Subplot: Survivor Man (Horatio Rose)

Storyteller Note:
This subplot is meant to primarily involve the PC detailed in the subject line. It will be more involved and contain more detail than some previous plot points and be treated as a sort of “mini-adventure” for the PC involved. These Subplot stories are meant to allow characters to flex a bit and “star” in their own little stories. Feel free to involve any other PCs as you go along as you wish. My preference as Storyteller would be that you not include too many for events that will require rolling dice as it will take up a LOT more time.

As an additional note, these Subplots are meant to introduce aspects of Arsenal and its citizens supernatural and mundane through organic story.

This story will likely flow best with Horatio as the sole player.

You have a sacred duty coupled with understanding others lack. You watch the sacred places and defend them from defilement and destruction. Your understanding is born from knowledge that such sacred places are ever poised in delicate balance, a balance that must be maintained as well as defended.

Your commitment and skill are evident, bound together in the way you hunt: hidden, unseen, undetected by your prey until the moment of the first and final strike. As Meninna, you are one of the most primal hearted werewolves howling and hunting under Luna’s sky. It falls to you to stalk prey into the darkest places of substance and Shadow, emerging with knowledge and scars your pack will marvel at. You are the one who fights for the soul of places untouched and unseen by humanity, not for thought of reward, but because you know it’s the right thing to do.

Your enemies are creatures that humankind has never seen and never imagined. These beings were spawned from cruelty in the shadows of cities or born millennia ago in the wilderness, and have never seen a human in the centuries since. Yet these creatures hate you for the sins of your ancestors.

You hunt them now because you were born to hunt them, because someone must do it and you possess the skill to survive.

You are a scion of Black Wolf, a child of Hikaon-Ur, and you guard the soul of the world — respecting those who defend it and slaughtering those who would desecrate it.

The wolf growled low in his throat as the memory of tutelage passed across its mind. The words were of the followers of Black Wolf, the mentors who had taught him the ways of Tribe. They whispered on the wind, he could taste them in the cold waters of the creek. The pads of his feet ached with their terrible weight.

It was time.

The call to pack had stirred him. The First Change of another reminded him of his own. Memory cascaded until he felt the weight of guilt heavy on his soul and shifted. In the Urhan he could clear his mind of human concerns, but not tonight. Tonight the weight of the past followed him no matter his shape.

The wolf turned its head to the shadows in the night and thought he saw twin black eyes staring back.

You guard the soul of the world. Respect those who defend it.

Horatio who was the wolf bared his teeth.

Slaughter those who desecrate it.

The wind blew fast and heavy through the trees and he caught the scent of sand. When they had taken her, they had taken the sacred blades and chain as well. But he knew they had not been able to keep the fetish. The mentors had told him.

"They were attacked. In their hubris they ventured deep into the Shadow. Their arrogance led them to the wrong place and the spirits there took from them what was yours. They live, we believe. She lives. But your sacred blades are lost in the Spirit Wilds of the vast desert of the world."

Slaughter those who desecrate it.

He would slaughter them, one day. He did not know who they were. Where they were.

But as the sands tickled his nose and he turned south, he knew where he must go to find the token of their time together.

The call to pack had roused his soul. He would prepare. He would go forth into the desert of the Shadow Realm and he would not return without the remnant of his sacred place.

Storyteller Note: Horatio shall undertake a sort of Vision Quest experience venturing into the Hisil near Arsenal and heading deep into the Spirit Wilds of the desert.

Follow on with a post of your preparation and we'll get moving.

Wind was not necessary to shift the sands in the desert that surrounded Rose. The Hisil shifted as it pleased, dunes and tumbleweeds spontaneously moving, the landscape fluid yet unchanging. It was beautiful in its own right and Rose appreciated the solitude it provided. He knew the pack was necessary but they were still strangers right now and even when they weren’t, he knew he would still need these moments. Some uratha couldn’t bear to be away from others of their kind but that was not to be his fate.

Still, the pack needed every wolf to be whole and right now he was not. He needed the blades and now was the time to get them. It was not that they made him stronger. That was necessary but hardly the point. They were a part of him. They were part of his territory. And they were taken.

With a dismissive snort, Rose glanced around once more before doubling his pace. It was going to be a long trip and he needed to be done before he was needed again. And before the more violent spirits realized he was here alone.

Uratha spoke of the Spirit Wilds anytime someone slipped the hunt in the Shadow Realm. Anytime a spirit vanished or physical quarry crossed over and could not be seen. Anytime something was lost, never to be found it had to be in the Spirit Wilds.

