Caern History
This is the story the Galliards at the Sept of the Hidden Falls tell
by firelight. Similar versions are occasionally told in other septs up
and down the East Coast.
Many ages ago, when Gaia was young and the soil was pure, Garou roamed the
Pure Lands and watched over their Kin and their land. There came to the
area three Garou: Howls into the Wind, Wendigo of the Full Moon; Soaring
Eagle Dream, Croatan of the Waxing Gibbous; and Stepping Through the
Endless, Utkena Crescent Moon. Together these three cleared the misty
woods of taint, laboring to scour the forests of all Wyrm's influence.
Then, gathering together all that would join them, they prepared to build
a mighty caern.
Stepping Through the Endless sang and chanted for an entire night, with
many Garou to ward and assist her. When dawn rose, Stepping released much
of her spirit into the land, returning Gaia's gift and creating a powerful
Caern of Gnosis.
For such is carved into the stones of the caern, the pictograms and
letters wrought so as never to fade, though a thousand years might pass.
Many Garou joined the sept at this new caern, and at those days the myriad
tribes were at peace. This sept, whose name is lost in the mists of time,
learned much of the dreamworld, and kept on excellent terms with the
spirits of the area. Such was their friendship that the sept members
often spent days or weeks in the Umbra, seeking and learning.
This idylic period, however, could not last. As is recorded elsewhere,
humans and Garou from the Old World started pouring into the New in the
late 1600s, bringing with them conflict and disease. Even those
Europeans who extended a hand in peace instead of a clenched fist were
met with suspicion ... and eventually few on either side would trust any
on the other. In many places, distrust exploded into outright war, with
Garou fighting along side their kinfolk. The end result is all too well
known: the Croatan tribe destroyed, the Wendigo pushed far back and
greatly dimished, and the Utkena forced to accept outcasts to
survive.
As the other native tribes were destroyed, or forced to pull back, the
leadership of the caern fell more and more into the willing hands of the
Utkena. Deciding that discretion was the saner part of valor, the Utkena
Elders forged a mighty Rite and shrouded the caern in twilight, so that
those approaching it from either the Realm or Umbra would find themselves
walking right past it without noticing. Thus the caern slept for
decades, wached over by the Utkena who never walked unhidden.
As the intertribal feuding lessened over the years, the Utkena slowly
came out of hiding. The local Garou septs, dominated by the Silver
Fangs, reacted with no small amount of surprise to the sudden appearance
of an Utkena caern in their midst. The Utkena kept to themselves and
bothered no one, however, after properly establishing relations with the
nearest septs. Again, all was relatively quiet for a number of years.
Since most of what the Utkena do is done in secret, few outside of the
sept knew of its inner workings.
In the 1800s, the Industrial Revolution swept over New England like a
steam roller, and the town of Manchester erupted from a sleepy farming
village into a towering city that threatened to engulf the caern. The
caern, and much of the surrounding wilderness, was saved through the
efforts of one Emmanual Tarkham. This Tarkham was a Glass Walker who had
been living in the city for some years, but was unoficcially adopted into
the Utkena sept in a rather unusual but very fortunate circumstance.
Through his efforts the caern was made part of a 3000 acre nature
preserve, to be kept in perpetuity, just outside the city.
Much happened in the early and later parts of the twentieth century, of
course, but this telling does not concern itself with those deeds and
events. Their story is told elsewhere.
In the last few months of 2004, however *something* happened at the caern
which sent violent shockwaves racing throughout the Umbra and caused
many Theurges to fall to the ground screaming from the backlash. Several
packs were immediately sent from all nearby septs to investigate, and
what they found perplexes the Garou to this day. Dead bodies of Garou
littered the bawn, obviously killed in a titanic battle with some
monster, if the elders read the death-signs aright. All the signs
pointed to the center of the conflict being the center of the caern
itself, but once the scout packs crossed the boundary into the caern
proper ... they found nothing. No bodies, no damage to the landscape,
everything appearing just as if it had been left untended. Detailed
examinations by the most powerful Theurges were able to detect no trace
of Wyrm-taint in the caern - or the surrounding areas. It was as if
something had swooped in, dragged all the garou outside, and killed them.
Except, the number of Garou found outside the caern were much less than
those known to have existed in the sept ... and the sept Elders were not
found among the bodies outside. In addition, there *was* slight damage
to the caern: one of the side passages deep under the ground was sealed
off by a rockslide. This would have been of little note, were it not for
the fact that the earth will not let anyone pass through the rockslide,
and both Gift and Rite have proven useless in surmounting the rubble.
The Umbral landscape has a similar wrongness about it, and will not let
anyone pass into the area blocked off by the landslide. The land
distorts and twists itself in such a way as to make this impossible. The
spirits of the area honestly know nothing of what occurred.
These anomalies were studied for quite some time after the bodies were
given a hero's burial. The tribes of the area decided that the caern
should be rededicated and the sept rebuilt. Intratribal politics between
various Silver Fang vactions resulted in the appointing of an elder of
the Children of Gaia as Sept Alpha, with an Utkena as his chief advisor
to assuage the remaing Native Garou in the area. The Alpha was charged
to rebuild the sept and make the Garou mighty in that area once again,
and to do everything in his power to determine the fate of the Utkena who
had lived, fought, and died there.