Lycan

(Note: Only the history of Lycans has been determined. The expanded lore, race attributes, etc. of such has yet to be updated by whom has sufficient knowledge.)

History
Lycans have not always existed alongside other races, and the first lycans showed up around the 200th year of the first era of our recorded history. It all started with a small tribe of human men and women, who had populated a sizable island group in the Eastern Sea. These jungle-dwellers lived peacefully and bountifully, living with much fruit and cocoa to accompany their meals.

The tribes honored their deities with a week of rituals, which took place twice a year. In their complicated rituals, they paid close attention to the details of appeasing each of their five deities. To Zethos, they released birds from the highest trees of the jungle to the skies, sparing them from their fate of being taken as food, that Zethos might be merciful to them. To Hydres, they lifted their fishing nets from the sea, every troop of the tribe on the islands, and did not eat from the ocean’s bounty for the rest of their week of sacrifice, that the bounty would be rewarded to them later. To appease Sorthen, the tribesmen constructed a gruesome model of an undead from monsters’ risen flesh and bones and set it out in the jungle to perish in their place, that his wrath might pass over them. To Luperion, they shared their greatest bounties with their loyal, courageous hounds, which they allowed to join in feasting with them that the hounds would return their gift. Finally, to Sarathos, they constructed a huge pillar of flame using lumber and one of their great, glorious jungle trees, asking that the flame of their tribal spirit might burn the same way. As they appeased their deities, they lived bountiful lives and continued in elation.

One fateful day on a week of rituals, as the tribesmen and their strong, loyal hounds worked to drag lumber to the Pyre of Sarathos, a man of the tribe was robbed of a few precious gems as he slept, enjoying the time of relaxation, which came with the week of rituals. The thief drifted in and out like a cool zephyr on a spring morning, and would have escaped without notice, if he had not knocked over a clay pot as he left. The tribesman awoke, and heard the thief escape. The tribesman chased after the clumsy thief, and the chase took to the jungle. Like the boar and the ocelot, so were the tribesman and his provoker. The thief climbed the vines of a tall, thick jungle tree, hoping to escape to the festivities of the now-burning Pyre and disappear. He jumped through the trees, adept in the skill that most of the tribe shared. Unfortunately for the thief, he could not outrun the tribesman, who was a hunter of birds. The two tribal people found their way to just above the pyre, hidden by the canopy of leaves. The hunter held up the thief, and saw he was very young. “You are barely more than a boy,” said the hunter, “why do you float into my house and steal from me?” The younger man, down from the hunter’s grasp, choked out “You hunters are dishonorable to the balance of the island’s nature, you deserve no precious gems!” The hunter, infuriated, replied, “What would you know of honor? Down to the Nether with you!” He crushed the thief’s neck and tossed him into the Pyre to burn. At this, the tribe became frightened and people screamed at the top of their lungs, dropping to the ground, begging Sarathos for mercy.

Before the hunter could climb down, the earth began to shake and a bloodcurdling voice bellowed from the Pyre. “Greedy fool!” said the roaring Pyre, “you who would slaughter your own kind for the sake of petty gems!” The men around the fire quickly took sides, some defending the man, some scolding him for enraging Sarathos. “Silence, all of you corrupt, happy people!” said the Nether spirit. “You have been happy for too long, and have become greedy. You kill your neighbors with angry hearts because of inconsequential gems. This is not the first time, no. I have watched your wasteful island, and I know your ways. But this, you throw your enemy into MY fire? No, I will not allow this disgrace. You ALL will burn in the Nether for this.

Now there were five islands in the group that the tribe lived on. The largest island was in the center, one North, one East, one West, and one South of the center. The Pyre was held on the East Island, where the sun rises from its rest in the fires of the Nether, where it goes every evening. Sarathos, in his rage, struck the East Island and banished the whole landmass to the Nether. The whole tribe was trapped there, no way of escape, none of their beautiful waters to escape by. The Tribe pleaded to Sarathos to free them, crying to him that they had learned not to commit such vile acts, but Sarathos had turned from them. The tribe lived off the island’s remaining resources, but the withered away in a month’s time. Every grand tree, plant, and beast withered but the tribal people. And so they began a new life.

