Archives: Wiki Pages

The Silverhowl pack is a Watchwolf pack that has traveled south to the new colony of Humans and Syndar, based on the wind portents read by Anjan Ravensmark, one of their Priestesses. The Silverhowl pack is the first Watchwolf pack to have any significant contact with the colonists. Their report will likely influence the political actions of the elder Watchwolves.

The Silverhowl pack believes themselves to be descended from Howl Silvermane (see Howl’s Homecoming), a legendary Watchwolf hero noted for his incredible size and toughness.

Current Membership:
Ylsa Stormherald – Rogue
Raskolf Vakr – Warrior/Warder
Anjan Ravensmark – Priestess
Elise Vakr-Ravensmark – Warrior
Rhodi Vakr – Warrior

Howl’s Homecoming:

The sun burnt hot on the heroes five
From a faraway war, in a faraway land, the last of the pack alive

Freya, Grin, Agnon, Genesis, and Howl

Held together by stitches and linen strip
The heroes trudge on, the bandages drip

Freya, Grin, Agnon, Genesis, and Howl

Howl is the worst of them, wounds so deep
He sees the Great Wolf on the road in his sleep

Freya, Grin, Agnon, Genesis, and Howl

The biggest and strongest of the five brave fighters
His friends all now wish he were a little bit lighter

Freya, Grin, Agnon, and Genesis

For many a mile they carry him, until they can no more
Their strength is failing fast, these remaining four

Freya, Grin, Agnon, and Genesis

On unsacred ground, the burial rites must Genesis have Spake
For nowhere near, was stream or lake

Freya, Grin, Agnon, and Genesis

Here is placed the stone
Of Howl, buried alone

Freya, Grin, Agnon, and Genesis

He deserved a funeral barge, engulfed by holy fire,
But settled for less, than even a funeral pyre

Freya, Grin, Agnon, and Genesis

The bite of the iron is sharp, as vigil they cannot stand
Runes of shame are self inflicted, with a red hot brand

Freya, Grin, Agnon, and Genesis

They gnash their teeth and stumble ahead
Their duty failed, their friend is dead

Freya, Grin, Agnon, and Genesis

To die on the field is much preferred
Than to die on the road where no one heard

Freya, Grin, Agnon, and Genesis

Now out of water, they struggle on,
The next thing they know, Genesis is almost gone.

Freya, Grin, Agnon, and Genesis

The three take turns, dragging her
On a litter made, from staves and fur

Freya, Grin, Agnon, and Genesis

The dust, it blew
The Carrion bird flew,

over

Freya, Grin, Agnon, and Genesis

And Genesis, in fever spake,

“None should lie alone,
upon that plain of bone.”

“Please leave me here or take me back,
to Howl, a brother of my pack.”

“But never homeward bound.
The Wolf our friend did meet, is surely still around.”

Freya, Grin, Agnon, and Genesis

Agnon, her Warder, turned around,
And dragged her back towards burial ground

Freya, Grin, Agnon, and Genesis

All four they turned around, to face their fate as five,
Rather than return, with runes of shame alive

Freya, Grin, Agnon, and Genesis

Upon return to barrow mound,
The four in shock, without a sound

Freya, Grin, Agnon, and Genesis

Rocks were scattered all about
And a body, was that grave without!

Freya, Grin, Agnon, and Genesis

When suddenly, across the plain, there came a fearsome Growl,
Standing there as plain as day, the heroic figure of Howl!

Spake He:

“Those runes of shame befit thee, you stupid pieces of shit.
After all our years together, you forgot I have True Grit!”

Freya, Grin, Agnon, Genesis, and Howl

Clan: Grimward

Estimated Size: 30 permanent females, 20 male or female guards and mates, and 10-15 females from other packs being trained

Insignia: A single black feather

 

The Fieldcrow are an isolated pack, dedicated to teaching ulven females in all kinds of ulven magic and spirituality.They have a council of five Priestesses, who oversee and govern the pack and each one specializes in different aspects of magic. New apprentices are taught the basics together, and are then sent to another female in the pack to teach them further in whatever path they choose.

