Pack History; The pack now called Crimson Sky has been around for ten years. Most of the original pack members moved across from a much larger pack to the south to create a smaller “branch” of that pack, with the rest being loners from the surrounding area who chose to join them, and with Gregory Steel and his mate becoming the provisional leaders. Over the next two years that followed, Steel’s division gradually gained power, fuelled by the money coming in from his company, and completely split off from the main pack and renamed themselves as Crimson Sky. Gregory and Mette Steel became fully-fledged Alphas, Mark Holloway became Beta, the Omega rank was abolished and the pack began to grow in earnest, reaching a population of almost fifty wolves in the next two years.
Eight years after the pack split off (two years ago), however, following an argument with Gregory, his stepdaughter (one of the fighters, at the time), challenged Mark Holloway; a challenge which the alpha allowed, simply because he didn’t think there was a reasonable chance that she’d win. But, to his surprise (and possibly nobody else’s), Skylar did win, and drastic changes followed.
Unable to reposition Mark as his second-in-command without undermining his own authority, Gregory was forced to accept Skylar’s influence on pack matters. Although a fairly peaceful pack before, following attacks from hunters taking advantage of the upheaval and confusion, the pack became more and more heavily combat-orientated. Fighters were given new license – to kill, rather than just drive away – under her command, a strict patrol rota was set up and the defence of the pack grew bloodier and bloodier as time passed. Soon, funding was gradually diverted from supplying pack hunters and scouts to the fighters and new training regimes were introduced to the children of the pack, pushing them towards more combat-orientated roles in the pack when they grew up. Mark Holloway decided to leave the pack and eventually slipped away in the night.
Other than that, things were fine. Werewolf deaths in the area were among the lowest in the country, there wasn’t a rogue wolf for a hundred miles and offers of alliances from other packs trickled in from across the globe.
Up until a week or so ago.
The Alphas were found dead by a pack fighter. Obviously, chaos ensued, and the number of bodies rose to seven. Each one savaged by a werewolf. The police investigation into the matter was inconclusive; despite the fact that the detectives believed Skylar had set her dogs on her parents, there was no evidence to back it up and no connection they could make to the other crimes. For fear of their own lives, or reasons of their own, the population of the pack has plummeted as wolves leave Crimson Sky to relocate somewhere that, by comparison, suddenly looked a lot safer.
Locations;
Beta’s House; Pack HQ for the last six years. A four-floored, sprawling house miles from civilisation that may or may not be in need of some repair. Though the top floor is strictly no-go territory, the pack are grudgingly allowed to use the rest of the house. A key is usually hidden in a hollow rock by the door. The grounds consist of a barn, where pack meetings are conducted, a disused stable and several shacks dotted across the rest of the property’s land, which spans for three or four miles in every direction. A dirt track skirts the territory’s southern border, but there is no real infrastructure past the boundary line and frankly it’s only really accessible to most by foot.
Inside the house, there’s a kitchen, a bathroom, two living rooms and a couple of storerooms. One of them contains assorted weaponry, ammunition and a cooler full of extra medical supplies, whereas the neighbouring storeroom has been converted into a pack infirmary with four beds and the associated equipment. The next two floors contain an office, various guest bedrooms and bathrooms and a small library. The basement is mostly empty and used, on very rare occasions, to hold prisoners. There’s a heavy metal door on the west wall leading to a tunnel to the barn, originally built for escaping a snowed-in house but now mostly kept for use in the unlikely chance of a siege and for shoving junk nobody really wants to deal with into.
Downtown Jasper; the older half of town where you’ll find the stores and businesses that keep Jasper going, as well as the police station, the handful of schools and the city hospital. There’s a tram service through the centre that encircles the wealthiest businesses and mostly serves commuters. Not many people live down there, but there’s a couple of apartment complexes on the less busy streets and a hotel – The Little Deer Inn – on the western edge of the city. Some of the wealthier citizens – with the Alphas, until recently, among them - live in one of the recently converted warehouses between the police station and the city limits, but they’re in the minority. The Alpha’s warehouse locks operate on a fingerprint scanner coded to most of the pack’s prints and, now that the police possession of the building has ended, pack members are welcome to use the space.
