Thought Manifest

"Hunted" Interest Check - An Untold Story About Werewolves

Sounds good to me. =D

"Hunted" Interest Check - An Untold Story About Werewolves

Rtron, that's a great idea! Do you want your recently turned sister to be the one specified in the beginning about the adolescent who gets caught and placed in the compound, or do you want her to be a part of my character's pack?

"Hunted" Interest Check - An Untold Story About Werewolves

You can totally have an adult in Nikita's pack if that's what you want. Honestly, that might even work better than a youth because she'll want people with her for this mission that have a little more control though a youth wouldn't be beyond belief if this is treated like a training opportunity.

Unfortunately, the internet doesn't yet exist because this game is set in the 1800's. Think more Van Helsing and less Underworld. There is the possibility for spreading information via pamphlets, but it would be a lot easier to track down who was spreading the information, thus endangering your character a lot more than an anonymous blogger. You'll also want to consider how your human relates to the main three subplots. For instance, is the human how they're going to find the compound where the lycans are imprisoned?

Kathryn's Manifestations

NIKITA DEVAR
[Female | Age Unknown | Ancient Lycan]
"Hunted: The Fall of Lycans" | OoC | Interest Check

Personality

Nikkita is a fair leader, always willing to listen to her followers and to implement their ideas if they could better the pack as a whole. She is also not the sort to shy away from getting toiling with the pack rather than sitting back and commanding them. Her dedication to the pack earns her great loyalty from her packmates.

In the centuries she's led, she's always felt that being the head of a pack was a very heavy burden, but she has been in a variety of packs where the Alpha had no idea how to properly lead her or his subjects. She would rather take the weight onto herself than to see her people fall onto the wrong path. She's never wanted the control, only to see her people prosper.

Despite only taking the position to be of service to her people, she will not tolerate disrespect from anyone. She feels she's earned the right to be respected, and she's lived too long to allow insubordination among a group that frequently votes and is allowed to provide input which is rather strange for lycan packs. Small slights are unimportant to her when done casually, but if the frequency increases or if they're larger than a simple complaint int he heat of the moment, she knows she needs to do something about it. Generally, she'll discuss it with the person in question because it really could be something she's doing wrong, but if there is no solution to be had, sometimes the only real path is to remove that person from the pack.

Opinions about her vary: some believe she is too soft with her pack while others think she is too strict, but she works very hard to provide a balance that will help the pack not only survive but also to live. Nikita knows all too well that survival and living are two very different things, and there's little point to the former without the latter.

Despite how inclusive she is to the members of her pack, she is somewhat distant personally. Her role is to lead not to befriend. Most of her packmates know very little about her life before they met her, and even when asked, she won't discuss past events or even her feelings with them. She isn't unemotional by any means, but to those who haven't been around her long, she comes across as rather icy. Her lack of a mate has been a small part of making her seem cold.

Appearance

Human Form:
5'3"
107 lbs.
Long, dark brown hair
Dark brown eyes
Light brown skin
Scars from other wolves and from hunters' weapons adorn her legs, abdomen, and back (generally concealed with clothing)

Wolf Form:
7'1"
375 lbs. of pure muscle
Dark brown fur
Glowing golden eyes
Long, deadly claws
Mouthful of sharp teeth
Humanoid body type with wolf's head and tail

Abilities & Skills

Can Change into Wolf-Form at Will
Greatly Increased Strength
Fantastic Sense of Hearing and Smell
Enhanced Eyesight
Immortality (immune to disease/illness and aging)
Great Tracking Skills
Stealthy
Can Wield a Cutlass and Daggers (though she prefers to use her claws if she can)

Relationships

Benedict Olivier | Male | 123 | Adult | Living | Pack Beta
Devar Pack | All Genders | Variety of Ages | Adolescent to Adult | Most Living, Some Deceased | Followers of Nikita Devar

History

Much of Nikita's history has been lost to the sands of time including her original name, but she does still retain some memory of her origins. She can recall the way she was given as a sacrifice by her parents to protect their small village. She recalls that she'd been born for that purpose. She can vaguely remember giant monsters with the faces of predators and bodies furred like an animal. Then there was a group that took her in so long as she remained obedient and useful. Unfortunately, the leader to whom she'd been sacrificed by the humans treated his pack poorly. She did not obey him, and she ended up a lone wolf.

This time of loneliness, for her, was as vast and as empty as an ocean. This is the time she cannot recall beyond living wild, hunting for food, and living in caves or anywhere else she could find. Her life revolved around survival and nothing more until the time came when she was taken in by another pack and taught better ways. These memories exist, but they are fuzzy, and her recollections aren't necessarily sound.

