TL;DR Summary:
- 1969, the United States. The US is doing a lot of drugs, playing lots of guitar, protesting the Man and is having a big argument with itself.
- The world is ruled by supernatural factions that keep the knowledge of their existence tightly controlled.
- A young outcast werewolf, drafted into the Army and sent to Vietnam met friends and fellowship for the first time. To survive in the face of a VC onslaught on their firebase, he bit a couple of his best friends. They survived.
- One of the young men had a brother who ran the Wild Hunt MC. Soon, all the Wild Hunt were werewolves.
- This story starts with their fight against the Man.
- Weapons of choice: hallucinogens, free love and lots of guitar.
- Inspired by Easy Rider, Hunter S. Thompson and, hey, "I wanna be your dog" by the Stooges
In Character
Werewolves were always kept on a leash, at least since the middle ages, when the last great alpha was extinguished. Left shattered by the destruction of their royalty and courts, Werewolves became the bellboys, the doormen, the legbreakers of other supernatural beings that were more sophisticated at finance, commerce and politics. There were, of course, rumors of werewolf bloodlines producing an alpha, who could make new werewolves with a bite, but the rumors also were that other supernaturals were adept at finding and killing these individuals when they arose before they could surround themselves with others.
1968, in the worst of the Tet Offensive, a young werewolf undergoes a first change that is unexpected. He is indeed a werewolf, but far from the rites of his people, including an indoctrination into servitude. He is from a bloodline that serves others, but he was raised with the secret stories of the great werewolf lords, Alphas. He was told, in family gatherings, the glorious history of these failed uprisings, heroic and melancholic.
He and his friends are being overrun by the Viet Cong in an outpost near Cambodia. The lines are stretched, air support is minimal. They are going to die, though the werewolf knows that his odds are good. Knowing the tales, he attempts something desperate, to give his friends a chance to survive with him; the bite. It's an act of desperation. To his shock, the bite works. Others are bitten. They survive that hell-night in 1968. He and his buddies are miraculous heroes, their deeds (massively fictionalized) feted in Stars and Stripes. What counts is that the Alpha has his pack, already blooded in battle.
The new alpha came back to the world with his army buddies, one of whom had a brother that ran with a biker gang. It was a good place to lay low, to marshal the forces of a new war against the other supernaturals, the ones that turned everyone into their slaves. They stayed on the move, nomads, to avoid the notice until they were ready. They added to their numbers so that it wouldn't be so simple as neutralizing the Alpha to keep the help from becoming restive. This time, the supernatural bigshots out there, worrying over stock prices and manipulating their politicians while their tame wolves did the dirty work for a pittance, would have a real fight on their hands.
This is the saga of the Wild Hunt, the Werewolf biker gang, and its fight against the cabals and conspiracies of the world arrayed against them.
Out of Character Info
Werewolf bikers in the 1960's/1970's.
I am going to break the convention and make the gang multi-ethnic and multi-gendered to allow people to create a great character that they feel. The Alpha, of course, is a werewolf of great power and influence, but also will be hunted by anyone supernatural who comes across them out of fear -- even the ones that doing have were's doing servant work for them aren't going to relish the destabilization of their cushy lives. Without an alpha, Werewolves are few in number and less potent, docile and content to serve other supernatural factions and live off the bones they gnaw, figuratively (sometimes literally.)
With an alpha in play, the game changes. Some weres are so far gone in their servitude that they will fight against them, but others are potential recruits to the cause. The alpha's leadership is primal and magnetic, he is a natural leader among his kind. Of course, the alpha is also in danger. Not all werewolves are apt to follow, particularly if they are kept addicted to drugs or are otherwise being controlled by a rival being. Of course, by the same token, wolves in an alpha's pack are not easy to subvert by mind domination and charm magic; they are bonded in spirit and that much more dangerous. Not only that, the bite of an alpha can make new werewolves. Without an alpha, it's all about who has the wolf-blood, descended from bitten werewolves.
Also, I am thinking there is an ebb and flow to the werewolves and their powers. At the full moon, they are at their most violent and dangerous, whereas the opposite applies at a new moon, it's a time for them to sleep it all off. By the same token, they can rouse themselves to fight. I am definitely looking for them to be able to go to that wolf-man form that the movies like to show off, and maybe see if they do a normal wolf form as well.
What we have here is a skeleton -- in the interest check, people asked "how do were's become were's?" and I came up with the 'bloodlines and alpha's bite' system. Hopefully, we can flesh out the plot and the factions more as we proceed.
honeysweetestco,
Simple Unicycle,
Izurich,
Pachamac,
Pyrrhic,
Atalanta,
Byrd Man,
Jamesyco,
Sanity43217,
Lord Shaxx