Backbreaking labor it was, living in the Nether. The men who had happily fished and hunted before now had to climb deathly cliff faces to reach the bland mushrooms that sufficed as food. Half of these mushrooms were dehydrated for water, leaving the tribes hungry. The tribes lived in caves of Nether stones, lighting the caves with crude piles of glowing dust from the cave roofs. They lived always in fear of the flame-belching ghasts, beasts of blazing rods, and skeleton warriors that rose from the stones around them. The native tribes of swine people didn’t bother the humans unless they felt threatened, which happened all too often.

Suffering went on for seven years before their cries for mercy were ever heard. The tribe could not sacrifice to Zethos, for there was no sky. They could not sacrifice to Hydres, for there was no sea. They could not sacrifice to Sorthen, for he stood by his brother. They could not sacrifice to Luperion, for the merciless fires of the Nether had slaughtered their loyal hounds. Sarathos turned his back to the tribe, and would not hear them.

One day, an old, respected stone render leading a mining camp was watching a camp of skeleton warriors across a river of fire as the warriors prepared to raid a village of swine-men. He sent a worker to gather some able bodied tribesmen and a significant amount of food, as he saw something that intrigued him. When the men returned with the food, he gathered them around and explained what he saw. “The skeleton warriors have an undead hound. The surface week of rituals begins in two days. If we can manage to sacrifice to Luperion through that hound, we may be able to get Him to hear our plea.”

So the old mine worker and the other men thought out a plan to capture the beast. They would take the warriors by surprise before they could raid the swine-men, using the skeletons’ swords to kill them before they reached the swine-man camp. The next morning, as the skeletons moved out, the tribesmen snuck behind the stones and jumped from a cliff onto the backs of the enormous skeletons. They used the stone daggers, which the men wielded like swords, to behead the immense undead. The men used the fabric of the skeletons’ armor to tie up the hound back at the skeleton camp, and they all had to work together to move the great beast. A day more passed before the recognized week of rituals began. The men risked their very lives going in to the beast’s makeshift cage, offering it the best of the crop of mushrooms.

After a week of sacrificing to the wolf, they cried out to Luperion, pleading that he hears their cries. “Dearest tribe, most beloved of people,” said Luperion softly, “I thought you had all left or forgotten me, what has become of you, you poor souls trapped in the depths of this cursed Nether?” The old miner spoke up first. “Dear most powerful Luperion, we committed vile actions against each other and against Sarathos, and he sent us into this most terrible of places. We’ve tried to pacify Sarathos’ rage, but he has turned his back on us and left us to burn.” Luperion, his voice booming, replied, “I can return you from this place, but there is only one way, for I do not control this realm.” The humble old miner lowered himself and begged to Luperion. “Please, dear Wolf Spirit, whatever it takes, we will be your servants.” The spirit thought for awhile and finally said to them, “For you, dearest tribe, I will do what I have meant to for awhile. I need a people to call my own, servants on the face of the mortal realm. You will have incredible power, but many responsibilities go with that power. “We accept those responsibilities fully, great Luperion,” the old man replied. So Luperion went around, giving the people his mysterious blessing, and gathered them all in the middle of their small settlement. “SARATHOS,” roared Luperion, “APPEAR TO ME AT ONCE.” The Nether shook with the approach of Sarathos, who boomed, “Who has such power that he might summon Sarathos?” Luperion told Sarathos that his own servants were being held in the Nether, and demanded he release them at once, and so that day the tribe was returned to their native island.

The new servants of Luperion found their lives to be increasingly bountiful. The villages they once knew had long been destroyed, but the tribe found their new gift to be incredibly powerful. The tribesmen found themselves able to perform incredible acts of strength, speed, and agility. They could climb their great trees with increased ease, carry heavy loads of wood and stone, and mine into the earth like they had never done before. As for hunting, they could sense a boar a mile away, and could understand the language of the wolves they lived with. They called this language “Canic” and developed a written form. As for themselves, they became known as “Lycans,” the blessed race of servants of Luperion.

