The WereCourt

There have been many struggles in the WereCourt, which have been dismissed by many outside of the Black Forest as the expected squabbling of beasts who think they are men. However, the tension among the werekin belies a much more serious facet of life among them: there is a constant struggle between sentience and beastliness that all members of this race mus struggle with. In the environment of the Black Forest, that becomes particularly difficult.

The War of the Visitor
The current dynasty of the WereCourt, the Clan of the Red Crown (motto: Mortem aut Honoris), came into power at the end of the 18th Century, amid

the struggles between the weakened branches of the Clan of the Thousand Eyes (motto: Oppugnare Primum). The Thousand Eyes had been left with a weak king, King Borgoth, who had assassinated his far more capable mother in order to, as he thought, bring together the tow remaining far-flung branches of his family. The dynasty was doomed to end, as Borgoth's mother, Queen Vadaera, had warned the court.

When it seemed inevitable that the dynasty would dissolve into chaos and civil war, a visitor appeared. Accounts point to the creature being a powerful thanatoist, and the whole court was put to sleep save the Queen. Once the court awoke, the stranger had vanished, and the guards sprang upon nothing. It was then that Queen Vadaera, in an unorthodox show of kindness, attempted to create a peaceful passing of the line to a newborn welp she deemed a much worthier heir, Lady Annalese, of a small pack of Clan Red Crown.

As soon as the newly appointed heriess had been officially engaged, as was customary for her standing before the Queen's kindness, to a human boy, terror struck. Forty of the Queen's guard were found slain in the throne room, and the queen herself had been butchered. Her son took the throne, and called the rest of the Clan of a Thousand Eyes to join him in court, declaring all practices of human-werekin union to be unclean and unlawful. Those few of his clan who did come cried out for Lady Annalese's blood, though she was barely a welp of three. Those who joined them were the Clan of Six Spines (motto: Gloriam Divitiæ), the Clan of the Bleak Path (motto: Ego Ante Omnes), and the Clan of the Sable Hill (motto: Cognatione Antequam Rex).

A point of note in the early days of the War was that the Clan of the Thousand Eyes was able to test the strength of the oath sworn to them by the Clan of the Sable hill in the 14th Century. Before that date, the Clan of the Sable Hill was in fact two clans: the Clan of the Red Hand (motto: Ego Pugnare, Ego Vincere) and the Clan of the Black Hounds (motto: Contra Mundi). The latter were the decendants of the very first Werekin Dynasty, and the former traced their ancestor back to the Royal Executionor to those kings. Those clans had been charged almost a thousand years before to vigilently guard something within the castle upon Sable Hill, located just outside of Brynnewald proper, in the Black Forest. There remains no record as to what was being guarded, and no one is willing to speak of it. At the dawn of the fourteen century, after 997 years of the two clans on guard, it was discovered that their charge was missing. No one is sure if the creature was never there, or if they had disappeared a minute before the cell was found empty.

The ruling dynasty of the time, the Clan of the Green Eagle (motto: Nemo Surgite Superior), meted out punishment without counciling the rest of the clans, a move that was to be their downfall. After weeks of hunting down the offending clans, the Clan of a Thousand Eyes managed to check the bloodbath, effectively wresting the throne from the previous owners. Bloodied, broken, the few remaining members of the Clan of the Red and and the Clan of the Black Hounds were made to swear a special oath of debt--in violation to a long-standing blood-oath to the Clan of the Deep Sands--to the new dynasty in exchange for their lives. They were made into one clan, and their loyalty went largely untested until the War of the Visitor.

The Clan of the Red Crown took immediate action, calling its troops to the fore, led by the heiress' uncle, a brilliant tactician named Lord Kratuk, and his brother, Lord Yavin. They were joined by the Clan of the Green Eagle, the Clan of the Forked Branches (motto: Lacrimis Infirmare Nobis), the Clan of the Three Hands (motto: Ego Servorum Meum Sanguinem), the Clan of the Deep Sands (motto: Vigilate tua Pedum), the Clan of the Blue Panther (motto: Mea Inimicis Flere), and most famously, by the decorated human warhero Sir Bascot Gruber of House Aevanna (motto: Amicis Clades Timere).

When word of the coalition between so many of the clans reached the Clan of a Thousand Eyes, they sent several generals down into the cities of Catavac, where great werecreatures from the Afrik plains were sojourning, having been exiled by the last king of the previous Dynasty, King Rithkuth of the Clan of the Sable Hill. This new army evenly matched the one of native clans approaching the WereCourt, and to tip events in their favor, assassins were sent for Lady Annalese. She was, thanks to Sir Bascot Gruber, nowhere to be found in the Black Forest.