Her earliest true memories begin after she'd been with this new group for what they told her were decades. She'd apparently been in a catatonic state mentally, simply going through motions without any thought. They taught her control. They taught her to use her mind, to think, to feel, to enjoy life. No longer was she a feral animal, only intent on survival. She'd learned she could truly live.

In the sixteenth century. Nikita became an Alpha of her own pack and was greatly respected among lycans. They did not discriminate against her sex the way human societies did. However, there were some humans who were also loyal to her, who trusted her and who could be trusted in return. She was old, very old, and while leadership was a heavy burden, it was hers to bear. She was a good teacher, a good leader. She simply didn't know what was to come in the centuries after she became Alpha.

Hunters began a war she could not win though her people fought hard. She was forced into hiding with the rest, forced to lead in shadows as humans destroyed her people. She learned a great deal, but she couldn't save everyone. Many of her loyal pack members were taken from the world to be replaced by new pack members. It wasn't until last decade that the turnover rate for her pack slowed to a crawl as they became smarter, gained better control of their land and abilities, and they acquired better weapons. They learned to blend in with humans which helped keep the heat of hunters' gazes from their backs.

At the present, Nikita takes in pack members rather frequently, and she helps them train to not only master themselves but also to become productive members of her pack. Everyone does her or his part. Everyone is given a chance. Laziness isn't tolerated, but she is a fair leader. Unless they are dead, dismissed from the pack, or renounce their ties, no one in the Devar Pack is left behind.

Though Nikita is the leader of her pack, because she is a woman of colour in Europe, she chose a Caucasian male, her beta, to represent the group whenever humans are present. Benedict Olivier presents the face of a wealthy landowner and businessman. To humans, she and any other non-white or uneducated members of the pack are little more than a servants to a wealthy heir. This works rather splendidly because the social elite among humans tend to wag their tongues more freely around lowly servants who may not be able to even understand English than they would around their "equals."

Devar Pack Laws

01. Do not turn a human into a werewolf without the consent of both the pack and the human.
02. Purposeful killing of humans is expressly forbidden unless it is in self-defense.
03. Every member must have a role within the pack.
04. Every member must have a role in human society that benefits the pack as a whole.
05. No member, unless confirmed dead, will be left behind unless they explicitly renounce their ties to the pack.
06. Renounced ties must be heard by three or more pack members.
07. No one may enter the pack without majority approval and at least Nikita's and/or her Beta's approval on top of that.
08. Every voice will be heard, but once a decision is made, Nikita's word is law.
09. Pack members, for their safety, will always travel in pairs or groups, never alone.
10. The loser of a challenge for pack leadership, if not killed in the fight, will be expunged from the pack.

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Table of Contents

"Hunted" Interest Check - An Untold Story About Werewolves

So we have three subplots:

Captive Wolves
Hunters
Wolf Pack

Provided everyone else is game, I think it might work the best if each person had at two to three characters in different subplots because it would lend itself to more interactions, and no one person would be dealing with writing their own side story by themselves.

I would be willing to play in any of the subplots, but the only character I've really started kind of mapping out in my head is the ancient for the Wolf Pack looking for the Captives.

Negronomicon, unless you want your lycan to be a captive, (s)he could be a part of my character's pack if that's what you want.

I'll wait to decide whether my second will be a hunter, captive, or crazy human when everyone else decides on what they want to do because I'd like my second character to be a balance to be inserted where there's an open space.

Kathryn's Manifestations

LIEN
[Female | 25 | Foggy Swamp]
Never Used...

Lien is a spiritual and determined woman from the Foggy Swamp. While having lived a sheltered life in the mostly peaceful Swamp has given her a very relaxed and low maintenance personality where many aspects of life are concerned, when it's time to be serious, she can get down to business. However, if she can help it, she'll avoid physically fighting people, preferring instead to foster peace through civil discourse, but she is aware that words aren't always well received, and that action is often necessary. With that in mind, she does feel that all life is sacred due to the connections every living thing has to every other being. When it's necessary to kill - such as for food - she always speaks a prayer to help guide the being to the Spirit World.

At times, Lien can be rather naive about the world outside the Swamp though she's eager to learn in her own way and in her own time. Unlike many others in her Tribe, she often craves the adventure of leaving her homeland so she can experience new terrains and meet new people. She's very social, after all, and she isn't as fearful of the unfamiliar experiences as she probably should be. Even so, she understands that those who try to hurt others aren't as inherently good as those who attempt to aid people, and she knows to be wary. However, her good intentions and general naivety about the world around her could leave her easily susceptible to manipulation schemes.

