strong>The</strong>y were loyal servants of Father Wolf,<br />
a mighty spirit that hunted the worlds and meted out<br />
punishment to those that broke the ancient bans. <strong>The</strong>n<br />
the first Uratha, the mothers and fathers of the race, committed<br />
an unforgivable crime. <strong>The</strong> other lords of the spirit<br />
world cast the Uratha aside, forsaking them.<br />
Now the werewolves have lost almost half their<br />
heritage. <strong>The</strong> pacts that were struck between them and<br />
their spirit cousins are all but severed. <strong>The</strong>y walk among<br />
humans like wolves among sheep, disguising themselves in<br />
the skins of men and women, denied the hunting grounds<br />
of their father.<br />
Yet they still hunt.<br />
THE TALE OF PANGAEA<br />
This story is true.<br />
Everything we are and everything we were began in<br />
Pangaea. You already know what Pangaea was. You’ve heard<br />
stories of the Garden of Eden — that’s the best that humans<br />
could do trying to remember it. You catch glimpses of it in your<br />
dreams, and sometimes you smell something — maybe a whiff<br />
of a healthy plant, or something about the scent of your prey<br />
— and you almost remember. <strong>The</strong> scents are the hardest to<br />
forget. You can’t remember it fully, though, can you? Nobody<br />
can. Only the first of our kind walked in Pangaea.<br />
And they were the ones who had to destroy it.<br />
Can you remember the scent? <strong>The</strong> world was lush and<br />
full of promise. Spirits could enter the realm of flesh easily,<br />
and animals and humans could walk into the cool spirit<br />
— DR. YOGAMI, THE WEREWOLF OF LONDON<br />
shadow of the world. Pangaea wasn’t the joining of continents<br />
that geologists talk about, but the world in its first form. Humans<br />
and spirits shared a common language, the First Tongue.<br />
We can’t remember whether Pangaea was a time, a place, or<br />
both. All we can recall is that it was glorious, and it was lost.<br />
When Pangaea was in full bloom, its beauty seduced the<br />
heart of the moon itself. Mother Luna — Amahan Iduth<br />
— grew enchanted with the world growing beneath her. She<br />
took the form of a woman of flesh and descended to earth. She<br />
walked among the jungles and swam in the seas. She was the<br />
most beautiful creature in the world, and she had countless<br />
suitors. <strong>The</strong> greatest and most valiant was Urfarah… and<br />
you know that name, don’t you? He was Father Wolf.<br />
Pangaea was glorious, but it wasn’t a world of perfect<br />
peace and gentleness. <strong>It</strong> was a hunter’s world. <strong>The</strong> lion still<br />
hunted the lamb; the spirit still took what it needed from the<br />
world of flesh. Death was a part of this hunter’s paradise, and<br />
the greatest hunter of all was Father Wolf. He was a warrior<br />
of the Shadow Realm and the muddy world of air and earth.<br />
He roamed the boundaries of the physical world, keeping<br />
everything in its place. Spirits roamed into the world of the<br />
flesh, but not far or for long. Urfarah was all too ready to give<br />
chase when a spirit overstayed its welcome. When necessary,<br />
his teeth and claws pushed mortals and animals back into the<br />
relative safety of the flesh world if they strayed too far into the<br />
spirit world. His heart burned with supernatural strength and<br />
conviction, a righteous Rage that made him unstoppable. But<br />
he was the master of that Rage. He was first above us all, and<br />
greater than any other.<br />
Father Wolf loved Luna as she rode across the skies, and<br />
was overcome with joy and love when he encountered her<br />
walking through the borderlands between the spirit world and<br />
the physical. He was not alone in either of these sentiments.<br />
For her part, Luna found Father Wolf to be valiant and wise,<br />
strong and handsome, and she loved him in return. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
knew one another, and she gave him children of both spirit<br />
and flesh — the first werewolves. Although she wore a human<br />
body, Luna gave birth to the first werewolves as a litter of nine<br />
pups, a sign of their future fate.<br />
From Luna our ancestors gained the power to change<br />
shape, just as she changes her own shape every month. From<br />
Father Wolf they gained senses, strength and speed that went<br />
beyond those of flesh-born wolves. From both parents they<br />
gained a measure of spiritual power, for Mother Moon was<br />
Queen of the Shadow Realm and Father Wolf was Lord of the<br />
Border Marches.<br />
After giving birth, Luna returned to the skies and Father<br />
Wolf raised the First Pack. He taught the first Uratha the ways<br />
of wolf and man, flesh and spirit. He showed them the roads<br />
from the Shadow Realm through forest, mountain or desert<br />
into the world of flesh, down trails to the tribal homes of men.