Stina's Werewolf Backstory

I'm also quite excited for this Werewolf game, and here is my character's backstory:

I was called Loona Crockett. I’ll never know the mind of my mother, why she spelled it Loona instead of Luna. I can only guess she thought it looked cool. From what I’ve learned of her, she was that type . I was removed from her care before I was two. She couldn’t hide the bruises on me any more than she could control the rage that made her hit me. I can understand the rage. I still hate her. She’s dead, though, so my hate is nothing more than a compass. It helps me separate the good from the bad.

I was put into foster care. I was filled with rage even then, and foster parents couldn’t handle it. I moved from home to home at an average rate of every three months prior to age 5, every 9-12 months after I learned to control myself somewhat. Moving around so much only made me more angry, but in time I learned that my anger was the primary contributing factor to my moves, so I did my best to squinch it. I could only hold out so long before something made me lose it.

When I was 11 I was in a home with about six other foster kids ranging from 6 months to 16 years. The foster mom couldn’t give a shit about any of us except the baby. All the money she received went to the baby, and the rest of us were basically left to fend for ourselves with packages of ramen noodles and instant oatmeal. We were all too focused on individual survival to figure out we should band together. That was a lesson hard learned years later. One day I couldn’t stand to watch her coddle that puny creature anymore, and I screamed at her, called her a fucking welfare cunt. She slapped me hard across the face and I took off.

I got caught a few days later when I tried to sell pot to an undercover cop. I should have been more careful, but I was still learning the art of cunning. With my record of bad behavior at foster homes, the system took this opportunity to get me out of their hair for awhile. I was put in juvenile hall. It was only supposed to be for three months, but I couldn’t help fighting and sneaking cigarettes and committing various other offenses that stretched my three months to almost a year.

I was twelve and a half when I got out and landed in the rat trap. On the surface they looked like the model foster parents. I guess that’s why social services never really checked up on me after they got me off their hands once more. I spent one night in the beautiful bedroom they had shown off. The next day when they caught me smoking in the room, they took me down to the basement for “medicine.” I thought they’d just lock me down there for awhile. I’d been through similar in other foster homes.

I saw this was different as soon as I got to the bottom of the stairs. The basement was clear except for a bed. Queen-size, four post. Box spring, mattress, fitted sheet. No top sheet, no pillows, no blankets. Ropes tied to each post. I tried to run past the couple, back up the stairs, but the man-rat grabbed me. I was small, skinny, weak. He was a fucking giant. The woman-rat was also tall and fit. They tied me to the bed. My “medicine” was watching her give him a blow job.

I existed in that hell for eighty-two days. They said I had a sickness and that they had to gradually increase the dosage of my medicine and that ultimately, the medicine would control my sickness, but that it could never be cured. I would always need the medicine in order to survive. I knew that I needed to pretend to buy their lies in order to survive, so I went along with anything they said and did whatever they told me to do. My body was at their whim, but I kept my mind in a separate place. While they made me watch their sexual acts and while they forced me to give them blow jobs, I was in another place.

It wasn’t just my imagination, I know now. It was a premonition of the Shadow Realm. A part of me I didn’t know existed was seeing a place I now know as well as one can know such a shifting, tricksy realm. It was sometimes beautiful, sometimes horrible, but what was important is that it was someplace other than the reality my body was experiencing. It made me believe I would find a way out of hell and suffer the rats to face their sins.

By the end of the summer the “medicine” had increased to daily rape by both the rat-people. My saving grace came from the flawed social system that had dumped me there. Even “perfect” foster parents get noticed if their foster child doesn’t show up at school. So to school I went. They made me perform a series of sexual acts on them that morning without the contraints to convince them I was compliant. I did whatever they told me to do. I knew I had no hope unless I got out of hell.

They drove me to the school and told me they would pick me up at the same place as soon as school let out. I don’t remember much of that school day except for sneaking into the kitchen and stealing a knife. I chose a small paring knife because I needed to coneal it until the right moment. I was convinced I would be able to mete out the medicine the rat-people deserved with this knife. Right was on my side, after all. I had suffered much more than anyone deserved, so I believed that this would somehow make it possible for me erradicate my oppressors with a tiny knife. I was naïve.

