Myths and legends

Three stars in Orion's Belt. Three particles in an atom. Three divisions of Earth. These are things wolves do not know, but nature has a way of delivering messages, and so the rule of three found the creatures all the same. It arrived in the three Elders: three wolves who joined the wolves of the island as one unit and led them into glory and prosperity. Precious little is known about the three Elders. Some dispute that they even existed at all, while others claim to be descendants of this noble blood. Most of what is known is rumour and legend, passed around like truth.

It is thought that once, the wolves on the island lived very seperate lives. Small families and groups took up residences in all kinds of nooks and crannies, sometimes flittering through entire generations without ever leaving one plot of land. When different family units met, they usually did so with tooth and claw. There was no authority, and greed motivated many to force others into poverty and strife by dominating the best hunting grounds. Humans made their homes on the island, and the wolves feared them, avoiding their cities and their temples.

The three Elders were pained to see their great species beginning to crumble. The heads of larger families, they began to meet and work together to unite the wolves of the island. Many had tried, but none succeeded until those three. It was not an easy process, but in time they had stemmed the violence and gathered every scattered wolf into one united pack, that the three led together. Their names became legend: Khepera. Raat. Tume.

Khepera was a beautiful she-wolf, but beauty is not why she is remembered so fondly - she was lively, as quick to change as the ocean tides. She was spiritual, and many believe that she may have weilded magical abilities, but none can confirm it. But for all her joie de vivre, she is considered to have been the most unforgiving of the three. Crossing her path would unleash a fury unlike anything the island wolves had known, and her punishments were efficiently savage.

Raat is often imagined as the head of the three, despite the knowledge that they reigned together as equals. He was every inch an Alpha - he was confident, quick, with a mind as sharp as his fangs. A tactition, he is thought to have been the first to approach the others with the proposal of uniting the island, and is believed to have been the guiding paw behind every step of the plan. Raat had a certain charm that helped others warm to him, though he was distrustful of others.

Tume was the most careful and methodical of all. He did not approach any task without first carefully considering every consequence. He was quiet and calm, the stillness of the lake to balance the wild spirit of Khepera and the booming power of Raat. Tume grounded the three with his intelligence and his unwillingness to rush head-first into conflict. He is credited with being the first to speak with the humans, though many believe that - at least at first - he opposed the sacrifices. But power has a strange allure, and in time, he came to find that he rather enjoyed being a God.

Images are provided for the player's reference. The information that was passed through history about these wolves did not include visual descriptions, and knowledge of what they look like can only be obtained in game through plot events and group sights where an Elder appears and is explicitly named. Remember that what you (the player) knows and what they (the character) know are seperate things. 

It is said that the first human sacrifice awoke a certain darkness on the island - a magic that had been buried for centuries. Blood, you see, holds great power, and none more so than the blood of a human. When the Elders made their bargain, and the island wolves tasted human blood for the first time, magic returned to Almos.

At first, there was fear. There always is fear, but with the Elders to guide them, the wolves came to embrace it. Many developed new skills they had never experienced before... they could do, see, hear or feel things they had never imagined to be possible. An era of glory seemed to follow: human blood would be spilled, drank, feasted upon. Magicial ability would grow and swell. The wolves propsered, because they could heal their own ailments, control elements, communicate with wisps. They wanted for nothing.

Or, at least, most of them did. Save for a wolf named Magellan.

While gifts awoke in his family, his friends and his peers, Magellan had remained decidedly ordinary. He'd had a terrible streak of envy to begin with, and watching every wolf surpass him did nothing to quell it. He desired a power of his own, but did not know how to aquire one.

One fateful day, Magellan took dire action. In the depth of a forest, the fires of his jealousy fanned by the self-assured rantings of an arrogant she-wolf, he took a life. The blood wove between the roots of the nearest tree, a towering oak that seemed to be older than the island itself - and then, without warning, he could hear them. Voices, whispering through the forest. Spirits. Creatures of the forest that existed beyond the depths of imagination. The blood had teased them from their slumber. Magellan did not understand it, and soon they faded away, leaving him once more in silence.

He revisited the oak many times, but the voices did not return. So, in desperation, he led another unsuspecting wolf to those roots and tore their throat from their body. Only then did the spirits appear once more, and this time, Magellan petitioned them to grant him his greatest desire. Power. Magic.

Blood is power, they breathed in return.

