The Shifting Alliance

Factions of the Shifting Alliance

There are three main factions that form the group commonly referred to as the "Shifting Alliance": The Lycaons, a group of werewolves who gathered together under Stephen Lykos and remain faithful to the cult he founded. A tribe of Iroquois who are referred to as skinshifters and are led by the Shamans of their tribe. Tessa, a vampire of about 300 years of age, and the descendants of the children she had before she became a vampire.

Despite the name given to their alliance by those within the city, only two of the factions contain those able to shapeshift and of those two only the Lycaons are composed solely of shapeshifters.

Current Activities

As a whole, the Alliance is currently willing to tolerate the presence of the city and all those who live in it, as long as they stay in the city and make no further attempts to expand its borders. For this reason patrols are made of all the territory they claim to ensure no one trespasses on it, in addition to going into unclaimed land to find ways of sabotaging the exploration efforts of those from the city.

They are also willing to trade with the city on occasion, offering meat, furs, leather and various components for rituals that they find in the wild. They use the excuse of trading as a way of having contact with people within the city so that they can attempt to gather information on exploration expeditions and to keep an eye hostility level of the city towards them.

The Iroquois are constantly trying to think of ways to bring about the downfall of the city and would like to see everyone in it forced back into the Mundus. They are the most hostile of the three factions towards the city and refuse to have anything to do with those who reside in it.

Tessa has her family focusing on maintaining the security of her territory and she has people making regular trips back into the Mundus to keep an eye on her businesses and finances there and to bring over various items for their own use as well as for trade so that they can purchase various items to use for a variety of rituals since they are loathe to leave their own territory in the Praetermundus to find their own.

Internal Structures

For matters that concern the whole of their alliance or to settle any disputes between their factions, the current leaders of the three groups gather together to discuss and vote on any actions the alliance needs to take. Otherwise the three factions remain independent and obey only their own leader. They also have minimal contact between each other in times of peace as a whole, though some individuals may gather together for activities such as hunting, exploration, or socializing for the purpose of attempting to find prospective spouses outside their own groups to avoid excessive inbreeding.

The Lycaon leader is not just the secular leader of his faction, but is also their religious leader. This tradition began with the founder of their cult and continues to present day. Their leaders are voted on by all adult males and are chosen for both their devoutness and their self-control, two things that are highly regarded within the faction. The main function of the Lycaon leader, who always assumes the name of Lykos after being chosen, is to preside over the rituals of the cult and to serve as judge when any Lycaons choose to duel to settle personal disputes.

The Lycaons have no central compound to live in; instead they live spread out over their territory either alone or in small family groups. Children born to Lycaon parents are given the choice at age 14 whether or not they wish to become as their parents. Should they choose yes, the current Lykos is informed and the preparations begin for the ritual to induct them into the cult. Should they choose no, they petition to be adopted by one of the other factions of their alliance.

The Iroquois are led by whoever is the current, eldest shaman of their tribe. Much like the Lycaons, their leader sees to both their spiritual and secular needs. Unlike the Lycaons, the Iroquois live together in one village and view themselves as one people, rather than a group of individuals. The shamans have guided their tribe according to the visions they have received since they first learned of the Praetermundus.

Tessa is the undisputed head of her family and her every command is obeyed without question. Her fortress-like mansion appears rather small when viewed from outside due to the fact that half of the mansion is underground. There are three full size basement levels in addition to a complex of tunnels and underground rooms that stretch out as far as the north end of her territory, where a small crack to the Mundus is located. The entirety of the territory is marked with a stone fence that is constantly being maintained, upgraded and patrolled by members of the family. All family members live within the mansion.

Relationships with each other

The relationship between the Lycaons and the Iroquois has matured from an alliance formed only to fight a common enemy into a friendship cemented with marriages and adoptions between the two, as well as an exchange of ideas, beliefs and acceptance of each others culture.

Tessa and family maintain cordial relations with the other two factions. They view them as allies to be used during times and as trading partners, but not as any sort of equals. Which is much the same way that the Lycaons and the Iroquois view them.

Relationships with those in the city

Current relations with the city as a whole remain tense due to a long history of conflict over resources, territory and hostilities that began in the Mundus and were carried over to the Praetermundus. Considering how long it has been since the last open conflict, many speculate that it is only a matter of time before the next one occurs.

Some relationships of particular notice: The Iroquois have a special hatred for the Shawnee, whom they feel sold out their history and people all for a chance to be a part of a city full of people who have invaded this sacred land and who attempt to conquer it and desecrate it as they have done to the land back in the Mundus.

All three members of the Alliance have a hatred for the Smiths who have supplied weapons to the city. They feel that they would have fared much better, and perhaps even won, if they hadn.t been so overwhelmed by the superior firepower of their opponents. Also, all three actively discourage (sometimes violently) any of Micah.s Question from exploring any areas in and near their claimed territories. They view exploration as the first step to invasion and exploitation.