They took me home and allowed me to go into the beautiful bedroom. I steeled myself for battle. With the knife in my hand, I walked out to face the rat-people. They looked at me, the determination on my face, the knife in my hand, and scoffed. The man-rat stood up and came to me. I lashed out with the knife, aiming for his gut. It was inconceivable to me that I didn’t so much as scratch him. His hand grabbed my wrist and twisted it until I dropped the knife. I flew at him with my left hand and teeth and legs, but he just turned me around and picked me up, and literally threw me down the basement stairs. I hit my head on the concrete floor and was knocked out cold.

When I woke up I was naked and tied to the bed. They were both sitting there on the bed, on either side of me. I could not conceive of how this was possible. How I could have been free earlier that day and now was locked up again. Why didn’t my knife of justice prevail and mete out their punishment? I was so angry at myself for being so stupid. I should have run away while I’d had the chance. How could I have thrown away my one chance of freedom? The woman-rat put her hand on my breast and said I was still very sick and needed a lot more medicine. I was filled with rage at these evil rat-bastards and at my own stupidity and weakness. And then I could feel myself growing stronger and could see on their faces that I was changing, that I was horrifying. They tried to run for the stairs, but I had broken free and I reached them before they were at the first step.

I don’t remember exactly what happened next, but when I woke up I was covered in blood and they looked as if they’d been mauled by a wild beast. Now I knew the wisdom of running away, running as fast and as I far as I could.

As I ran, I grew frustrated at how slow I was. I wanted to be faster and somehow then I changed and I was so much faster, but I saw that I was no longer human-looking and knew I need to get out of the city. I cut through back yards until I was in farmland, but I didn’t stop running until I was in the woods, deep past the hiking trails. Then I stopped and tried to be human again and I was. I found a stream and washed the blood off. I was naked and it was night now and I was cold. I wanted to have fur again, so I tried to change and I did. I didn’t know how or why, but I was a wolf. It felt like a gift from that dreamlike world that had helped me through hell. I accepted it as a gift and stayed wolf, figuring it was the best way for me to stay hidden and safe in the woods.

I soon grew hungry and started scrounging for food. I tried eating leaves and berries and ants, but I needed meat. I saw a squirrel and tried to chase it down, but it climbed a tree and got away. I had more success with a rabbit. It was old and the meat was tough, but it was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted, and I was filled with pride at having hunted it down and killed it myself. Over the next several days I wandered deeper and deeper into the Rocky Mountain hillsides. I got better at hunting and I was doing all right, but I felt vulnerable. I was a wolf and I wanted a pack.

I heard howls one night and I tried out my own voice. I called out to the pack and they responded. I understood them and they understood me. I asked them to let me in and they did. I know now it wasn’t just luck that I found them. Father Wolf (not THE Father Wolf, but my Father Wolf) had found me by then and was looking out for me.

I lived with that wolf pack for four years. I forgot I was human. And yet I still felt like an outsider. One day I wandered away from the pack and closer to civilization. I went to a lake and across it, there were campgrounds. I saw people swimming in the lake and I wanted to swim the way they were able to swim. I stepped into the water and was surprised to see a human face in my reflection. I started to remember that this human was me, Loona Crockett. I had long, snarled hair and my skin was a deep olive. The last time I had seen my face I was pale from living in a basement an entire summer. There were other differences. I was no longer so puny. I was still short and skinny, but I was toned and felt strong.

I dived into the water and swam around like a mermaid for a long time. When I came out, there was a man on the shore. I was ready to change back into a wolf and run, but he commanded me to stay. He had clothes for me. He knew my name.

That was Father Wolf. He was the leader of my mother’s pack. He had been looking for me my whole life, and had found me just after my change. He’d been tracking me that whole time, just waiting for the moment I was ready to remember myself. I call him Father Wolf because his last name is Wolf and he’s like a father to me, but his name is actually Sam Wolf. Under his guidance, I learned about what I am, and I learned how to be better at what I am. He introduced me to the Spirit Realm, and with the help of his more technically savvy packmates, we reintroduced me to human civilization, but now as Luna Wolf, Sam Wolf’s long-lost granddaughter. I’m not really his granddaughter. My mother was not related to him. But this seemed like a good story, and gives me a place in the world. I changed my name to Luna because my mother was an idiot.

