#ithaeur

so ... chattering with @huntunderironskies got me wanting to type up the rough outline of one of my original lodges for the Storm Lords.

LODGE OF TOOTH AND CLAW -> storm lord lodge -> requirements: stamina 3 + EITHER occult 3, survival 3 or brawl 3

PURPOSE: To kill those ridden by spirits of apex predators and powerful hunters, ending the physical possession to send the predator back to the Hisil.

PATRON: Proud One-Ear, the spirit of a sabretooth cat. The spirit has one ear, as the name suggests, and its missing appendage appears to be constantly oozing thick, tarlike blood. Proud One-Ear has been both predator and prey; it remembers the slowing of old joints and the thickening of its vision, the cataracts and protruding ribs. It knows why the dead may desire to return to life, to a prime before they died. However, Proud One-Ear does not respect this. Those predatory creatures desiring to return to a life of flesh and bone are, in its eyes, weak. TERMS: Primes, Teeth, Claws. Common term for their prey is "Apex-Claimed". Aluminir -> "the apex of apexes" -> any Uratha who kills an Apex-Claimed while out of Gauru form. Only two or three Aluminir gain the status every year. LOCATION: All throughout the world. A small, powerful, proud lodge, the Lodge of Tooth and Claw has no particular location that ties them down. They tend towards locations where a particularly powerful predator died, and often gather in areas where humans do not linger.

LIFESTYLE: The Lodge of Tooth and Claw's members often live in communes. They toil with hand and nail, constructing their homes (and the homes of their wolf-blooded kin) with their own strength. Those who are of higher status often decorate their homes with symbolic representations of the Claimed they have slain. They make what they use, and they sneer on those who rely too much on softer, human-made objects. Notably, though, they do not actually refuse these objects. Instead, it is seen as acceptable for Wolf-Blooded to use computers and other objects. Adherents of the Lodge often complete rites of cleansing after using such technology, as they believe that an Uratha using modern technology is an Uratha that will find it harder to track and kill the primordial Ridden they seek. PREY: Claimed who are controlled by old, primeval spirits of blood and the wild. These Claimed often do not just have the spirit of a creature-- they have Broken-Claw the highly successful Velociraptor possessing their flesh, and so on. When given the choice between one of these Apex-Claimed and any other Claimed, a Claw will attack the Apex-Claimed every time. A special sort of prey is the "Nuthurimmur" -> an Apex-Claimed who has killed a Prime. Claws regard Nuthurimmur as the most holy of all prey; once one has been created, the entire Lodge is likely to embark upon a Siskur-Dah to reclaim it.

JOINING: Unlike many other lodges, the Primes have no interest in fawning or bootlicking. Instead, they demand simply this: a potential lodge member must find the local Lodge and embark there in the prime of their power, where they must challenge any of the Uratha to a fight. Not another initiate, but an adherent. They must stand before someone who is blooded and demand to fight them to prove their strength. The combat itself is Ritual. The initiate will fight, and bleed, and most times, the initiate loses. They are torn open and thrown to the floor... ... and then they are given a tincture of herbs and spirits, for this was not the true proving.

The bravery is what mattered. Apex-Claimed are not for the faint of heart to hunt. An Uratha that cannot face down certain defeat and keep fighting is not worth the time. The mixture induces a state of euphoric rage. They are put into a suggestive state and subjected to a rite that strips away inhibition, fear, and the pain of the hunt, of their beating. Then, Proud One-Ear appears in all of its might and summons one of its children to be hunted.

Here is the true test. The initiate is made to hunt. Their body aches. They could have a broken limb; they could be bleeding, still. It does not matter. Once the hunt begins, they feel no pain-- they feel their heavy limbs, but there is no pain. The delirious and half-dead initiate is led on a hunt for some time. Some Primes boast of a day and a night spent hunting, a near-madness of primal ecstasy. The idea is simple, and it works: only the most dedicated will be able to endure the hunt. Inevitably, an initiate, despite the tincture, will hit the bottom of their endurance. They will be faced with the yawning void of further hunting or the comfort of returning, ceasing, losing the initiation but being able to stop the maddening race.

Here, the final trick is revealed: an initiate who stops before the hunt will be merely drummed out in disgrace.

But once the hunt begins, an initiate who stops does not get to walk away.

They think they may, for the Primes do not tell them of the cost of failing the hunt. To the Lodge of Tooth and Claw, it is evident by the act itself. A hunt, after all, is a dance of predator and prey, and if you are not the predator, you are the prey.

To fail the hunt is to be killed. Not by the Lodge of Tooth and Claw, but the child of Proud One-Ear. Once cornered, the child turns and fights, and the initiate must pull up their final reserves of energy to triumph. Often, initiates will enter a battle-trance, seeing themselves in Gauru but not registering their motions. Out of five initiates, three die. These final wells of strength are what truly matters. Those who could not survive would have been killed by an Apex-Claimed anyways.

Only one entity returns from the hunt: spirit or initiate. If the Initiate returns, they are given room to rest and initiated into the Lodge. If they do not, the Lodge simply covers up their presence.

RITES:

-> SUNDERING SUMMON: The pack dubs a single Uratha as the locus of this rite, and binds a powerful Apex-Claimed to the Uratha. The Apex-Claimed is incapable of fleeing once the Uratha designated the locus begins to hunt it. SYMBOLS: Death, earth, blood, bone. SAMPLE RITE:

-> The Uratha designated the Locus stabs through their forearm, bleeding onto the dirt between their feet before touching the face of the ritemaster. The Ritemaster presents the Locus with a bone taken from a previous Siskur-Dah target; the Locus takes the bone into their hands and pushes it through the wound in their arm. Their packmates circle, stamping the earth with a rhythm known only to them, and chant, demanding that the spirit recognize the power of the Locus.

-> Success: The spirit is bound to the locus-uratha until four days pass or the locus-uratha (or the Ridden body of the spirit) dies. Once it enters within five miles of the locus-uratha, it cannot leave that vicinity and is actively drawn towards the hunting uratha.

CURRENT LODGE LEADER:

SYBIL BLACK-BILE (storm lord ithaeur)

With a handsome face and a lopsided smile, Sybil presents an organized front. It's easy to ignore the black scarring that twists down the veins on one of her arms, or the ragged, rotting-looking scars on her neck. Her story is one that is known well: she survived combat with a Magath where the rest of her old pack did not. Sybil is earnest, softly stern, and very warm for such a cold lodge. She speaks directly to Proud One-Ear, and it is rumored that she quite literally cannot die as long as she is bonded with Proud One-Ear as she is.

In truth, Sybil and Proud One-Ear are working to eliminate those spirits who are seen as "disrespectful" by continually returning. What appears to be respectful and awestruck hunt-ritual is designed to wear down the spirit, making it easy to finally slay. When Sybil partakes in a hunt herself, it is the only sign that the pack is hunting one of these offenders. Afterwards, when the Ridden-flesh has been slain, Sybil completes a ritual in private. The ritual feeds the spirit to Proud One-Ear, making the both of them stronger.

In return, Proud One-Ear alerts her to plots and whispers within the Lodge's global presence, and provides her with powerful Edges to ensure she stays as lodge leader.