The Elanthian Times
Volume I, Issue II - Spring 5098
Fealynn's Feature
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The lot of the Humans was a treacherous one in this age. The Elves ruled the land, and they would permit no others to settle its more fertile areas. The Vaalor, in particular, have always gone out of their way to make life difficult for Humans. Most Humans lived a nomadic life, barely sustaining themselves in the barren lands they were permitted. Others served as slaves, beggars or thieves within the shadows of the great elven cities.
Not all Humans accepted their lot as thralls. Some rebelled. Many
so-called rebels were little more than outlaws, more brigands than
freedom fighters. Some few, however, actually achieved minor victories.
The Black Wolves were one such group. Led by the wizard Aramur Forean, once a student of the Illistim himself, they actually drove the Elves out of the area around what is now Wehnimer's Landing. After one of their raids killed a young Vaalor prince, however, the Elves hunted the Black Wolves down. The Humans vanished into a series of caverns near the sea, and they were never heard from again.
The Black Wolves
By Professor Ceranis Aesira, Professor of Lore
The following is an excerpt from a Chronicle I am at work on. It details the known history of the most noteworthy human resistance group in the Second Age, the Black Wolves. I give thanks to the Lords Mouse Sneaky Feets, Merlock Hamburgian, and Silvean Rashere for their aid in
compiling this information.
...and it is said that the Vaalor treated humans as waste during the
Second Age, even more so than all other Elves. During the rule of one Vaalor Patriarch by name Korthyr IV, it came to pass that a human resistance group appeared, one to outmatch all its predecessors. It is
said that the leader of this group was a human by the name of Aramur Forean. It is also said that he was assisted by a human by the name of Fenog.
The resistance named themselves the Black Wolves, and archeological excursions show that they took up hiding in the sea caverns off Darkstone Bay. Their device was an open-mouthed sable wolf upon a field of red. Their refuge they called the Wolves Den, and they protected it with standard fortifications of the time: military innovations such as sliding barricades, narrow halls with arrow slits, and a well-constructed subterranean version of a barbican. It is interesting to note here that the barricades and other defenses were never used, and they kept more in than they did out.
Aramur Forean, the human wizard, was taught by the scholars of
Ta’Illistim. It is not known how he received such instruction in a time
of such racial discord, but his journals show this to be true. He
started interested only in knowledge, but after witnessing a beating of a human in his travels with his teachers, his interests leant towards
politics. Aramur led the Wolves on sortie after sortie, and the end
result was a withdrawal of the Vaalor forces from the northern Vornavian coast, the very same that now supports the outpost of Wehnimer’s Landing.
Not content with their success, the Wolves set their sights higher.
Aramur’s journals show a gradual heightening of expectations, leading up to their swan song. It is said in some records that agents of House Nalfein contacted the Black Wolves, wishing to sow strife in other houses. There is another theory to the source of this contact which scholars debate. It is said by some that the elf second in succession to the throne contacted the Wolves and gave them the false information. This heir presumptive or the agent of House Nalfein allegedly gave the time and place of the carriage of the Vaalorian Patriarch to the Wolves. The Wolves planned an ambush upon the carriage, only to discover too late that the personage inside the carriage was the son of the Patriarch, the first in succession to the throne of Ta’Vaalor. Aramur entered the carriage to find the child wounded by a black arrow, and it was then that the assassination attempt dissolved around them. The Wolves, demoralized, were chased back to their hideout by the Patriarch
himself. The Wolves returned to their well-hidden refuge, but the caves were completely surrounded by the armies of the Vaalor, who, at the time, were second to none.
The food inside the Den gradually decreased until it finally whittled away into nothing. It is prudent at this point to discuss the structure of the life of the Black Wolves. Because they were a committed force, it was not only the men that lived together, but the women and children as
well. They were a religious people, having an altar to the Arkati Kai
and Lorminstra.
The Vaalor Heir was brought to the infirmirary, but nothing could be done. To this day, his skeleton lies atop one of the beds in the
long-abandoned room. It is thought by some through divination and
deduction that the Black Wolves resorted to cannibalism. There are
teethmarks on a few of the human skeletons, yet no bestial skeleton was ever uncovered. However, most of the Wolves, such as Aramur himself, chose suicide over such a path. The remains of one mass suicide can still be seen in the Den.
It is said that some of the Wolves may have escaped. In Wehnimer’s Landing today there are men and women who claim to be the descendants of the Wolves. Certainly it is true that there were said to be far more Wolves than there are skeletons currently.
As is the case with any powerful emotion, sin, or curse at the time of death, the Wolves were bound to the Unlife and to the Den, and with them their thoughts and voices. To walk the Wolves Den now is to hearlong-dead voices cry out and to see in the mind’s eye the horror thatwas their final days…