The wolf took the statement literally. He began something of a ritual, herding unsuspecting pack wolves to that oak and snuffing them out, before lapping the hot blood from the earth. Blood is power, and so he took it for himself. He felt different, stronger. The legends were true, he decided. Drinking blood brought power unlike anything else this world had known. He was insatiable. Nothing was enough. He began to search for easier ways to gain power. The stronger the wolf, he was sure, the stronger the power he could consume. So he set his eyes on the Elders.

The spirits had been watching his exploits. They knew the blood had consumed him, and they knew that he had made no use of his gift. All he knew was greed.

One morning, he brought a sacrifice that the spirits could not accept. A pup, who trembled in confusion among the roots as the crazed wolf advanced.

In a single moment, the spirits cut him down - a curdling scream cut through the forest, then stopped dead. Magellan crumbled to the ground, his eyes pouring blood, his mouth coughing it to the ground. The spirits wrenched his eyes and tongue from his body, and in agony, he wandered and stumbled blindly through the forest, unable to cry for help. Eventually, the flowing brook answered his silent plea, swallowing him whole and condemning him to memory.

Legend tells that, long before the packs were united, the place known as the Voidplains was home to a lush forest, filled with life and beautiful to behold. Many wolves had called it home, but the very last were a small familial group led by their matriarch Kilmė.

An old wolf, many believed that Kilmė had happened upon the mythical fern blossom in her youth, and it had granted her immortality. Her family prospered and grew in the beautiful forest, but they were entitled and greedy, and these were not traits that Kilmė ever bothered to keep in check. She and the rest of her group ravaged the land, killing prey without hunger, destroying plants in moments of boredom, and torturing other wolves for entertainment.

The island grew angry with the poor treatment of the land. It sent a warning to Kilmė in a dream - but, egotistical as ever and bolstered by the lie of her immortality, she ignored the vision. In retribution, one night in Winter, the earth shook; and the island opened, swallowing the forest and all who dwelled there whole. Nothing grows there any longer, nor ever will, and it's said that if you press your ear to the earth, you can hear the mournful howls of the souls trapped below.

Before the Elders succeeded, many wolves had tried to unite the packs, for their own greed and desire for control. One such group, whose name was passed down in legend, were known as the Valdovas - which, in ancient Almos language, meant "rulers". Savage and clever, the Valdovas swept across the different territories, growing their power and influence through violence and fear, destroying any wolves who stood in their path.

They might have succeeded in their quest for total control, had it not been for a small pack in the western mountains known as Tyluma. Isolated but revered, the Tyluma had long been documented to exhibit magical abilities, something the Valdovas lacked and greatly coveted.

From their vantage point in the mountains, the Tyluma saw the great Valdovas army approaching. They knew that they had no hope of victory, so greatly were they outnumbered: but as a peaceful people, they loathed the violent practises of the Valdovas and did not wish to allow them to wield magic as a weapon. In a tactical move unmatched by any other, the Tyluma hatched a plan.

They waited for the army to be close by, before rushing the small human settlement in the mountain. They stole a human baby, and rushed headfirst into the perplexed Valdovas with an entire settlement of furious Men behind them. Every wolf was slain by the slighted humans, who could not tell Tyluma and Valdovas apart, and the settlement was eventually abandoned as the humans felt its safety had been compromised.

For wolves, however, the Tyluma became legends - champions of bravery and an inspiration for generations to follow.

Though none alive have ever seen it, many have told stories of the mythical fern blossom. Legend has it that this magical flower will only bloom on the eve of the summer solstice, and that whomever happens upon it and plucks it from the soil will earn immortality. However, others believe that the blossom is guarded by island spirits, and if a wolf were to find the blossom but choose not to uproot it, they would be granted good fortune and rewarded with magic. In the tales of the island, only the matriarch Kilmė is ever cited as having found this myserious blossom.

There’s an old tree, in a meadow full of purple and violet heather. It's a grey, weathered thing. The bark is long dead. It’s empty branches have never borne fruit, nor flower, nor leaf: not for as long as anyone living can remember. Birds don’t even roost there in Spring. It seems out of place, like it doesn’t belong in that meadow. A dead thing, surrounded as far as the eye can see by blooming life. But it does belong. For it is not the only dead thing there. It’s rumoured that the tree is as old as the elders themselves. It's thought that the tree had been planted by the first wolves who ever lived. Before elders, before magic, before even Man. It was the first tree to grow tall enough to see the whole island, and it had watched the land flourish with pride. But wolves, as they always did, grew weak to the influences of greed and desire. Many years later, when it saw what the world had become and how magic had spoiled the wolves who called it home, it withered. No longer able to bear the sight of the land it had once loved. It remains in the meadow as a stark reminder of the island's troubled past.