I never really joined Father Wolf’s pack. It wasn’t the right fit. He helped me out, though, as I figured out what I was doing. He feels he owes me, something to do with my mother and not protecting her. I still don’t know the whole story. What I do know I’ve just gleaned from overheard conversations. I think he feels a real fondness for me, though, too. He is the first human I ever trusted.

Werewolf Story

So, I'm so pumped about writing for the werewolf game I'm gonna play with Matt and Joe and Stina an' JB an' Chris an' Thomas, that I'm gonna put it here, too. I'm sharing it with you, but it might not be your thing. Feel free to move along.


Bruce Carmichael grew up in Loveland, CO. He had a loving family. White picket fence, lawn, went to church. Mom and Dad were both around, as were three of the four grandparents. He had a younger brother and two younger sisters. Everything seemed peaches and cream from the outside, but no one knew how alone Bruce felt. He felt angry all the time. His siblings were both in awe of him and more than a little afraid. He hadn't hurt them... yet. He'd always been a big kid. He didn't bully, exactly, but he did scare the other kids. If he was angry, he didn't particularly show it until it became too much, and then he'd lash out scarily and violently. He was used to the anger and tried to keep in under wraps, but when it just got to be too much, he'd take a swing at a locker.... the locker always lost the fight. He was angry in school a lot, because he just didn't understand the things the teacher would try to teach him. They tried to harness it in football, but, while he liked the feeling of being on a team, too often he would just do his own thing. He'd go after the kid with the ball even if it was his job to block someone else. He got the kid a lot, but he was not a team player, and athletics weren't his thing.

The only times he felt calm were when he worked on his motorcycle. His parents let him get it when he turned 18 (He had been held back a year, so he was still a junior when he got it). When he worked on his motorcycle, he knew what to do. No one was asking him to understand the physics of it all- he just knew he needed to take a piece out, clean it, and put it back. So he could stop being angry, stop getting frustrated. As he worked, his mind cleared and gradually got in tune with the motorcycle. Then, on this particular day, he noticed a tiny hole in the transmission. A hole. He knew what that meant. He knew his motorcycle was dying. Sure, he could get that part replaced, but he didn't have the $1500 that would cost. It would be better to buy a new used motorcycle for that price. He felt sad. He felt like an idiot for feeling sad about a piece of machinery, but he felt sad. He mounted the motorcycle. One last drive.

He flew. And sobbed. "So stupid!" They weren't just tears about the motorcycle, though. He worried. He worried that he would hurt his siblings. He worried he would never fit in. He worried he would always feel angry. He skidded to a stop in front of a stop sign and sobbed, then he revved the engine and kept going. Night came on. The full moon rose. He had driven for 3 hours, and had calmed down. Life would go on. He was approaching his house. He saw his dad pulling out of the driveway. Probably on a fried chicken run. It was Wednesday night after all. He'd lost track of time, but it was probably the right time for a fried chicken run. He slowed. Dad rolled down his window, and opened his mouth to speak. Bruce didn't see the car coming up fast behind him. He only knew it was there when it hit him in the rear. He flew off his bike back into the windshield of the car, smashing it good. He didn't see it, but he felt the impact as his bike and then the car smashed into his dad's drivers side, and he flew off the windshield onto the hood of his dad's car. His eyes cleared for one moment. His dad's windshield just had the one crack in it that it had had from that time a deer leaped over the car. That was a strange story. It was stranger every time his dad told it. He had just been driving along the county highway when he saw a doe in the middle of the road. Dad had hit the breaks, but it wasn't going to be enough. The deer didn't move. It just stared. The proverbial and literal deer in the headlights. At the last second, it leaped... not out of the way to the right or left of the car. Straight at the car. Forward over the car. It's rear left hoof had just touched the windshield there, where the crack started. Dad always said he was gonna get it fixed, but Bruce thought he liked telling that story too much to actually ever get around to it. That was the only crack in the windshield. Bruce could look inside the car through the unshattered windshield. He saw his father, a smile still plastered on his face, but his upper body in the wrong place. Not on his lower body. Bruce screamed. Bruce wasn't dead, so he kept screaming. Then he stopped. He got off the hood. He walked over to his dad's passenger door and tried to pull it. He tried to pull it open. Then he saw the back seat. His littlest sister sat there. Only 5 years old. She didn't say anything, didn't move. She sat there, strapped in and safe. Bruce started to laugh. He opened the rear passenger door. The car started to move. It started to slide towards him. He didn't know why. Then it started to slide away from him. Back and forth. He looked up. The other car's driver was looking over his shoulder... He was trying to get out- to get away. He was moving. He was alive. Bruce got angry. So angry. He didn't look back at his sister, who was still staring at him, buckled in. He just looked at the criminal who had killed his dad.