Uptown Jasper; most of the residents of Jasper live here, whether that’s in the apartment complexes on the Downtown/Uptown border or the suburban districts further north. There’s an out-of-town mall on the western edge, where some stores are actually open all night, and an old airstrip that people seem to forget just next door. The streets are wide, dotted with even more cafes and lined with trees and elegant streetlights, leading some residents to call the area “New Paris”. Most of this half of the city was built in the last fifty years, so it appears bright and clean.
Forest; dense and mostly coniferous, the forest is permeated by a couple of roads leading out to outlying properties and a handful of walking/riding trails, but is generally seen as a place to avoid (especially at the present). Only a couple of people live out in the wilderness, including the Beta, so those who do tend to be fairly friendly with each-other. Hunting season rules aren’t generally very well enforced, due to people’s reluctance to enter the woods to enforce them, so it’s not uncommon to encounter various trappers and hunters in the woods close to town during the day.
Werewolves; a General Summary
- The Wolf; the general term for the other, animal half of a werewolf, considered by some to be just another form of their physical body and by others to be a separate entity altogether. It varies from individual to individual. Some are mroe "in sync" than others.
- Appearance; size varies between individuals, but generally links to the relative size of their human form. A very small, scrawny person (say, 4ft11”) would probably become a small scrawny wolf, no bigger than an actual wolf. A 6ft4” person, on the other hand, could possibly be the size of a small bear (Twilight wolf sized, for reference). Most are somewhere in-between. Fur colour is usually similar, give or take a few shades, to the natural hair colour of the individual (i.e a pale blonde would *probably* have white fur, light brown fur or somewhere in-between, whereas a black-haired girl would probably be a dark-coloured wolf of some variety). Markings are common, and can take somewhat unusual shapes.
- Heritage/Blood matters. A wolf from two old families of werewolves would tend to be stronger (faster, tougher, heals more quickly) than somebody who only has one werewolf parent, who in turn would tend to be stronger than somebody who was born human and bitten. The earlier a person is bitten, the stronger they tend to be (i.e somebody bitten as a very young child would be stronger and “more in tune” with their other side than somebody bitten in their twenties).
- “Soulmates” exist, but it’s not pre-ordained/fate/destiny, but rather forming a deep emotional connection with somebody. Many soulmates eventually develop an almost telepathic link to their mates. This “Link” can also appear between parents and their children (more notably the mother and her pup), close siblings (very common in twins) and (very, very rarely) lifelong friends, but generally only works in wolf form, takes considerable effort to use and always weakens over distance.
- Bloodlust; the occasional bite victim loses control if they receive no help from a werewolf but, again, it’s mostly purebloods who suffer from this, since a pureblood Wolf is usually so much stronger – and therefore harder to control, depending on the personality of the Wolf itself - than the Wolf of a half-blood. Bloodlust is generally defined as an insatiable/uncontrollable desire to kill, which can come or go depending on emotions, the phase of the moon, yada yada. A healthy pack wolf usually has no trouble holding back The Wolf, but following a serious injury, lack of sleep, illness or any situation where overall health isn’t at its best, it can emerge and will last until the person can regain control.
- Silver poisoning; occurs when a werewolf comes into contact with silver (be it pure silver or just an alloy) and it gets into the bloodstream. It results in a drop in heartrate, which can usually be helped by adrenaline injections, tiredness/weakness, then an inability to heal and can lead to organ failure. A pureblood is generally more strongly affected than somebody with less wolf blood, but how much damage silver does can depend on the silver content of the weapon used to inflict the injury and how long they are in contact with it. Silver contact with the skin causes burns and general weakness/tiredness (and lessening the ability to shift, making it an effective way to restrain a werewolf) but will not cause death.
- Silver Weapons; silver-plated bullets are the usual weapon of werewolf hunters, though silver-plating knives and arrowheads is also common. Once they’re inside the body, silver poisoning will occur and worsen the longer whatever is in there stays there. If the weapon is removed quickly enough, the wolf can potentially recover when/if the silver poisoning is overcome. Other, more expensive, kinds of bullets include what Jason calls “Flakers”, and have a silver-plate coating designed to dissolve and spread through the blood of the wolf. Once the coating has dissolved, depending on the size of the person (the bigger they are, the more silver it takes to actually kill them), there’s considerably less that can be done to help them.
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