Traits

Despite the rarity of the occurrence in the Foggy Swamp Tribe, Lien was born without the ability to bend water to her will. Instead of making her feel like an outsider, the Tribespeople taught her other ways to become a productive member. The first thing she learned was how to heal with herbs and plants. Lien took to it right away, thoroughly enjoying the tasks of helping those who became sick or wounded. It felt far more productive to her than learning how to fight in a Tribe as peaceful as hers. However, it was important that each member understand the necessity of protecting oneself and each other. The Tribe itself may have been peaceful, but there were predators and other dangers in the Swamp. She was taught how to utilize blow darts and knots and traps to avoid confrontation. For the same purpose, she was taught to move quietly but efficiently, to sneak away from danger. If it could not be avoided, she was taught to wield a bone knife. Because she could not propel their swamp skiffs conveniently herself, she taught herself to move through the trees atop branches. It didn't always end well when she first began to learn, but over the course of many years of practice, she's become quite adept at climbing and moving from place to place in unexpected ways.

Additionally, with the help of Huu, she became spiritually enlightened. He taught her how to use her natural ability to feel the life energy - or chi - in all living things to better understand just what each aspect meant. In this way, she felt like she could communicate with plants in a way that needed no tongue. From one simple organism like a plant, she learned to communicate with all others that stretched far and wide. As such, she could gather a vague understanding of almost anything occurring in areas of the Swamp, even in places where she wasn't currently standing. In this way, Huu trained her to become a better ally in defense of the Swamp though her lack of true fighting skills prevented her from becoming a true defender. Unfortunately, due to their greater complexity, living bodies have always been challenging to understand, and she's still learning to diagnose health problems using her understanding of life energy.

Relations

Huu | Male | 56 | Foggy Swamp Tribe | Living | Spiritual Mentor & Potentially Biological Father (though there's no way to verify)
Binh | 55 | Female | Foggy Swamp Tribe | Living | Healing Master
Phuoc | Male | 41 | Foggy Swamp Tribe | Living | Stealth and Traps Master
Suong | Female | 47 | Foggy Swamp Tribe | Living | Mother & Fighting Styles Master
Foggy Swamp Tribespeople (as a whole) | All Ages | Foggy Swamp Tribe | Some Deceased, Some Living | Taught her all aspects of life, spirituality, and her culture

History

Lien was not born to two parents as most children of the Swamp seemed to be. Instead, Suong's unexpected and unplanned pregnancy eliminated any marriage prospects she could have had. Lien was brought into the Tribe as a bastard, and though she was still treated as warmly as any kin, her lack of two, wed parents prevented her from the benefits of living with various families as she grew into a woman. Despite this, she was still permitted to learn various skills, but the lessons were rarely one-on-one or lengthy unlike the lessons legitimate children received. Even so, her Masters acknowledge her skills and sought to help her master them.

Within the Swamp, everyone had an equal opportunity to become something regardless of gender or bending ability. For Lien, though her mother had been hopeful that the child of her body would become a warrior, she made the decision for herself to take a very different path.

The path she eventually chose had less to do with parental influence and more to do with her natural abilities. From the time she could remember, she'd felt the energy of others almost as if it was calling to her. Her then-childlike mind had dubbed the chi within everyone "lifesongs" though it was't the kind of music she could hear with her ears so much as feel with her very being. She couldn't understand the complexities of the things this energy tried to convey, but there were some very basic, very vague notions she was able to eventually gather. Because of this, she always shied away from hunting, for the song always, inevitably, became more like a scream. Lien did not, at the time, have the strength to bear the change in the lifesongs of animals and plants that were maimed or harmed, and decided to try to focus her abilities elsewhere such as healing.

She was taught plant-based healing, and though she didn't like the confusing way energies felt when they came to be healed, the way they changed after a healing session or two always lifted her spirits. Under Master Binh's steady tutelage, Lien was able to learn a great deal about plant properties and mending the sick and injured.

It wasn't until she was on the cusp of entering her preteen years that she realized that others were unable to sense lifesongs the way she could, and she decided to try explaining it to someone in the hopes that she wasn't alone. This prompted Huu, one of four Council Members and the Tribe's spiritual advisor, to take notice of her. He took her to the Banyan-Grove Tree at the center of the Swamp, and after over a decade of training with Huu's steady guidance, she was finally able to understand the songs she felt in each living thing. More than that, she was able to connect them to each other and project herself through them to get a sense of other places and events as they occurred within other areas of the Swamp. While she still continued her studies in healing and non-confrontational weapons-use, her heart truly lay with Huu's spiritual teachings, and she worked hard to hone them.