The Fieldcrow train Witches and Daughters of Gaia, as well as lesser known and esoteric ulven magics. There is a certain prestige to be trained by the Fieldcrow, and other packs will often provide guards and supplies in return for the Fieldcrow taking in a female and training her in the use of her magics. Fieldcrow healers are among the most skilled in the ulven lands.

The Fieldcrow do not have an official stance on the colonists, instead choosing to concentrate on their day to day life of magic and mysticism. In fact, some of the permanent and older members of the pack have never even met any humans or syndar.

The Fieldcrow do not have any male members. Any males within their lands are guards against the mordok, as well as mates. They do not have any farms or livestock, instead trading their services and teachings for any supplies they themselves cannot generate.When not teaching, the Fieldcrow engage in experimenting with making new potions and healing concoctions, and are often at the forefront in dealings with any new magics.

Pack: Goldmane

Insignia: Sunburst

Population: Once around 50, now only 10-15

The Goldmane were a small pack, known for their golden blonde hair and their gregariousness. It was often said that you could tell a Goldmane from other blonde ulven by how much they talked. The Goldmane were passionate, quick to love, and quick to hate. The Goldmane sent almost all of their warriors to assist the Graytide and the Nightriver in fighting the colonists, eager for a new fight and stories to tell. When news of the treaty reached the Goldmane, they were unsure. But the Warchief prevailed, stating that if they couldn’t fight them, they could at least find out what stories and booze the colonists had brought from their lands. All of their remaining warriors on the field, as well as their Daughter of Gaia, prepared to go and meet the very people they had been fighting. But they had done their jobs too well. The Goldmane had cut off the colonists from communication, and they did not know yet that a treaty had been called. They ambushed and slaughtered the Goldmane party, to a man. All that was left of the once bright pack was children and grieving mates, and the few warriors left behind to guard them. The Goldmane left who had family in other packs went to them. Those who lost all were taken in by pack Graytide. The Graytide had been allies before, in war and in blood. Now, they would be their allies in revenge.

Pack Graytide
Clan: Belongs to Clan Grimward.
Estimated Size: 100 warriors from numerous families and a surprising number of exiled Ulven
Insignia: A single braid of gray rope worn on the belt.

Pack Graytide has always been an extremist group of Ulven. Their warriors are skilled and cunning, but prone to disputes and altercations with other Packs. Where other groups of Ulven would simply kill the Mordok and move on, the Graytides would create gruesome standards out of their corpses or hang them from trees. These acts were not favored by other Ulven, but many could understand the reasons behind it… the Mordok frequently mutilated dead Ulven and even feasted on their flesh, so the Graytides were turning back on them similar gruesome acts.

Graytides pride themselves in excelling at combat and their witches excel in curing diseases and poisons. An interesting quality to the Graytides is their acceptance of cast out or exiled Ulven. Although the exiles normally see Pack Graytide as a second chance and fall into place quickly, some more ruffian or criminal Ulven also find home here and tend to stir up more trouble than if there were still exiled and alone.

Pack Graytide was honored to join the war party created by Hanseth Longfang after the Mordok killed his daughter Veera Longfang at the Onsallas outpost village. To them, it was a chance to fight back against the Mordok in the dirge swamp. During the week long campaign and brutal fighting, the Graytides mutilated all the Mordok they had slain and left standards of bone and flesh in Mordok territory. Even if the Mordok never noticed, the personal victory of leaving some gruesome things for the Mordok in their own territory was worth every Graytide warrior that died in those battles. The Graytides suffered the worse casualties of all the packs in the war party but returned home with treasures and stories of battle.

When the colonists arrived on Mardrun, Pack Graytide was there alongside Pack Longfang and Pack Bloodriver. They met the colonists with fury and killed more of them than any other Pack involved in the fighting. They did carry over their gruesome tactics against the colonists and several Graytide warriors were seen adorning themselves with trophies of human and Syndar body parts and skulls.

Pack Graytide stands firm that the colonists have no right to stay on Mardrun and should be exterminated or cast back to the shores and sent to Faedrun. Things nearly came to a boiling point when Lycon Graytide led a warpack of Graytide warriors in an attack on a colonist caravan on its way to Newhope. As the Graytides killed them, a hunting party of Longfang warriors stepped in to intervene. They fought each other for a short time and then retreated after Harlok Longfang cleaved Lycon’s arm clean off. It was at that moment that the Graytides vowed to get revenge against not only Harlok Longfang, but all Longfangs. This event also furthered the political divide between the Ulven clans regarding relations with the colony.