A few generations passed, and the Lycan servants of Luperion began to take on further aspects of wolves, and became more and more distinguishable as a race from humans. The lycans experienced travelers and adventurers from time to time, and came to be sad at the amount of people they slaughtered to keep word of their land to get to other nations. Anthropic races: men, elves, dwarves, even an orc once, traveled and met their fate at the lycans’ claws. The lycans begged for a way to bind the Anthropes to their loyalty, and Luperion heard their pleas. “Peace,” he told his servants, “I have already thought this through.” Luperion gave the lycans the power to make their own Anthropic servants, given the gift of beast form to serve dutifully. These “Lycan Thralls” were not lycans, but rather, would be bound to their service in exchange for keeping their lives.

Lycanthralls were given the inpure blood through the mixture of some pure Lycan blood into their own. The Lycanthrall would experience massive pain, but would survive and become incredibly powerful. The Lycanthralls worked with the lycans to build great works of architecture and further the four great islands of Luperion.

One day, a small sailing vessel full of elves visited the island. This was a strange event, because Anthropes rarely appeared in such numbers. The elves were quickly converted to Lycanthralls, and the Lycan tribe thought nothing of it. The elven ship sunk soon after hitting land, as a hole was torn in the hull. Two and one-half weeks passed before the newly converted elves became anything of consequence. In the dead of night on a summer’s evening, one of the watchtowers alerted the nearby town of incoming vessels, and before the chaos could even spread through the islands, it was too late. A whole Elven War-Fleet was approaching with a desperate fury. The slaughter was incredible. Even with their Canic fury, the lycans and their Lycanthralls could not stand against the precision of the elven archers. The elves captured most of the slower Lycanthralls during the lycans’ retreat to their only seaworthy ship. The lycans left on the island were slaughtered by the new come power. The elves used some magic to change the Lycanthralls to recover their previous minds, and cursed what lycans escaped to never create such Lycanthralls again.

Luperion was ashamed at the weakness of his servants, but spared their ship as it sailed westward from the islands. As for the Lycanthralls, they would never serve the lycans again, and became feral creatures of despair and violence, and were renamed with a new label, “Lycanthrope.” The tired, demoralized lycans sailed until they hit an impressively sized land. The lycans set up a camp on the eastern shore of this strange, vast continent, and began to rebuild their small villages.

Life was harsh, there were many natural forces against them, and the lycans guessed that other deities dwelled in these lands. The lycans lived a life of little resources and plentiful hunger. Slowly but surely, as suddenly as they had appeared, the lycans began to fade. Finally, a great earthquake hit the tribe and many lycans were killed in their primitive wolf caves they’d fashioned in their new environment. When only a few lycans remained, the pack leader, Tryndall, begged Luperion to spare his loyal servants from their very extinction. “The death of your kind will find you seven times over,” said the powerful spirit, “only after that will you truly find peace.” Tryndall was confused, but trusted his master. Eventually, when his pack was long gone, Tryndall sailed alone back to his home islands.

When the Last Blood Lycan found his home shore, he was very old and ready to die. He knew that the elven civilization was already thriving. The elves harnessed the nature of the trees like the lycans had done with the wolves, and they did so efficiently. One enchanted tree entangled and trapped the lycan, and Luperion watched the ill fate of his servant. This, however, was not to be Tryndall’s fate. The power of the Wolf Spirit entered Tryndall, and he boomed with glowing eyes of pure white, “I AM CANIS MAGNUS OF LUPERION, RELEASE ME!” The tree obeyed, and the lycan found his way to a great tomb, which was meant for Canic heroes. Tryndall knew well the way to build a proper tomb for a lycan, and sealed himself inside one, stabbing himself in the heart to end the race along with Luperion’s plan. Tryndall joined the Great Wolf Spirit as The White Zephyr, a lesser wolf spirit under Great Luperion.

Luperion sent The White Zephyr, in the form of a large white wolf with sparkling white eyes to bless individuals from all different tribes of Anthropes, whose fate was from there on altered. The chosen would later meet and form a tribe of their own, none of them knowing why, but the next generations began to recognize what they were, and they were lycans.

Present Day
This cycle repeated seven times over throughout history until recent times, the history of lycans only kept in secret in their tombs below the great elven islands. The seventh and final Canis Magnus was Ramecon Black, the Wolf King of the Flying City. What happens next, you will need to participate in Rame’s questline for the finalization of Lycankind, and the lasting glory of the lycans.