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Legend of the Werewolf Curse
Legend of the Werewolf Curse
The tribes of the werewolves started as close to ‘normal’ humans as Aronia had. But these fierce and proud warriors found themselves in a magic heavy environment and the clans learned to adapt their religion and lifestyles to incorporate such. While the tribes often fought one another, relishing in the challenge of combat against worthy foes, they also found times of peace in a shared wild religion that used to incorporate sacrifice. They gave to tribute to the three moons and held all their rituals at night. They cared not for the new gods who took a more personal hand in the world, they gave in to the wild side living passionately and taking after the wilds they were used to.
Naturally, their ways caught the ire of the new gods. They appeared to a young but promising Gothar (their priests were known as such.) A single wolf appeared to the Gothar in a dream, he was well trusted and known to have a spirit connection to the pack creatures. The wolf urged him to travel deep into the forests, follow the paths marked by red lichen into the depths of the Faun woods. But he must remain unseen, within a secluded grove he would find a talisman upon a stone table. Should he best the guardian there he should take the talisman for his people and hold a great ritual at the culmination of such they would break the talisman during the three fold moon.
The Gothar took up the quest, being exceptionally careful to avoid the forest dwellers. His task was difficult, but the eyes of his spirit animal were ever upon him. A spell had been cast to enshroud the Gothar and thus he made it to the guardian sight. The guardian itself was a stone ancient. A great being of rune-carved rock with roots and vines growing through it, connecting its body into a giant bi-pedal construct. It offered up three tasks, a task of strength, dexterity, or wit. What task the Gothar chose is forgotten to the werewolves. Only that he was successful in retrieving the relic and bringing it back to his people who were over joyed! Their connection to the natural world would deeper in just a few weeks time.
The Fauns never acted in kind because the icon was thought unknown to others. The talisman was that of a female Faun dancing with the three moons around her. A beautiful piece to be sure, one steeped in magic… The guardian did not see it taken though, nor did the guardian see the Gothar leave with it. When next it was looked upon the talisman appeared to be there, as if nothing had ever happened. Thus the Fauns could not warn the tribes of the trickery at play. It wasn’t until the night of the ritual that they realized their own mistake.
When the three moons set the sky alight the ritual began, hours into the night a festival was held, dancing ensued, many of the tribes gathered and rejoiced. And the new gods looked upon the assembly from afar with delightful sickening smirks. When finally the time came and the young Gothar had the honor to break the talisman, a skull-splitting cry pierced the revelry of the night. The moons themselves grew brighter in the sky and before most understood what happened, the night was awash with the crimson rush of blood. The whole of their society seemed to lose their senses and that first night became the most universally reviled in their history. Without any notion as to how to control themselves their lands became battlefields until they collectively came around and realized their situation. They had been tricked and the Gothar in question had disappeared, his name later to be erased from their history. The tribes had to come together in a new way and at first many craved a cure for their new curse. It wouldn’t be for quite some time that one was offered to them by the Goddess of Endymion Gwyneviere.
