Suppose that the Caretakers actually withdrew from Beast society for a generation or so? Perhaps they retreated after a Caretaker went mad and tried to organize a rebellion against the All-Mother. The town that he took over would probably have been scorched by the Caretakers, with the few survivors hiding in the wastes, but afterwards they retreat back into the Sacred Hills for decades.
There would have been uncontrolled expansion and discovery for a bit. Excess population might have spread out and formed new towns and settlements, and there would be a new generation of Beasts who had never even seen a Caretaker before the first ones showed up, trying to reestablish their authority.
The first Rangers would have been created after that, to try and help bring the rebellious outer settlements into line. There can only be a hundred Caretakers (actually less, but originally it was a hundred and they don't advertise the fact that it's fewer now) but since Rangers are independent of the All-Mother, there can be as many as you have parts for.
Here's an example of a rogue clan of Hyenas on the outskirts: the Kill Withouts. They're a small tribe, really more of a large pack. They're not quite true raveners, in that they don't kill other Beasts without a reason, just that they're so territorial that it doesn't take much of a reason.
Their current leader is called Kills-without-Warning. All of their hunters get similar names, such as Kills-without-Mercy, Kills-without-Remorse, Kills-without-Hesitation, Kills-without-Fear and Kills-without-Pleasure. Somehow, outsiders always prefer to deal with Kills-without-Pleasure. The names are based upon their Rite of Passage, which involves killing a captured foe in a pit battle of sorts.
The non-hunters get less aggressive but still descriptive names, like Tends-to-Wounds and Gathers-Roots. They were one of the furthest settlements when the Caretakers withdrew, and they were among the first cut off from contact with them.
The Caretaker withdrawal was slow... they didn't abandon everything all at once. It took years. They dropped away from the outermost settlements almost immediately, but their range slowly shrunk over the years until they all disappeared into the Sacred Hills. Now, a couple of generations later, they're back.
Basically, they had artificially constrained the expansion of Beast territory to make sure that there were always enough Caretakers to keep it under control. But something happened that drastically reduced their range (a short in the radio system?), causing them to spend more and more time out of direct contact.
Finally, one of them went mad and raised a rebellious army, claiming that the All-Mother was insane and that everyone was just a chess piece to Her. He had developed powerful psychic powers and a fair bit of brain damage; a dangerous combination. He could even interfere with the minds of other Caretakers, which made his rebellion a lot more effective.
Finally, the All-Mother managed to strike him down... it's said that he glowed like he'd been struck with lightning and fell over dead, despite the fact that no enemies were nearby. His followers gathered his body and fled.
The Caretakers ruthlessly suppressed the rest of the rebellion, but they did so with unseemly haste. They delegated a lot more authority to local leaders than they usually did, and most of them headed back closer to the All-Mother. They seemed unable to go as far from her as before. For the next generation, their range slowly got shorter and shorter, while they hurridly set up local governments and trading routes so that towns and settlements could survive without them.
Eventually, they all returned to the Sacred Hills and for the next generation none of them were seen, except perhaps by the Oracles. Even the First Folk said that the Caretakers had returned to the realm of the All-Mother and no longer walked the earth.
The Oracles ruled for awhile, based upon their traditional authority, but things slowly fell apart. The more distant towns, forced to depend upon themselves, were less and less likely to follow the orders of strange Wolves who claimed to speak for the All-Mother.
Potential Caretakers were still taken from the various towns and villages, but only rarely. Most of them ended up serving the First Folk as messengers and guards instead.
It was nearly two generations before the Caretakers returned again. Even some of the local towns questioned whether or not these were really the Caretakers returned and their leaders were replaced. The outlying settlements were the real problem, and more than one Caretaker was murdered while trying to enforce their god-given authority.
Those Beasts in the service of the First Folk were allowed to join a new cadre: the Rangers. Common members were called Servants. The best were promoted to Ranger and blessed by the goddess. Of them, a few would be turned into Caretakers periodically, to replace those lost in the field.
With their numbers swelled by the Rangers, the Caretakers were eventually able to retake control of the Verde (although that itself took most of a generation).
Which leads us to modern times. The Caretakers rule the green and fertile region called the Verde (it may well be green and fertile because of their advice on how to tend it). The towns closest to the Sacred Hills still follow the old ways and regard the Caretakers and Oracles (and, to a lesser extent, the Rangers) as sacred.
But the further out you get, the less control they have. There are distant settlements that have never seen a Caretaker and never will... they're too far away, further than the Caretakers dare to go from the All-Mother. They see Rangers instead, and the soldiers of the Verde. The All-Mother is still striving to bring the outlying settlements back into line, but it's difficult. A major problem is that the descendants of the Renegade are still out there, and while all of the original rebels are long dead, their children remember their stories and the supposed "truth" about the Caretakers.
[So what really happened? The answer I see is along the lines of that the All-Mother shorted him out with a mammoth radio surge, but this permanently damaged Her control system. The range at which it could be used steadily declined, until it was decided that it would have to be shut down and completely rebuilt. This meant bringing every Caretaker back and putting them into hibernation so that they wouldn't also go mad while the system was down. Now, decades later, the system is up and running again (as best She can manage with Her limited resources) so the Caretakers are on the move again.]
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