Plot & History

[[Copperyn]]

Plot:

Once, not so long ago, the world was filled with human people, and the wild things were pushed toward the most remote edges of the world. They were forced to compete for limited space and habitat, turning against one another in order to survive. All that changed at the beginning of the age, when a strange disease ripped through the human ranks, killing nearly all of them. While they did not go extinct, they now survive in tiny pockets, a mere fraction of their once great numbers. Technology and civilization alike collapsed, leaving great ruins across earth's face. The human survivors live in tiny, isolated family groups, reverting to living off the land as nomads or erecting villages in order to live.

Not long after the collapse of mankind's population, the earth began to reclaim itself. Cement cracked and crumbled, buildings collapsed, vines crawled across roads and storms swept away all that had once been. Slowly, the wild creatures began to drift back in to the lands that had once been theirs. As roads and malls disappeared, forests, plains, and wildlife returned.

In a valley once occupied by a town, three packs now live - there is little left now to indicate humans ever lived here, save for a few mysterious ruins among the forests and hills. These packs hold an uneasy truce - each with their own beliefs and systems of governance.

However, with pollution now gone, there is little to sustain the unnaturally warm temperatures that global warming had created in the last days of man kind's age. The world is growing colder and colder as carbon emissions are cleaned from its air once again. Glaciers are growing once more, rather than receding, and the polar ice caps are spreading. As more of the planet's surface becomes incased in ice, the currents of the oceans are changing and cooling down, and the weather grows more bitter.

Creatures must adapt in order to survive - their climate is changing, headed rapidly in the opposite direction from where it was only a few generations ago. As the world around them begins to change, how will the wolves of this small valley cope? The pressures of having to adapt - to find food and shelter, to survive - build tension between the packs. How long the fragile peace will remain is a mystery.

Recent History:

Before the Change, in what is now known as the Era of Man, there were two main populations of wolves in Kyrkja, split into small nomadic family groups rather than packs. These two populations were separate - the northern wolves inhabited the tiaga and pine forests now claimed by the Raekerin pack. The southern wolves inhabited the steep slopes and forests of the mountains known as the World's Spine, now inhabited by the Fjordsong pack.

After the fall of man, these groups each began to naturally expand into the newly opened territory as nature reclaimed the landscape. Eventually, each spread far enough to encounter the other - and tensions flared. With newly found plenty came newly found greed, and the two groups of wolves argued and struggled for the best hunting grounds.

Four generations ago, war tore at the groups, but without concrete packs and leadership, casualties were high on both sides. Each band of wolves followed their own leader, and neither side had a good strategy behind them. The war ended when half of the southern wolves decided they desired peace - a male named Rajak took charge of them, forming into one united pack called Fjordsong. They sent warmongers away from them, and the other half of the southern wolves - those who would have continued fighting - left, forming the Valkyr pack under the leadership of a pair of siblings named Zephyr and Nightwynter.

The northern wolves respected Fjordsong's truce, although initially, the remained broken and un-unified. A generation passed before the third pack - Raekerin - was formed by a female named Sovenya to defend against reborn threats from Valkyr. Although several small battles took place, the hostilities never erupted into full-scale war again.

Three more generations have passed since then. None remain alive that remember those events first-hand; they live on only in legend and stories now. With the changing climate and changing leadership, the packs have also grown and changed from their origins. Tensions rise again - will the peace hold, or will alliances shift and crumble in Kyrkja?