Vampire/Bloodlines/Gangrel/Dead Wolves

DEAD WOLVES

Parent Clan: Gangrel
Sobriquet: Abominations
Source: W:tF Second Edition
Disciplines: Animalism, Nightmare, Protean, Resilience
Revised by: Aleks and Jack

BACKGROUND

This story is a lie.
A Savage blood-thief once lived in the waters of the Amu Darya river delta in central Asia, one thousand years ago. She crossed hills, mountains, deserts, seas of grass and seas of water, all to find her way to this desert paradise. She lived as a beast of the field, rising from the river banks to steal blood from the local humans. She avoided the cities and others of his kind alike, fearing above all the coming of the Smoke-Owls. She had fled from them her entire unlife, for as long as she could remember and well beyond. When the blood-thieves of Khwarezm learned of her flight from the Smoke-Owls, they shunned her in fear that if they aided her, they would be hunted in turn. She turned in desperation to a shaman of Siberia, who told her that her salvation lay in the blood of the Wolf. Should she Embrace a child of Wolf who had not yet changed, then that childe and his lineage would protect her blood from the Smoke-Owls so long as he exists.

So the blood-thief returned to the land of Khwarezm, seeking her savior. After many nights of hunting, she found the wolf-blooded sleeping on the chest of a wolf by the riverbank, alone. She changed into the form of a lion and pounced, slaying wolf and man before they could react. She made the wolf-blooded into a blood-thief, and when he rose from death, so did his wolf. He called himself the Dead Wolf, after his slain familiar who walked with him still.

So the blood-thief returned to the land of Khwarezm, seeking her savior. After many nights of hunting, she found the wolf-blooded sleeping on the chest of a wolf by the riverbank, alone. She changed into the form of a lion and pounced, slaying wolf and man before they could react. She made the wolf-blooded into a blood-thief, and when he rose from death, so did his wolf. He called himself the Dead Wolf, after his slain familiar who walked with him still.

The Dead Wolf and blood-thief slept in the mud of the river, where she taught him to hunt for blood as she did. He grew strong, and began to change in ways the blood-thief had never seen before. She taught him the lore of the blood-thieves, and of her flight from the Owls. So the Dead Wolf waited for the Smoke-Owls to approach. When at last one showed to claim the blood-thief, the Dead Wolf was ready. He drove a wooden tent peg through the blood-thief's heart and left her chained to a rock for the Smoke-Owls to claim, and once she was fully possessed he bade her follow him into the Shadow, where he obliterated the Smoke-Owl and his creator in one with the aid of Fire-spirits. After all, the shaman never said the blood-thief herself would live.

The Dead Wolf returned to his village at night, showing them his new power. For it he was cast out in fear and revulsion, and wandered the desert for many nights, crossing seas of grass and water, hills, mountains and rivers. The Dead Wolf's pack swelled with more like him, all accompanied by fierce corpse-wolves. They established a warrior lodge high in the Carpathian Mountains, and took up the device of the Chimera on their battle standard. The last of them still dwell there, so it is said. Doubly cursed, they exist tonight in defiance of all curses.

The truth is more complicated than the legends would have it. Most of the time when a vampire Embraces a Wolf-blooded, the Blood erases all traces of lycanthropy along with their bodily life. Only the Gangrel Embrace may produce a Dead Wolf. Even then it takes conscious choice on the part of the fledgling to dredge the Wolf back up and reconstitute it into a bloodline. Such 'originals' retain the Tell they bore in life, warped by the corruption of Vitae into Blood Tells. If such an original manages to Embrace another, their childe may activate their sire's bloodline as normal, inheriting the sire's Blood Tell. Gangrel who have no active bloodline may also choose to Avus into the bloodline following the usual requirements, inheriting their Avus' Blood Tell.

Kindred and Uratha have competed over territory since time immemorial. The Dead Wolf is a distant legend, thought an impossible fantasy to most and a worrying prospect to a knowledgable few. Given that they can crop up anywhere vampires and werewolves cross, Dead Wolf backgrounds range from the clueless fledgling who just activated their bloodline to centuries-old dynasties stretching back to antique nights of sin and conquest.