Werewolf History
From Gothpoodle
See also: San Francisco History, Vampire History, Mage History, Spirit History
Contents |
Native Period (pre-1776)
A single pack known as the Mist Walkers patrolled the peninsula. The Shadow was dominated by the Court of the Mist, a brood of spirit connected to the bay and its environs.
Spanish Period (1776-1822)
The Mist Walkers fought the Spanish incursion into their territory, driving off any Hispanic Uratha who came or underwent First Change. They were taken in by a small pack of Predator Kings on the north side of the bay who called themselves the Lords of the Hills.
Mexican Period (1822-1847)
As their people died out, the Mist Walkers began to recruit from the other tribes. Also, as interbreeding became more frequent, the lines between the natives and Hispanics blurred, leading to a gradual cessation of hostilities but only after several outbreaks of open violence and revolt.
Barbary Coast (1847-1906)
All remaining differences were forgotten in the chaos of the Gold Rush and the years that followed. The Mist Walkers pack split twice in this period along tribal lines, with the Uratha desparate to keep up with the new spirits and loci appearing every day. Disease spirits ran rampant while spirits of greed, gold, and violence moved back and forth across the Gauntlet unimpeded. The raging fires gave birth to a powerful spirit which allied with a newly formed Pure pack of Russian descent called the Servants of the Great Fire. For years, the Forsaken and Pure warred amidst the wreckage of a ravaged Shadow San Francisco. The chaos peaked in 1868 with four major earthquakes, a smallpox outbreak, meteor showers, and massive fog throughout September.
Reconstruction (1906-1950)
The war came to a head when the Servants coordinating with the People of the Hills to rouse the Earth Dragon. During the aftermath of the resulting earthquake, the three Forsaken packs were decimated but the People were driven back across the bay and Fire-Touched were thought to be exterminated. As the city was rebuilt, the remaining Uratha reformed the old Mist Walkers pack and agreed to put aside racial, cultural, and ideological differences to dedicate themselves to defending the city. Unfortunately, as time passed an ideological schism split the pack with the dissenters calling themselves the Iron Dragons. The Shadow also saw a reorganization with the rise of two courts, the Court of the Phoenix and the Court of the Dragon. The former was led by the spirit of the city and contained those spirits dependant upon it, while the latter formed around the Earth Dragon and contained spirits dedicated to the city's destruction.
Counterculture (1950-1980)
Two Ivory Talons packs formed in the city, The Setting Sun and the Street Lords. The former was founded by a local Neo-Nazi recruited by the Servants of the Great Fire and the latter was organized by Pure packs in Los Angeles. The Forsaken were able to drive the Pure away from the core of the city, but they remained on the periphery, digging in and securing territories until the city expanded to include them. Attempts by the Forsaken to uproot them were sabotaged by the need to police the spirits being spawned by the new radicalism and the backlash against it, including a resurgence of the old spirits of bigotry, fear, and hatred that were suppressed after the earthquake. A new pack finally ended up forming, called the Caballeros Dolores, to police the borders along the south side of the city. Later, the Keepers of Alcatraz pack formed during the Indian occupation of the island in order to deal with its significant spiritual blight.
Decline (1980-1990)
The outbreak of AIDS leads to a resurgence in the power of plague spirits as well as an infestation of Rat Hosts which the Pure use to their advantage, feeding power to the Earth Dragon resulting in another major earthquake. The event revealed the Servants of the Great Fire were continuing to plot the destruction of the city and the Forsaken. Conflict never escalated past small skirmishes with all of the other distractions. Eventually, the disease spirits are mostly contained but the Rat Host infestation is deep and, though a few major nests are destroyed, there are assumed to be more. In response to the outbreak, a new pack called the Rainbow Guard formed of homosexual members of the other four packs.
Dot-Com Boom (1990-2000)
The rise of the internet led to the formation of a new spirit court, the Silicon Court, as the Shadow was flooded with computer and data spirits. Their rapid rise led to a brief cessation of hostilities between the existing courts as areas of influences shifted and individual spirits tried to assess where they stood in the new landscape. During this time, the Uratha shored up their boundaries and territories solidified into the form they are in today.
Present (post-2000)
The Dot-Com bust had very little effect on the Shadow other than to introduce some more spirits of despair, decay, and fear. The Silicon Court was already established and the prevalance of computers and high-technology meant that it was thriving and had a reach that was global. The Uratha's local focus meant that they had little in common with the court, as a whole, though dealings with individual spirits were established. With the spirit world relatively calm for the moment, the simmering hostilities between the Forsaken and Pure threaten to erupt into outright war for the first time in a century.