A meeting of prominent Clan and Pack leaders from across Mardrun led to the drafting, under the hands of the Watchwolves Clan, of a resolution to prevent further violence between the colonies and the Ulven. This document, known as the Watchwolf Resolution, declared that the colonists, if they were to live on sacred Ulven grounds, had to observe certain rites in order to respect the Ulven Gods. The treaty was delivered to the colonists at New Hope by the pack leader of the Graytides, Khulgar Graytide, who volunteered to deliver the resolution because he had the rare skill of reading and writing. Despite his action as a pack leader being an outreach towards peaceful cohabitation, Khulgar was mistreated, mocked, and dishonored by the human nobles present at the political dinner, and chased back into his own territory. Perhaps this show of disrespect on the part of the humans pushed the Grimward clan over the edge, or perhaps the Graytides were just looking for a fight. Either way, the political climate in Mardun was about to boil over. While most of the colonists agreed with and respected the Watchwolf resolution, a group of pioneering colonists ventured into Ulven territory and began building a settlement. According to the Graytides, these people had either not heard of the Nightriver Treaty and Watchwolf Resolution, or chose to ignore them. When confronted by warriors of Graytide, the human colonists, who were mostly farmers, refused to leave their homes and were massacred to the last man, woman, and child. The entire settlement was burned to the ground. Following these events, a peace summit was called by the Watchwolves and Nightrivers, who had drafted the treaties in question. The summit was held in Grimward territory, in the hall of Haygreth Grimward. Representatives from the Ulven Clans gathered together with delegates from the Human factions of New Hope, Vandregon, Crow’s Landing, and New Aldoria. The Graytides were accused of overstepping their bounds and committing cowardly acts of murder against defenseless civilians, and the Grimwards criticized for failing to manage the crisis. The meeting became heated and ended in violence, sparking the beginning of the first large scale Ulven civil war in history. Ulven of the Longfangs, Watchwolves, Nightrivers, and other smaller packs and clans now find themselves allied with the colonists, while Clan Grimward and their allies have called for either genocide or the deportation of the colonists, and death to any Ulven who have sided with the Humans and Syndar.

Pack Blackwing

Clan: Belongs to Clan Grimward.
Estimated Size: Used to be 60 warriors, but has been reduced to a handful of Ulven that carry their name and are scattered all over Mardrun.
Insignia: A single black bat-like wing extended.

Roughly 40 years ago, Pack Blackwing was strong and proud, made up of a number of skilled farmers and warriors. They taught their next of kin the importance of creating life to sustain the Pack and creating war to protect the Pack. After the rest of the packs refused to venture into the Dirge Swamp because of the harsh conditions and number of Mordok in the area, the Witch that led Pack Blackwing boasted that they could tame part of the swamp and establish a permanent settlement. They claimed that it was a challenge from Gaia herself, to reclaim and heal a rotting wound of wetlands from the poison of the Mordok.

The Pack ventured into the swamp and began a settlement. A few scouts checked in with them and reported that the settlement was coming along slowly, the ground and marsh proving difficult to build on and almost impossible to grow food in. The Mordok were relentless, constantly attacking the Ulven intruders. Pack Blackwing had lost many brave warriors, but their skills in battle and tenacity were proving to the rest of the Ulven that the Dirge Swamp could be tamed. Pack Longfang pledged to support and sent warriors to the settlement. When they arrived, the settlement had been abandoned. The buildings were in ruin, sinking into the muck, and there was not a single trace of any survivors or what had happened to them. No bones. No trails. No evidence if there was a great battle or if Pack Blackwing had moved to another area. The warriors then fell back to the edge of the swamp and sent a scout to report back to their Witch. They built a hasty defense which later became the start of Onsallas Outpost as their Witch and the rest of the Pack relocated to this area.

To this day, no further evidence has been discovered about Pack Blackwing. Several survivors of the pack name still exist in the Ulven community, but they are scattered and few.