This is where I will be putting information about the caern where our game takes place, including a brief but complete history of the caern, a description of the caern, and other basic informaiton.

History of the Caern, Part 1

Greetings and salivations, fellow followers of Gaia. Crispen Gray, Corax extraordinare, is here to be your entertainment and guide through some of the information you are seeking. I'll tell a few tales, do a little softshoe, poop on your head if I decide I don't like you... all that good stuff.

So, you want to hear about the history of this caern I occasionally torment, huh? Well, okay... but alot of it isn't really pretty. And alot of it deals with how downright dumb the Garou can be. Don't get me wrong... as individuals, the Garou can be downright cool. But as a society, well, they sometimes don't think straight.

Really, the history of this caern goes in two directions, if you follow it back far enough. So I start the tale a long time ago, in a galax... whoops. Well, in a place far, far away...

You see, back in the days before the Europeans (or the Wyrmbringers, as my Native brethren call them) landed in the Americas, there was a little empire to the south of us. They called themselves the Aztecs, and they really had quite a few things going for them. They had quite a bit of occultic powers, though admittedly they inherited much of it from the Toltecs, the Mayans, the Incas, and all those other unpronouncable-named cultures of the Middle and South Americas. They had a large base to grow on, and they really were making huge strides in many fields. True, they did have that blood-sacrifice-a-day thing going for them, but if you really look at it, it wasn't all that bad of a thing.

You see, the Aztecs worshipped a god by the name of Quetzelcoatl (Ket-zal-co-a-tal). He and his brother Tetzcatlpoka (Tets-cat-la-poke-a) had a bit of sibling rivalry going on, and one would create the world, so the other would get jelous, destroy it, and build his own. This went on for several ages, with Quetzelcoatl making the good worlds, and Tetzcatlpoka creating the altogether nasty ones. This world was created, they said, by Quetzelcoatl, so this means that eventually, his dark brother will destroy it. And Quetzelcoatl created the world by shedding his blood, dying and being resurrected for the creation of this world. So to show honor and to keep the world alive, the Aztecs felt that they had to bleed for the world every day. At first, most of the sacrifices were willing, and it was a great honor to be killed so the world could continue. Later, this changed somewhat...

Well, this is getting a bit off the subject. You see, it turns out that the truth of the matter is that Quetzelcoatl was an avatar of the Wyrm of Balance. One of the most powerful such avatars. And when the Wyrm shattered, so too did Qetzelcoatl. He broke into four parts, each a potent artifact and tied to certain concepts. His crown, a symbol of power, became an aspect of the Defiler. His skull, a symbol of knowledge, became an aspect of the Eater of Souls. His spine, a symbol of his strength, became an aspect of the Beast of War. And his cloak, Unity, lost its balance as well.

The crown, somewhere along the line, ended up with a nasty entity bound into it. You see, the Aztecs had all sorts of gods of death. Many were very kind and sweet (at least as far as death gods go), while others were just rat-bastards. Xotopek (Sho-to-pek) falls into the second category. As near as I can figure, the chosen servants of Quetzelcoatl, a small group of immortals who just keep coming back from the dead, warred with Xotopek and eventually bound him into the crown. Exactly why, I'm still not certain. Perhaps Xotopek was another piece of Quetzelcoatl. I don't know. But regardless, he was bound into the crown. This severely limited his power. But he was still not totally powerless. And if anyone should put the crown atop their head... the bearer of the crown would be no more. Xotopek would control their body like a deranged puppet master (god, I've always wanted to say that. Come on, it's fun! You say it too! "Like a deranged puppet master!"). So the Children of Quetzelcoatl kept a tight watch on the crown. Okay, so they watched all four pieces like a hawk, but the crown was especially dangerous.

Well, most people know all about how Cortez came and conquered the Aztecs. Of course, the history books leave a few things out, but the specifics aren't important here. All you really need to know is that Cortez plundered as much of their treasures as he could and ran off as pleased as could be with himself.

The mortals in Northwestern Washington have a little urban legend that one of Cortez's troves of ill-gotten booty (another fun thing to say) ended up in caves somewhere near the border, near the town of Bellingham. Well, wouldn't you know it, there was a caern of Wendigo and Uktena, shared by the tribe, right near there, probably less than twenty miles apart. This caern, called the Scept of Raven's Sight, had some inkling that trouble was coming, as it was a caern of Visions, and Raven, their totem, kinda knows what's going on in general all over. But they really didn't have the forsight to really prepare for what was coming.

