Character Creation

"I never knew my mother. Tragic, right? Turns out only having one parent is a rule in my family, but I didn't know why for a long time. My grandmother emigrated from Japan as a girl. Why she chose to settle in Packwood, Washington is a mystery to me, I never met the woman. Apparently my grandfather would turn up every few years to father a child, then disappear. After my father was born, no one ever saw him again. So my father grew up with a brother, a sister, and a mother, but no father. He turned out ok. According to him, my mother was mysterious, beautiful and strong; his time with her was like a dream. They had a torrid love affair, and I was born, then she disappeared. The same thing happened to his brother, with a different woman of course, but my cousin doesn't know his mother either. My aunt took after my grandmother, 3 children, no father. It all makes sense now, but it was strange growing up like that.

But I digress. You asked about me. Who I am, where I came from. My childhood was happy enough, I suppose. I was handsome and charming. People wanted to be my friend. But once they actually got to know me, no one ever wanted to be close. It was surprisingly lonely. The same thing with sports. I excelled in anything I tried, but I always felt let down by my teammates, they just couldn't live up to my expectations. I always felt on edge. Like I demanded more than was possible, not just from my peers, but from myself as well. More things that only make sense in retrospect.

It all came to a head shortly after my sixteenth birthday. One day, with no provocation, I was just filled with rage. I got into a fight at school and was sent home. I got into a fight with my father and ran out of the house. And I just kept running. Before I knew it, it was dark and I was deeper in the woods than I had ever been before. My senses were on edge. I wasn't frightened, exactly, I was just tense. That's when I saw them, wolves. A pair, then another, and another, a whole pack. The rage exploded, and so did my body. The Change. The first one is terrifying, but also exhilarating. I charged at the wolves, ready to tear them to pieces, when the Alpha appeared. Even through the frenzy, even through the beast that I had become, I remember thinking 'That wolf is friggin' huge!' It leapt and intercepted my charge. As I rolled, ready to fight, the massive wolf somehow became even more massive, a beast like myself. I charged anyway, and my foe knocked me aside with a casual backhand blow.

I woke up hours later, once again human, naked and wrapped in a fur blanket. The Alpha, now human as well, sat beside me. He was Kallik, a Wendigo. Kallik told me what I was. He taught me to shift. He taught me to hunt. I spent a year with his pack, mostly as a wolf. I was 10 miles from my childhood home, but I knew I could never go back. After a year, Kallik stated I was ready to fully join the pack. However, the night before my Passage, things changed. A massive black wolf loped into our pack. He ignored our bared fangs and growls. He simply changed into a well dressed man and demanded that Kallik heed him. He was Marius, my mother's brother, and he stated, bluntly, that I belonged to the Olympic sept. Kallik is a fearsome being, both man and wolf, but he gave in without a fight.

If my birth father taught be to be a man, and Kallik taught me to be a wolf, Marius taught me to be a Garou. He told me of my blood, of the Shadow Lords, of the Olympic sept. I learned the truth of my absent grandfather: he was a great leader among the Shadow Lords. He traveled to Japan to treat with our Hakken cousins, and bring back Kin, my grandmother included, across the ice to strengthen the Shadow Lord bloodlines here in Washington. I learned of my absent mother; she was a great warrior in the sept, an Ahroun of prodigious skill, but felled in battle without ever seeing me again. Marius, also an Ahroun, was disappointed in my Auspex. He said I was tenacious, and held on a few days too long before my birth. But he would not let that deter me. A Galliard could be a war leader, a poet whose words are wounds, and whose verses are fallen foes. Marius taught me to fight as a Garou, mixing the best of man and wolf. He taught me how to behave in Garou society, my society. He introduced me to the sept, he guided me through my Rite of Passage, and he brought me into my Shadow Lord family.

Marius gave me many gifts, but none greater than his last. After I became a full Cliath, he showed me a blade, THE blade, my blade. It was exquisite, forged from silver a thousand years ago. My ancestors, great warriors, had carried the blade to victory. It had been my mother's. Marius stated that by deed, the blade should be his, but by blood, it was mine. He taught me to use it, and gave it to me. But he also made it crystal clear, that if I did not live up the great responsibility of wielding a Klaive, he would eagerly take it from my corpse."