Okay, the "seat" of Beast civilization is the Sacred Hills. This densely forested region has a lot of rocky hills and outcroppings and is guarded by the First Folk... a large clan of Wolves who claim to be direct descendants of the very first Beasts who emerged from Eden (the implication is that more Wolves arrived later, but the First Folk came before them).
They worship the Mother of All, a goddess believed to watch over all Beasts everywhere. It is said that the gates to Eden are hidden inside the Sacred Hills, but the First Folk deny it. But then, they keep a lot of secrets.
The packs of the First Folk are matriarchical (there are a few male Alphas, but they are rare and are usually replaced by females when they retire). The High Priestess is the Alpha of Alphas and her pack occupies the Cave of Secrets.
Interbreeding with outside packs is forbidden. When population pressures grow too great, the clan picks a number of low-ranking Wolves (mostly males) and sends them away. Such spin-off clans are regarded as only slightly better than regular Wolves... honored for their direct relationships with some of the First Folk, but not trusted with their secrets.
Since the First Folk hate to leave their home (the priestesses have never been known to leave the boundaries of their territory, although lesser wolves are sometimes sent as messengers), they have only limited control over the rest of the Beasts. They train Lorekeepers of the other Breeds (and the First Folk honestly regard other Wolves as a different Breed) and send them out to guide their own clans, but they rarely do more.
The only outsiders allowed into the territory of the First Folk are the Caretakers and Rangers. These are Beasts who have chosen to serve the Mother of All as her messengers and agents. Occasionally one of the First Folk will choose to become a Caretaker, but they generally stay as priests and priestesses instead.
A Ranger is a low-ranking Caretaker. Applicants are judged by the priestesses. They are usually Beasts who have been distinguished themselves in battle but been crippled by some injury. They are never Beasts who have manifested some sort of psychic power. This isn't widely known, but it is an absolute truth; if a Beast managed to conceal their power they would lose it as part of the process of becoming a Ranger.
The applicant is given drugs and brought unconscious to a hidden place. There they are given "magical" metal limbs that replace their damaged ones. When they awaken, they will be back at the campsite of one of the First Folk packs and nurtured back to health.
There are said to be exactly one hundred Caretakers. When one dies or goes mad, a new one is chosen. It's usually a Ranger who has distinguished themselves with particular loyalty or disloyalty (although the latter fact is kept pretty darn secret). When a Ranger becomes a Caretaker they are taken by the other Caretakers into the Holy of Holies. When they return, generally months later, they will bear the metal skullcap of the Caretakers. From this point forward, their authority over the Rangers is absolute. Their loyalty is similarly unbreakable; a Caretaker will die before they divulge any secrets or betray their cause.
Neither Rangers nor Caretakers can manifest psychic powers... at least not without going mad. There are rumors that a few Caretakers have gone insane and acquired superhuman abilities in the process, but these stories are discounted by most.
Incidentally, if you find the well-rotted body of a dead Caretaker or Ranger, you'll see that their visible metal parts are only part of the metal running through their bodies. Rangers generally just have wires running from the new implant to a small cluster of wire in their brain, but Caretakers often have a lot of metal wiring running through their whole body.
[Yeah, these are cybernetic implants. The metal skullcap on a Caretaker is actually a sending and receiving station which lets them communicate with other Caretakers via radio. They also have some very potent brain implants which restrict their behavior and ensure their loyalty. Psychic powers interfere with these devices, because they cause massive neural surges that the equipment isn't designed to deal with. Caretakers and Rangers who develop psychic powers often go insane as the chips in their brains short out.]
Nowadays the authority of the priestesses and the Caretakers is being stretched to the limit. There are too many Beasts and too few Caretakers. They have to depend upon Rangers to act on their behalf, and Rangers aren't always trustworthy (no loyalty implants). Furthermore, there's a physical upper limit to how far a Caretaker can go without breaking radio contact with the rest, which they are loathe to do. They also hate going underground for the same reason.
As a result, the further a clan is from the First Folk and the Caretakers, the less likely they are to kowtow to a Ranger. They know that there isn't any way for the Priestesses to actually enforce their edicts, but law abiding folks will still obey a Ranger if his requests are at all reasonable.
PCs could become Rangers if they wanted to buy cyberware instead of psychic powers. Being a Ranger is a major Edge, since it gives you some political authority and cybernetic upgrades. A Caretaker pretty much gets a 1-step increase in every stat except for Charm, which drops a notch. They also get even more implants and upgrades to make them combat badasses. Being a Caretaker is a major promotion but also has some crippling restrictions (you surrender your freewill to the Mother of All, who isn't 100% stable these days).
The other big limit to their authority is that the Priestesses and the Caretakers defer to the Mother of All... and she's been very uncommunicative of late. A few Priestesses have even begun to consider the heretical thought that their Goddess might be going mad herself. The Caretakers, of course, are mostly incapable of even thinking that.
Posted by Kiz at June 10, 2004 10:42 PMCommentsPost a comment