He woke up the next morning covered in blood, naked on the top of a mountain.

After waking up on the mountaintop, Bruce felt like he was walking through a dream. Better than the nightmare he'd just had, of death, blood and fur and the screams from a stranger mixed with a silence he could hear from his sister. The overcast sky seemed ominous. He could feel that it was cold, but he didn't feel cold. He felt like he was being watched. When he look around, all he saw were rocks and scraggly trees. The rocks looked so solid. Duh. Rocks are always solid. But he could swear these rocks were solider than rocks. He saw boulders and pebbles and mid-sized rocks. He could swear something was watching him, too. He could swear lots of things that wouldn't make sense, kind of made sense right now. He knew someone was watching him, someone that didn't like him, because they started the boulders rolling towards him to crush him. A rock slide would be dangerous, but not as dangerous as this. The rocks didn't just slide down the hill- they all slid towards him. He ran. He ran as fast as his two very human legs could carry him, and when the rocks caught him, they tripped him, and they buried him, and he tried to dig his way out, and he started to panic. He felt his heart beat faster and his chest rise and fall and rise. And the panic wasn't fear. He wasn't feeling claustrophobic. He was feeling angry. What right had these rocks to bury him? He lashed out in fury. If he weren't so angry, he might have noticed that he wasn't just pushing rocks away, he was tearing into them. His mighty claws rent the side of a boulder. And it rolled away. Uphill. All the little pebbles rolled away. Well, almost all. Those that didn't roll away faster than the boulder got eaten by the boulder.
Bruce didn't stop. He smashed and tore at the mountain until the mountain itself punched him. The immovable mountainside moved. It flung him over the edge and he flew... miles, it seemed until he landed in a cloud- rainy, wet, and oh-so soft, like cotton candy. Like cotton candy, it filled his mouth. Unlike cotten candy, it filled his ears and his nose and his eyes. Suffocatingly sweet. It began to smother him. He rent it with his claws. It cried out. It rained, and it deposited him on the earth. The cold, wet earth. The mud tried, in its way, to imprison him, sucking at his feet.

His rage became fear, and all at once, without knowing why or how, he howled a howl that asked the question "What? What must I do?!?" Abruptly, the mud stopped trying to kill him. He heard it... perfectly clearly. It burbled. It made mud sounds. It wanted him to mix water with dirt. That's all.
I'm Bruce. It's a dream. The mud wants me to make mud. Ok. Fine. He felt his body change. It wasn't monster anymore. It was human. He looked up at the cloud he had rent with his giant claws. It hovered above. "Give me some of your water," He said.

"Oh?" It wisped, "and what will you give me in exchange?"

"Um... I don't know. What does a cloud want?"

"I want a cool breeze to blow me over the town."

"Loveland? Are we near there?"

"Do you want to know that or do you want water? I'll give you either, but not both if you bring a breeze here."

I'm talking to rainclouds in my dreams, thought Bruce... why do dream rainclouds have to be this difficult??

The mud, listening to this back and forth, tightened its hold on Bruce. Bruce looked back at the mud and then turned to the raincloud: "If you teach me how to get water, I'll find you some breeze."

"Agreed", said the cloud.

The mud said, "You will keep your promise, Uratha, or my descant will hunt you."

Bruce, still unsure as to why he was learning new words in his dreams, agreed.

The cloud said, "The wind is up in those mountains"

Bruce began walking. When he tired of walking on two legs, he imagined himself a wolf, and then he was. This is a long dream, Bruce thought.

Bruce climbed for how long, he still doesn't know. He didn't rest. When he saw anything move, he avoided it. Nothing in this dream was to be trusted. Twice he was pursued. Each time he became the monster self and it ran away. Eventually he reached a cold, dark cave. From within the cave blew a cold, dark wind.

