Loup Garou (werewolves)

[Forsaken]

The loup garou are a race of beings that derive their power directly from the Earth's energy. Instead of just taking power without any concern for what their demands cost the planet, as the Guardians do, loup garou work with the planet. Their power, however, is limited by the state the planet is in. They can not over-burden the planet with their demands, for they themselves suffer if they try. As a result, loup garou tend to give as much to the planet as they take and have a greater respect for it.

From the beginning, the loup garou and the ones who now call themselves Guardian's clashed. Their philosophies regarding magic were entirely different. The Guardians cared only for rising into power quickly. Where that power came from, or how they got it, were concerns that didn't trouble them. The loup garou, however, could feel the sickness of the Earth and knew that the demands the Guardians made upon it were preventing it's recovery. The loup garou tried to invest their own magic into the planet in an attempt to return it to the health it had known before the nuclear holocaust, but they simply could not heal the Earth as quickly as the Guardians were draining it.

Thwarted and frustrated, the loup garou began to focus all of their energy on their own city, in the hope that, by doing for their city what they had hoped to do for the Earth, they could show the Guardians what must be done for the planet to bring life back to it once more. And, though the entire process took a couple of centuries to complete, and required the loup garou to learn a few new techniques that kept their city from being drained by the Guardians as the rest of the world was, they were able to bring sunlight and plant life back to their city. Compared to the rest of the world, which had been dark and lifeless for over eight hundred years, Wyvern was a paradise.

The Guardians gazed at the blaze of golden light on the horizon that was Wyvern city and felt threatened. The humans were becoming restless, curious about this new light, unlike anything they had ever seen before. They began to ask questions that the Guardians couldn't immediately answer. Until the remembered the usefulness of a clever lie and began to represent the werewolves as the demons who where sucking the life from the Earth for their own convenience.

Rumors of this intensified distrust of their race reached the loup garou in Wyvern, but for years nothing came of it. Lulled into a false sense of security by the decades that had passed, they had not seen the attack coming when it arrived, cloaked by the Guardian's glamor, at their city's edge. If it hadn't been for their Zyren allies, there wouldn't have been anything left of Wyvern at all.

Yet they survived, though too badly weakened, and too plagued by despair, to begin erecting their small empire once more. Instead, it lies in ruin. They just don't see the point in investing so much of themselves into a city that only calls it's own destruction to it like a beacon. The result is that loup garou now live longer, for the power that had once been invested in the planet now remains with them and maintains their life force for twice as long. A loup garou can live for one hundred years in good health, though most begin to decline and die by the age of one hundred fifty. The state of the Earth is echoed within them in a dull yet constant pain, a sickly feeling, that only increases their misery, but they simply no longer have the courage to try and change the world when doing so would only bring the wrath of the Guardians down upon them. And such a consequence would be sure to bring about their destruction, once and for all.

Note: The term 'werewolf' is at best slang for members of their race, at worse a derogatory remark. In Wyvern, it is seldom used, for they find it offensive. They are hardly the mindless, viscous brutes of werewolf legend. Yet it is commonly used in Manticore, where the loup garou have been demonized.

[Forsaken]

The loup garou do possess striking qualities of their own, but their beauty is less readily appreciated. In truth, they look like the hunter to the Guardian's angel. They move with ponderous intensity, each footfall and gesture seeming carefully calculated. Their eyes seem to rest on one as though peering directly into the soul in search of weaknesses. Their features are as feral and wild as that of their lupine form, yet their is grace to be found in such faces as well. They are as lovely as the wolves that the Ancients knew, but humans have a tendency to focus on only what they don't understand, such as how the loup garou somehow seem to possess an ability to divine their darkest secrets simply by looking intently upon their expression, or on how their eyes seem to glow in the moonlight. At best, they make any human who first catches sight of them uneasy. At worst, fearful. Turning the humans against them was no huge task for the Guardians.

Physically, the werewolves tend to have forms that are filled out. The women possess voluptuous curves, the men a great deal of muscle. Both sexes are strong and lithe. If all fights were physical rather than magical, they would know no serious threat.