Like I said, Xotopek wasn't totally powerless. And with his watchers off his back for a very long time (it's not really important why, just know that Cortez had some powers watching over him who managed to effectively remove the Children of Queztelcoatl from the picture for the next few hundred years...), Xotopek could really reach out and stretch his eeeeeevilness.

I'm not certain who or how, but somewhere, parts of the Aztec treasure was plundered from the hidden trove. Xotopek was one of those removed treasures. The cloak was another that was removed, and that comes into play again later. The staff and the skull weren't really in the trove, though they come back into play much later. For now, just remember that Xotopek, an eeeeevil little god trapped in an eeeeevil little golden crown, was being passed around from hand to hand. Now, really, realistically, if you were holding a crown in your hands, would you want to put it on? Of course! So soon, Xotopek had himself a body. He waited contentedly for several decades, until the Wyrmbringers were in the area.

The Black Spiral Dancers eventually set up camp in the Pacific Northwest. It took them some time, but they managed to take an area just north of Seattle, which eventually became the city known as Everett. Xotopek found them and found them eeeeevil little bastards right after his own black little heart. Awwww. So he arranged for his body at the time to get killed by the BSDs, and the crown went to the highest in station at the time. He probably made certain that everyone wanted it, so the most powerful BSD was the one to eventually put it on. And Xotopek found himself in the body of a powerful BSD.

Now we bring this back to the caern itself. About 1880, the Get of Fenris came to the area and decided that the Caern of Raven's Vision actually belonged to them. The Wendigo and Uktena didn't really like that idea. So, as was occuring in many places in North America during that time, the Pure Ones and the Wyrmbringers faught and killed each other. While the Pure Ones managed to fight off the Get of Fenris, they were severely weakened by the assault. And this is where Xotopek led his merry little band of followers in and wiped out the few remaining survivors. And the caern then belonged to the Wyrm.

I don't really have too many details of the next hundred some-odd years... and truth be told, I don't really want to. I do know that Xotopek managed to act as both the Alpha and the Totem of the caern, which was made into a caern of Death. And I know that whenever they opened the caern, one of their members would suddenly spontaneously implode, or die in an otherwise generally unpleasant way. But Xotopek would of course get off on this, and he was trying to find a way to direct this energy.

Well, he got so close that eventually Gaia decided it was a big enough emergency. She called several Garou together to kick ass and take names. They were to take the caern back for Gaia before Xotopek managed to control the caern as he wanted to. Actually, he managed to do it very well, since just before the main assault, a wave of death came down towards the Alpha of the scept-to-be. Her packmate took the blow, and he died in her place, but the assault went on. Due to the nature of the caern, the first assault was quickly repelled. You see, those who were not of the Wyrm found the caern drained their very life every moment they stayed on the caern. They couldn't even set foot on the site they had to take back.

But Raven, the old totem of the caern, was still alive. The avatar who had watched over the caern for so many eons was very ill, but he still lived and struggled to keep Xotopek from achieving his goal. He came to the gathering of Garou and made them an offer. He would get them through the defenses -- he would make them immune from the death -- but this avatar of Raven would die in the process. The Garou would have to remember Raven and keep his children sacred on tis land that was once his. They agreed, and Raven (at least, this particular avatar of him) died, leaving them each a feather which protected them during the assault. And the Garou attacked. They quickly discovered what a pain in the ass Xotopek really was, but they managed to defeat his people. Finally, the alpha of this scept-to-be, a young Silver Fang named Chelsea Rivers, took on Xotopek head on. She killed his Dancer body, decapitating him, but she was mortally wounded herself and died minutes later. The caern was cleansed and retaken in a massive rite, making the caern a caern of Visions again. An aspect of Unicorn came to serve as the totem. The black unicorn, a symbol of the good fight that must be faught to keep peace, became the totem, and the avatar that served the caern became known as Fury.

Now, the rite to retake the caern didn't go quite as smoothly as it might of should have gone. But that, I'm afraid, is a matter for another time. I'm hungry, and I've gotta go get some munchies. Maybe if you're still around when I get back, I can tell you some of the more recent history.

My god, how things have gone to shit in such a short period of time.

Really, it started with a whisper. Those who weren't paying attention were taken completely by surprise when the killings started.

I, of course, was paying attention. I at least knew enough to duck. (Yeah, yeah, I'm a Raven, not a duck. I get it.)