"Wind?" Bruce muttered in this new dream language he seemed to be speaking.

"What does the Uratha cub want from North-Wind-That-Blows-Before-

A-Storm?" grumbled the wind with a vicious edge that seemed unwilling to do him any favors.

"I want you to blow the cloud over the city."

"My goodness, so great a favor requires a great favor in return"

"Um... is it so great a favor? Isn't that what winds do naturally? Especially you, who blows before a storm anyways?"

"Disrespectful, little cub!"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Bruce was confused, but contrite. What finicky peronalities people my dreams, he thought, though not in those words. "What do you want, North-Wind-That-Blows-Before-

A-Storm?"

"There's another Uratha not far from here, who's been marked by Lightning-That-Strikes-The-Same-Place-Twice as his own. I don't want lightning to have her. You keep her from Lightning for me, and I shall blow that cloud for you."

"Uratha? You mean, like Mud called me?"

"Yes- Uratha," the wind whispers in Bruce's ear. "The spiritless ones call you Werewolves. Do you prefer that?"

"Um. No." What? This dream gets weirder and weirder. "I'll go get that other Uratha."

"She lies that way."

Bruce has only about a hundred feet to walk before he sees her. He looks up to see what she sees. A gibbous moon. Days must have passed... or only minutes, it's just a dream, after all. Anything can happen. As he watches, she stops being a woman looking at the moon and becomes a monster. As she does, he sees lightning - perhaps the Mr. or Ms. Lightning-Who-Blah-Blah-Blah that he's supposed to keep her from - flashing across the sky towards them. He fears he's too late. He runs towards her. He's not fast enough. He changes, becomes a monster. She turns, she sees him. He has no time. Lightning is get closer. He runs to her and slams his paw into her driving her just out of the reach of Lightning in time. Lightning strikes him, instead. His claws miss Lightning. It's so fast, but if it wants to hit him, it has to get close. I'm battling lightning. It's like he's alive, for the first time. He gets a good look at Lightning. It's strong. It's fast. It's weak. One good hit will destroy it. He knows this. He doesn't know how, he just knows. He watches it dance. It wants to hit him again. Perhaps if it does that'll be the end of him. If you die in your dreams, do you die in real life? He's not going to find out, because it dance away from him. It wants the other one. He sees it dance through the sky towards her, lying on an outcropping, thirty feet below. I can't catch it, it's too fast, but if I strike where it WILL be... He leaps for the woman... She is a woman again now, naked, unconscious, vulnerable, but not weak. He does not need to save her for her sake. He needs to destroy Lightning so that he can get Wind to blow Cloud and Cloud give him Water so he can make Mud... because he promised. His teeth close with a mighty sizzle on lightning. It breaks, and he feels its power enter his body. He had been hurt and fatigued, and now... the burns on his chest heal and he feels re-invigorated.

He goes to the woman. He lifts her and carries her back to Wind. (She can be awake anywhere in here-even during the battle. Maybe that stops the battle, but without JB to tell me what she does, I'll leave her unconscious, and resolve the story as I planned it.)

"I will blow Fluffy-Raincloud-Who-Moistens-Sidewalks"

"Not before I receive my gift from him...her...it"

Wind and Bruce and the woman travel down the mountain. It is almost as if the path is actually shorter going down than up...perhaps it is. In a dream, anything is possible. When they arrive, and Cloud hears what Wind will do, she begins to teach Bruce the secrets of calling water. While she does, little spirit versions of a full moon descend from the light of Luna's gibbous face.

"We are the Ralunim. Our mother and yours witnessed you keeping a promise to a spirit when it was not in your interests to do so. She sends us to award you the first sigil of Purity. The spirits witness your renown."

"We witness it," they agree.

The Ralunim carve the sigils into his back. "You are He-Who-Would-Fight-With-Lightning-For-The-Sake-Of-Mud. You performed a favor for a greater Jaggling to fulfill a promise to a lesser Gaffling. Obviously, your obedience to your duty is pure. We believe you shall continue to fulfill your duty no matter who is the beneficiary."

This dream could not get any weirder.

To be continued.

(Who is this woman? What is happening outside the Dreamworld aka the Shadow? What happened before he awoke naked and covered in blood on a mountaintop? How did he get here? aka cross the Gauntlet?)