Perhaps because of her strengthened spiritual abilities, a part of her became incredibly curious about the outside world. Her early attempts at projecting herself outside of the Swamp through the plants offered little success. After all, everything living in the Swamp was directly connected via the banyan-grove tree, but in the outside world, the connections were flimsier and would require a greater understanding if she was going to do it correctly. As a result, she often traveled closer and closer to the edge of the Swamp in order to attempt to extend her reach farther.

Unfortunately, the outside world wasn't quite what she'd hoped. On the edges of her home, she found humans who worked to cut back the Swamp foliage, to conquer it instead of working with it. Though Huu had tried very hard to spread fear to these outsiders, to make them believe there was a giant, monstrous Spirit protecting that land, he was simply one man who could not face those numbers alone.

When the Swamp's deforestation began to increase as more of these outsiders realized the angry Spirit hadn't killed anyone in their ranks, warriors from the Tribe banded together to help fight the outsider. Unfortunately, their unsophisticated weapons and bending were no match for the technological advances of people who wielded fire. They'd never seen weapons made of such hard, sharp stone, and they'd never seen fire emerge from a living being. Their ranks were decimated, and the Swampers were forced to retreat. Fortunately, the firebenders could not follow them into the Swamp lest they become lost in the maze and die.

The survivors of the onslaught brought the injured and dead back home. Even while they grieved for those they'd lost and sang them pathways into the Spirit World, they tried to come up with plans to prevent what was happening. A part of Lien knew that her healing abilities and spiritual guidance would be needed, but another part of her realized that the only way to defeat an outsider would be to find an outside sympathizer to help her. Thankfully, because of her travels to the Swamp's edges, she'd been privy to several meetings that were held at the northwestern borders of the Foggy Swamp, and she thought she knew how she could help her people best.

---

Table of Contents

Kathryn's Manifestations

Table of Contents

Lien - The Foggy Swamp Tribeswoman
Nikita Davar - The Ancient Lycan
Joseph Allard - Hunter of SOHNS
Winifred "Winnie" Felton - Chapple Sanctuary Daughter
Estela "Stella" Nieves - The Hufflepuff Seer
Jacinta Lawrence - The Potions Professor
Nieri Mahtar - The Fae-Elf Ranger

"Hunted" Interest Check - An Untold Story About Werewolves

Oh! What if someone is newly turned and before they can be properly taken into the fold, they're captured by a crazy person who thinks they're sympathizing with the wolves but are really just holding them prisoner... Kind of like... Have you ever seen the movie Misery? In it, Kathy Bates' character kidnaps her favorite author and holds him prisoner because she didn't like the way his last book ended, and she wants him to fix it. Anyway, maybe there's a family of people who don't like the way the hunters treat werewolves, but instead of helping the lycans, they just hold them prisoner. Maybe there's a group of like... three to five of them, but it's a big family and they have all kinds of things like silver to keep them caged. Anyway, it could also play out that they're all from the same pack or different packs, but at least one of the packs is led by an Ancient who is looking for them, but there are rumors about this that hunters have also caught wind of.

I don't know if the whole plot would revolve around this one instance or if it would just be a starting point, but your ideas were really great for it.

Scoping out the New Digs

Yeah. Go for it! You can totally call me "Kathryn" on here.

I tend to be drawn toward fantasy genres that deal with magic or supernatural beings or whatever. I've been reading a lot of fantasy-based books lately, so that could be why. I do understand what you mean about not having a very strong tug in a particular direction. I think it's probably like a muscle that has to be worked back into shape. It's probably been a year or so since I last role-played, so I have some creative exercising to do to get back into shape as well.

"Hunted" Interest Check - An Untold Story About Werewolves

So would these werewolves transform into the types of weres you depicted in the picture, or would they be able to turn into the full-blown wolf? Are wolves the only species or are there other varieties of lycanthropes like big cats or whatever other predator?

Are there the traditional weaknesses like silver, lack of control of the full moon, etc.? Are they born or bitten or both?

What kind of weapons do hunters have? Are hunters a secret/underground society since werewolves themselves are considered mythical?

As far as plots go, there are some ideas I have that could be built on or fixed or just serve as vague inspiration or not used at all. No worries.

1. Person A's family is killed by lycans. Hunters arrive too late but take Person A into the fold.
2. Person A is bitten by a werewolf and taken into the fold.
3. Hunter A becomes a prisoner of Lycan B (or vice-versa) and realizes there's more to them than the beasts/murderers they'd been led to believe they were.
4. Hunter A comes across some information that shows an ulterior motive for the hunting other than the propaganda about lycans being mindless beasts.