W20 - Changing Breeds.pdf

HistoryIn the earliest of days, there was nothing — only thepotential for everything that would ever come to be. Gaiadug deep into that potential and brought forth Her threeeldest children — the Yarn Spinner, the Tapestry Maker,and the Pattern Breaker, called by others the Wyld, theWeaver, and the Wyrm. She tasked these three withcreating the rest of reality, and together they fashionedthe Great Tapestry of existence, in which everything hada purpose, and a place, and a time in which it was rightfor them exist. Had the balance between these first threeof Gaia’s offspring been maintained as it was meant to,the pattern would still exist to this day, and there wouldhave been no need for any of the Changing Breeds tocome into being. But alas, that was not to be.Somewhere, sometime in the darkness of the past,Gaia’s first children stopped cooperating at their sacredtasks. Tapestry Maker trapped Pattern Breaker in a web ofthreads and drove it to madness and destruction. Ratherthan following the great design to create a work of beautyand balance, Yarn Spinner, Tapestry Maker, and PatternBreaker went to war, each struggling to force its desireon the Great Tapestry.To try to restore the lost balance, Gaia once again dugdeep into the potential of the universe and created HerChanging children. Each of them she built specifically toserve the duty she put before them — the wolves to war,the ravens to uncover secrets, the lizards to remember.And, to ensure that the rest of her children wouldhave someone to look to for guidance, Gaia made theGurahl. She gave them an innate understanding of Herdesign: not only the creating of new life and the weavingof that which exists, but also that most difficult knowingfor mortal beings — the import of endings, each in itswell and true time.She gave them the ability to alter not only theirbodies, but also their natures, as their duty would require— not mercurially, but slowly and with great deliberation.She made them curious and playful, to fill them with thejoy of potential. She made them protective and nurturing,parental figures to those who would have need ofGURAHLtheir strength. And, knowing that Winter would cometo all in time, she made them stoic and strong of bothheart and body, that they might do what needed to bedone to protect the Tapestry and all who were a part ofit, when the time came.Knowing she had made them worthy of the responsibility,she also granted them her most sacred of gifts:the ability to wrest one of the slain back from the landsof the dead.For a time, it appeared that Gaia’s newest childrenwould accomplish the task put before them. Theirstrengths and weaknesses complemented one another,just as the cold of winter and the heat of summer areboth vital to the turning of the seasons, and they workedclosely together to serve Her purpose.In time, as had happened before, things began tofall out of synch. The Garou grew jealous of the trustGaia had placed in her other children, and coveted thesecrets and Gifts of the rest of the Changing Breeds.When the Garou discovered that the Gurahl knew thesecret of bringing life back to the dead, they demandedthat the Gurahl teach them this magic.The Gurahl, in their wisdom, decided not to sharethe secret of restoring life with any other ChangingBreed, particularly to the warlike and razor-edged Garou.They realized that Wolf’s Children would want to bringback every warrior slain in battle in order to continuethe fight against the Pattern Breaker and that this desirewent against the cycle of life and death.When the Garou found that the Gurahl would notteach them our most closely guarded Gift, they spreadthe word to the other Fera that the werebears werehoarding Gaia’s gifts. And, as rumors do, the tales grewever darker with the retelling…The Gurahl refused to teach the Garou their most secretGift so that they might raise their warriors from the dead.The Gurahl refused to raise Garou who had been killedin battles with the Wyrm.The Gurahl turned their back on injured Garou so as tomake the wolf-warriors weaker.The Gurahl sympathized with the Wyrm, and refusedto aid Garou in fighting it.103