What most called the spirit wilds was nothing more than uncharted territory for them. But to those wolves who ventured far and deep into the darkness within the darkness, the shadow of the Shadow, the Spirit Wilds became a creature unto itself.

Sand stung the wolf's nose, stuck in the cracks between his teeth. It crunched against eyelids and dug down into his ears. It was night in the Hisil and cold. Not an icy feeling. More an extreme absence of warmth. There was a moon, the wolf could feel her way up there, but he could not see her behind the dust storm that swirled overhead.

He was on the hunt. He could feel his direction pure as an arrow fired true. He was on the hunt.

"The Firstborn agreed on the Oath of the Moon. They had to — the spirit world has a hierarchy, you know, and in order for us to be allowed to swear the Oath, it had to go through our totems first. That’s why when we’re initiated, we swear our Oath to Luna, Father Wolf and our tribal totem."

Familiar words echoed across the wolf's mind as he pushed his snout into sand to keep the trail. The pack that had found him at first had a talkative Cahalith whose name he could not even remember.

But he remembered the words.

"Anyway, the Firstborn realized that their spiritual protégés — us — would have a great deal of trouble keeping our spirits and bodies in balance. Plainly put, we go nuts if we’re not careful. You know that, and I know we don’t like to talk about it, but face facts. If we don’t keep ourselves in check, we kill and eat and fuck, and pretty soon we just don’t do simple things like talk human tongues or shake hands anymore. And that was true even back in the day when the Firstborn were just getting used to us, so they figured out what kinds of behaviors would well and truly screw with our balance and put together our commandments."

Horatio the wolf traveled with the words and the wind and the sand for what felt like hours. He knew it was impossible to truly tell time this deep into the wilds of the desert around Arsenal, but the mind and body and spirit all colluded to make the journey a long one. Already, he felt the toll. He would need food, soon. But more importantly, he would need water.

In the distance, he thought he saw a dune.

"But in the original draft, as it were, there was nothing saying that we had to hunt. And the reason for that omission was exactly what you’re all saying right now — it’s obvious. It’s what the kids would call a no brainer.’ But that’s the thing about spirits and spiritual matters. You have to spell everything out, you have to name your terms, or you get weird exceptions to the rules. Without that tenet in the Oath, we’d have the urge to hunt but no rights to do it. Or maybe we’d lose the urge and go crazy that way, not hunting but just killing, over and over again. I’m not going to say that the Predator Kings could do with a little more emphasis on hunting over blind aggression… well, okay, I am going to say it."

The dune remained as far as ever. Each paw slid into the silky sand and the night began to fade. On the horizon, in what the wolf presumed must be east, Helios began to rise.

Hours felt like days felt like forever. He needed drink. Water. The Cahalith continued to chide him.

So it was Black Wolf, our spiritual Mother Wolf, who made sure that the Oath included that little privilege. She reminded the Firstborn and Mother Luna and all that The Wolf Must Hunt. And you know, I’ll bet you they thought the same thing you did. It’s a no-brainer, but it needed to be said.

Hunt. He was on the hunt. He hunted...something. He needed to find it. The wolf heard the distant buzzing of some forgotten Uratha but he could no longer care. Helios bore down on him like an angry father. His fur felt like it was on fire. His paws were red and raw on the hot sand.

The distant dune remained as far away as it had been the night before and the thirst, the thirst grew and grew until it was all consuming.

The wolf must hunt. I must hunt. I am the wolf.

He could bare it no longer. There was no hunt without the wolf and there would be no wolf without water. Even here. Even deep into the wilds of the Shadow.

Storyteller Note: I assume you will want to use the Gift: Call Water. Roll as per normal, but with a -3 equipment penalty for the harsh and unfriendly confines.

Please be as descriptive as possible if you succeed. A spirit that brings you water in the desert, especially in the Spirit Wilds, will be most interesting to describe.

The wind blew and the sand bit deep. It suck in fur and stung the eyes. It grated against the teeth and razed the nose. It hurt.

The Shadow Realm was not friendly. The real world was not friendly. Here, at a confluence of both, friendly was an alien term.

Time passed slowly. Each breath, each thought took forever.

Rose looked up at the slippery dune and felt the parched throat, the burning flesh, the stinging wind.

The hunt must continue. It was up there. The blades and chain. The reminder of a past failure.

He must hunt.