Now riled, the army led by the Red Crown easily defeated the first wave of mercenary troops the Clan of a Thousand Eyes flooded the Black Forest with, but two more were in the wings, being brought up from further in the Sudan, and now they had the time to study Kratuk's methods. The forest was bathed in blood, and many other creatures of the woods fled to other parts, or stowed away in secret places, silent and afraid. By the end of the second wave of troops, the Clan of the Red Crown, along with its allies, was close to broken. However, tired of the quarrelling, Oberon came forth with his retinue of Nightwalkers and commanded the fighting to cease, declaring the Clan of the Red Crown to have won. King Aedarth has since taken the throne.

Lady Annalese was kept, after the war, within the line of succession, as a nod to Queen Vadaera. However, she was placed twelfth in line for the throne, ahead only to her betrothed, the human Sir Janis Roque of House Kythira (motto: Ego Sta Alta) in the Black Forest. Also in the line of succession is her father, Royal Executioner Baron Theadred, and her two uncles, Kratuk and Yavin, who fought in the War. There is still much contention over this, since, as many point out, a rather strange path had to be crafted to keep Lady Annalese in the line of succession at all. Still, the Clan of the Sable Hill declares that Lady Annalese should take the throne as soon as she comes of age, as she was the chosen heri of the last monarch to peacfully inherit the throne: Queen Vadaera. With two years, at the time of this writing, until Lady Annalese comes of age, tensions have been running high between the clans.

Revolt of the Red Crown and the Legacy of Queen Vadaera
Queen Vadaera, though she married into the Clan of a Thousand Eyes, was born of the Clan of the Red Hand. She was, thus, never meant to actually take the throne, but the death of her husband's elder siblings, uncle, and father put her second-in-line for it at the tender age of sixteen. The rest of the Clan of a Thousand Eyes never quite accepted her into their fold, and thus she was without protection from the usual barbs and stings of court life. Her husband, King Hedelfol, was a weak ruler, and it was common knowledge that she ruled through him for the ten years in which he reigned. For the sixty-four years after, Queen Vadaera ruled alone, and had to fight for that rule daily. Attempts on the Queen's life were common, but the fact that she personally disposed of her would-be attackers won the loyalty of her guard, who became the family she never had in their devotion and love.

The Clan of the Red Crown, three years after the death of King Hedelfol, saw Queen Vadaera as unfit to rule, as she was not a direct heir to Hedelfol's father, King Orkin, and so they stirred up a revolt that led to a series of battles throughout the Black Forest.

Oath-Wedding
Though it seems like the main point of contention in the recent War of the Visitor, as it is now known (the entire event was blamed on the visitor who presumeably counseled the late Queen Vadaera), Oath-Wedding is not a recent institution. Oath Wedding is the practice by which select members of the WereCourt (usually heirs of small packs in a clan with little to inherit and low political standing) are engaged to select children of human Lords throughout the Black Forest. This practice, out of season in the later years of the Dynasty of the Thousand Eyes, has come back under the Red Crown through the efforts of the abovementioned Sir Bascot Gruber.

Every Solstice, a Ball is held at either the WereCourt or the house of a human Lord (the latter determined by lottery). This celebration marks the symbolic wedding of newborn welps and babes, the official engagement ceremony between couples that have reached puberty, and the actual weddings of those couples who have officially proposed to another.

The Wildling Dance
Another traditional feature of these weddings is a Wildling Dance. These dances are the civilized incarnation of the pagan rituals of the Hunt, which involved a violent battle in fresh skins to honor Oberon. The Wildling Dance is, however, not in the least bit safe for those without practice and training. These beautiful displays often involve special spears, scimitars, and daggers, and more often than not include basic elemental magic. Dur to the already deadly nature of the Wildling Dance, it was recently decided that nothing more advanced than the most basic magic would be allowed.

Dancers often

The Sacred Hunt
Dating back to the most ancient of traditions, when werekin and humans and gypsies were all one clan, the Sacred Hunt was a means by which, if an accused criminal was found neither completely guilty nor completely innocent after a trial, was judged. This was when Oberon was still only the Lord of the Hunt, and his father still ruled the forests.

The accused would, naked and without any tools save a sharp knife, be set loose in the forest, and would have to avoid the hounds of Oberon for ten days and nights. If he was caught, he would be killed and eaten by the hounds. Were he to avoid capture, he was granted his freedom and a small sum of money.