Really, the first sign was the increased tension between the Uktena and the Silent Striders. But with as secretive as those two tribes are, it wasn't really all that noticable. Evidently, each had secrets that the other tribe wanted, and neither really wanted to share. The Uktena wanted the secrets of Death, and the Striders wanted secrets of the spirits and the Umbra. But neither was too happy to give up on their little monopoly of information.

The first really visible sign was when the Striders sent messengers to all caerns, announcing that the Striders would no longer carry messages for the Uktena. The cubs, they didn't really know any better. The elders were impressed. To them, it came out of nowhere, and they were left wondering why. But they had bigger, more important things to worry about. The status of a tribe's messengers was not of concern to them.

And then, the Uktena responded with a sign of their own. Their eldest Theurges gathered and worked for several days straight, with no rest. And when they were done, Owl, the Incarna himself, was bound into the most powerful fetish that this world has ever seen.

Owl struggled to break free, and sent his children power to free him. But his children, blinded with rage, did not use the power as it was intended. They focused instead on revenge. They used the increased power they were granted from Owl, and, gathering their eldest Theurges, sent the Uktena's totem, the Incarna Uktena himself, screaming into Oblivion. Uktena was no more.

While a weaker servant of Uktena soon took on the old mantle, much of his children went mad with Rage. And the killings started. The Uktena and the Silent Striders began their war.

Powerful elders died right and left. Powerful caerns switched hands. And the rest of the Garou nations just couldn't keep out of it.

The Wendigo had to aid their Older Brother. The Silent Striders found a lucky ally in the Black Furies, who wanted the Uktena's fetishes for themselves. The Get of Fenris decided to beat both sides into submission to stop the war. The Children of Gaia got in the middle. The Shadow Lords tried to manipulate both sides against the other and got caught in the middle. The Glass Walkers owed either side old debts that were called in, and they fought a very brief internal war until both sides decided they hated the Walkers. The Silver Fangs swore that there was no war -- they were still the kings, dammit! (or so they thought...)

When the Silver Fangs told everyone to just forget about the slights that had been done and go on with their lives, the war got worse. The Wendigo and Uktena made it a racial issue, and almost every tribe got involved. The only tribe that hadn't been making any real moves was the Red Talons, and they considered the entire war, "Monkey business," so to speak.

The Children of Gaia managed to arrange peace talks in one corner of the world, over in the Pacific Northwest, where the fighting was lightest. However, due to an ill-timed Frenzy in the Thrall of the Wyrm by the high-ranking Child of Gaia mediating the dispute, Unicorn disappeared. Many children of Unicorn, Children of Gaia or not, frenzied, several in the Thrall of the Wyrm. Many of the tribe fell into Harano. The peace talks still, somehow, went through, and a tenuous peace was reached in the Pacific Northwest, but in the rest of the world, the peace keepers were all but gone entirely.

Then, as the war got worse, the other shifters decided to get involved. The Garou Nations were tearing themselves apart in what was fast becoming every tribe for themselves. The Get vs. the Fianna vs. the Shadow Lords vs. the Uktena and Wendigo vs. the Silver Fangs vs. the Black Furies and Silent Striders vs. the Glass Walkers. The Bone Gnawers were beneath everyones notice, the Red Talons were staying out of it, the Children of Gaia were trying to get between everyone to make them play nice, and the Stargazers were observing, trying to decide what they wanted to do. So in the middle of all of this, several others decided it was time to reinstate the War of Rage. But this time, the Garou would not be the victors. The Bastet, the Ratkin, the Nuwisha, the Mokole... even several Gurahl and, I'm ashamed to say, Corax took part. Not that I blame them. I see through the eyes of my ancestors. I remember the other Wars of Rage. But I have learned to forgive the Garou for their sins. I'm afraid some of my brethren haven't learned to do so. During all this, several caerns were taken back by other shifters. The Mokole now hold a powerful caern in Florida, while another i s held jointly by the Bastet, Corax, and Gurahl in Western Alberta. The Garou managed to destroy a Pentex Hive in western Washington, which the Ratkin ended up moving into. Few were safe from the rampage of war washing through the Garou nations and beyond, into the other people of Gaia.

Then, the worst of all hit.

Guttooth, a Shadow Lord from Vancouver, calling for war with the humans, claiming himself to be a Priest of Gaia, gathered his followers. What we didn't know was that his followers were gathering with the Red Talons, preparing for the reinstatement of the Impergium. On a grand scale.