Eye color tends to lean toward gold, sometimes in shades so pale they seem to shine silver and often that wild, feral gold that the wolves of the Ancient's day possessed. Less common colors include shades of rusty orange and brown.

Their hair is incredibly reluctant to lie in pretty, reflective layers and tends to lie in wild, wind-blown spikes or tresses whose style is in agreement with the rest of them. It can vary as much as a wolves pelt, from white or ashen gray to charcoal gray to black. There are also many shades of brown. The strands are also range a bit in shade, as does the pelt of a wolf, and the color is never entirely consistent.

As wolves they are much larger than the ones the Ancients knew, weighing anywhere from one hundred and twenty pounds to over two hundred. It all depends on just how large a loup garou is while he/she is human. Shifting from one form to the other does not change body mass.

[Forsaken]

The loup garou do very little to resist the Guardians, now. In Wyvern, behind the magical barrier erected by the Zyren before they died in The Battle for Wyvern, they are safe. Though there have been instances of...visits from the occasional Forsaken, who seem able to cross the barrier even though their master's can not, these threats are quickly taken care of. The loup garou will defend their city. But they suffer no illusions of their continued survival should the Guardian's choose to attack them with every resource they possess. For eighty years the barrier has held, but for how much longer would it stand? The Guardian's may discover the means to unravel it if given the motivation to make the effort. So the loup garou lie low and try not to draw attention to themselves. It is the only way they know of to survive. Yet, over the span of eight hopeless decades, Wyvern's population only continues to dwindle. After all, they have no hope for the future. All they can do now is wait through the years and try to weather what comes. Who would try to raise a family in a world that allows them no future? Who would condemn a child to years of living under the fear that soon the Guardians will take it upon themselves to finish the slaughter they started, and destroy the rest of Wyvern? Very few choose to do so, and as all of the older werewolves begin to die and very few children are born to replace them, the population has fallen to it's current one thousand in number. They do not have the power to match the Guardians. They do not have the numbers to match their human military. And so, there is almost nothing they can do to stop them.

Yet the loup garou still harbor compassion for the plight of Manticore's mixed-blood loup garou (and they accept them as their own. It doesn't matter that they were born to humans.) So they allow their bravest (meaning the ones who still have fight enough left in them to volunteer for such a dangerous role) to risk the long trip to Manticore and chance a riskier residence in the Guardian's city as they track down the persecuted and bring them safely back to Wyvern city. These few are called Sentinels. They are affiliated with the rebel cause, but generally do not participate for fear of bringing the Guardian's wrath down upon Wyvern. That, and lying low just happens to be the best way to continue their mission of guiding and protecting refugees on the way to Wyvern and survive while doing so.

Every Sentinel is told before they leave that they should never attack directly a Guardian or one of their Forsaken. And since those who break the rule seldom survive the act of defiance, Sentinels most often choose to follow it.

[Forsaken]

There is an ability that I forgot to mention.

I've already established that the loup garou have an affinity for the Earth and it's energy that allowed them to help repair it. Well, when I said "Earth", I was kind of talking about the planet and everything in it. That's how they were able to bring back the plants in Wyvern...for a while, anyway. Before the Guardian's crushed them. Well, this affinity extends to all living things, including themselves. They can heal nearly every physical malady, with few exceptions, because they can feel what's wrong and have a gift for putting it right. Of course, some things have no cure. Like old age. (If your organs are worn then you will die when they give out. The loup garou can't stop it from happening. They could heal an old body part, but that wouldn't turn back the clock and that part would be bound to fail at some point when there was no loup garou around to insist the elderly individual, and they can't keep themselves alive forever because they have to sleep for an average of eight hours a day just as humans do). There is the possibility of a genetic disorder or incredibly strange disease that would defy even their understanding, but these exceptions are few and far between.

Next, we have the pack mentality.

Loup garou are incredibly loyal to each other. On nights when the moon is bright enough to light up even the dark clouds that are always present in the sky, they run together in large packs. They may not be entirely peaceful or compassionate, or get along flawlessly, but they know well that the members of their pack (and they count all of the residents of Wyvern as part of the pack) are the only beings in this world whose self-interests most resemble their own, and so they depend on and protect each other. They have a definite "we" mentality, not an "I" one.