History

In the 1750's, Stephen Lykos immigrated to America along with five of his followers in an attempt to evade authorities in several European countries where they were wanted for murder. Stephen and his group first arrived in New York and by 1759, they had traveled down into Pennsylvania looking for a place to settle and practice their religion.

In Greece in the 1730's, Stephen Lykos formed a cult that he named "The Followers of Lycaon's Legacy", which are now commonly referred to as "Lycaonians." Stephen formed the cult several years after he first became infected with lycanthropy, several years which he had spent doing as much research as he could on the origins and myths of werewolves. He had felt lost and disconnected from all aspects of his old life and was desperate to find meaning and a reason for continuing living in his new life.

Stephen's research led him to the myths of King Lycaon of ancient Greece, whom many believed to have been the first known werewolf as the result of being cursed by Zeus for daring to serve him human flesh. Stephen borrowed from that myth as well as several others, along with his own personal discoveries about his condition, to form the basis of his new religion.

Stephen's cult remained small due to both the solitary nature of werewolves and their scarcity. The one sacrament that led to the group.s immigration to America, was the practice of ritual sacrifice of a human on the night of the full moon and the consumption of their flesh as a way of remembering the first werewolf and reminding themselves what they have become. What they believe that they have become, are predators cursed by the Gods to cull the weak and the useless from human settlements in a way similar to how wolves will cull the weak from herds of deer or elk. This is why that the victims they choose for their rituals are typically homeless people who have no benefit to society or criminals who harm the society they live in.

About a year after arriving in Pennsylvania the cult changed the frequency of the ritual sacrifice to once a year during the first full moon of the year due to the problems the cult had been having with people asking too many questions about all the disappearances

In the early 1790's, the Lycaonians began to settle in the wild areas in the Praetermundus, avoiding most of those who lived only in the city and making allies of other groups who lived in the wild. One of the first allies they made on this side, were a small tribe of Iroquois who settled on this side in 1763. Most groups within the city believed them to be savages who were no better than the animals whose forms they claimed to be able to assume and were commonly referred to as Skinshifters.

What made the tribe of Iroquois unique from the other tribes in the area, was the fact that they were led by a powerful shaman who claimed that he had been shown how to get to the Praetermundus to escape the British in a vision sent to him by a powerful spirit that alternated between the forms of a human male, a black bear, a wolf and a mountain lion. Also included in the visions granted to the shaman, were rituals that he and those of his tribe could perform to enact the same kinds of transformations between forms that the spirit had demonstrated.

Only about one-fifth of the tribe are actually skinshifters since only able bodied warriors are capable of completing the solo hunting part of the ritual necessary for its completion. Also, shamans typically refrain from becoming actual skinshifters themselves as they see it as their duty to perform it for others in addition to the other rituals they are responsible for performing for the tribe.

The Iroquois viewed the Praetermundus as a sacred land, shown to them by powerful spirits, where they could live free from the tyranny of the British invaders. Later they came to view the expansion of the city and the exploration of various factions into the wild areas of the Praetermundus as a repeat of the history they had experienced back in the Mundus and swore that they would not be driven out of this land as they had the land of their ancestors.

The Iroquois Skinshifters became friends and allies with the Lycaons due to a similar view on nature and how they treat the land, as well as their abilities for assuming animal forms. There have been a few marriages between the cult and the tribe, as well as assimilation of some Native American myths into the beliefs of the cult, both of which have served to strengthen the relationship between the two.

A second ally of the cult was a vampire originally from Eastern Europe by the name of Tessa. She has a number of human minions who reside on both sides of the cracks. Those in the mundane world handle her financial and personal interests as well as giving her a source to procure various items that are not available on the other side of the cracks. Tessa's minions on this side of the cracks are actually all related to her. Tessa wasn't embraced as a vampire until her late 20.s, by which time she had given birth to a total of five children. Three of which reached adulthood and became the ancestors of the family group that serves her now.

Tessa is what many would consider a "traditional western vampire". She must consume human blood on a regular basis in order to maintain her life and apparent youth. She is a little over 300 hundred years old.

Tessa and her family settled in the Praetermundus in the 1770's. They built a sprawling, walled-in compound outside of the city limits to accommodate Tessa's need and desire for privacy. In the corner of the compound furthest from the city, there is an entrance to a small network of caves which has a crack through to the other side in it that opens up into an abandoned mine shaft that is on property that Tessa bought back in the 1760's and that she still owns. At its widest points, the crack measure about 2 and a half feet by 5 feet, which obviously limits what can be brought through it.

Due to her wealth on the other side, Tessa and family specialize in the trade of luxury goods that can be difficult for less well-connected merchants to get. She will also only allow weapons to be brought over for use only by her family for defense of the compound. She refuses all offers from others to buy weapons due to her suspicious nature and past history of conflicts with the city. She fears that any weapons she sells to others could potentially be used against her in the future. Tessa has been getting increasingly paranoid as the years pass.