You see, the mostly Lupus followers of Guttooth did not understand human technology. And those homids who did follow him assumed that the technological end of the situation was taken care of. So the Red Talons and a good portion of the Shadow Lords, as well as representatives from every other tribe, gathered around Anchorage Alaska. They would pay the humans back for their hunting of their Kinfolk. And they would show them all exactly what they had wrought upon themselves. They enacted a massive rite around the city, ripping the Delirium from the minds of all within the city.

And the world watched in horror, glued to their television screens, as Anchorage was destroyed by rampaging werewolves.

One single Garou stood in their way. A Child of Gaia, one of the few untouched by the Harano that had reached into the rest of his tribe, named True Silverheels, waited with his Klaive. The Red Talon elder Howls Like Thunder confronted him and tried to push his way past him. The Talons, to their credit, did not wish to kill any Garou. But Silverheels would not yield. And though he died, he did so in defense on an innocent. Howls Like Thunder also died moments after the battle was over. And about two weeks later, Unicorn appeared again.

Anchorage, of course, brought in every single other supernatural power in the world. The Technocracy, bless their little Weaver-encrusted hearts, tried to cover it up, but from what I've heard, the Nephandi had too-well infested them, and they were caught trying to brainwash the public. I'm sure you saw it on your television -- the subliminal messages that flashed on the screen for just a little too long, so they were no longer subliminal. The mortals began to realize that the government was trying to cover it all up. Riots began. The damned Sabbat in New York decided to recreate the Anchorage incident in Queens, wiping out an entire suburb of New York City. This led to martial law and a sunset curfew. The Arcanum came forth with their library of information. The Inquisition did the same. The changelings began to suffer, as everyone began killing that which they did not understand -- rather than allowing creativity to rule them, they allowed their anger to control them (although the Shadow Court was decided that the world is doing just what they wanted it to). The Wraiths were overwelmed with waves and waves of death, following on the heels of a major tempest cause by a fucking INCARNA plummeting into Oblivion. And everything went downhill from there.

It's gotten hard to keep track of things now. Russia is completely locked down. Not even I can get word in or out. As far as I know, it no longer exists. The Inquisition has gathered a lot of followers. The Red Talons are nearly dead, after the humans decided to strike back. I hear the vampires are claiming the elders are awakening and eating all the younger ones. It's chaos and hell.

Humanity's population is dropping rapidly. In the five months since Anchorage, I'd probably guess that humanity has lost about half their numbers -- it's quite a bit of a smaller percentage in the urban areas, and larger in the rural areas -- entire small towns are gone now. And much of the death has come from the humans themselves. The Burnings began within two days of Anchorage in some areas, though it took about a month for it to become widespread. It's gotten hard to get communication through -- phone lines are mostly down between city and city, though major metropolitan areas still maintain their own power and internal communication. Radio communication has become the only feasable way for the mortals to get information from one city to another -- most no longer trust the roads and will not travel, though some planes still make flights. Some planes actually get to their destination.

The good news is that with all this, all the Shifters have made an agreement. We won't kill each other any more, and some of us have even made alliances. The Garou, the Nuwisha, the Corax, the Bastet, the Gurahl, and the Ratkin are all allies now. On the other hand, the Black Spiral Dancers are increasing their own power.

You see, one Dancer rose to claim dominance over all other Dancers. Her name was Zhyzak, and she was one mean mother-fucker. You see, she was the Warder of the Trinity Hive, a BSD hive that is within a massive Thunderwyrm they call Grammaw. She claimed that the Garou had to unite under one banner to bring Gaia back into balance. She spoke of tribal unity, and the Garou listened. Many went to follow her rulership. They danced the Black Spiral, yet still claimed to follow their old tribes. She has followers from all tribes under her now, including the newborn Skindancers. But Pentex, deciding that they had gotten too big for their britches, decided that, with the world ready to move into the next phase, they no longer needed the Black Spiral Dancers, and they proceeded to dispose of the BSDs. They thought it would be easy.

Oops.

So the Wyrm is now managing to kill itself, while the Garou and the other shifters are finally getting their heads out of their asses. Maybe we've got a chance yet...

Not much of one, but just maybe...

This page is a work in progress. Nifty things will happen to it in the future, including the above mentioned content, as well as some layout alterations and graphical treats. Drop by in a while and see what's new! E-Mail me at[email protected].