Black Spiral Dancers

To understand the Dancers, one must look back through the ages. 

The Children of Luna were greatly weakened by the War of Rage.  All but seven of the Great Spirits and their tribes had been wiped out, and the survivors were few in number.  Those who remained dispersed themselves around the globe, returning at last to their customary homelands.  The werecrocodiles went south, the wereravens back west and the weresharks returned to the seas.  It took millennia, but eventually their numbers began to recover.

All the remaining tribes were composed of a number of breeds.  The werecats, for example, had the Khans (weretigers), the Simba (werelions) and the Pumonca (werepumas), to name but three.  In all, the Cats had eight remaining sub-tribes, more than any other tribe except the Lupines.  The Lupines, having lost fewest of their kind in the war, had thirteen breeds still alive. The breeds ranged from the Silent Striders of Arabia to the Shadow Fangs and White Howlers of Northern Europe and the Red Talons of the Balkans.

The Croatan were the third Lupine breed of the northern American plains.  They were based in the eastern lands, along with the Wendigo of the north and the Uktena of the west.  Like all the American breeds their people were highly spiritual, and thus when their shamans began to suffer terrible nightmares they realised a great evil was coming.  Something old and horrific, worse even than the vampire lords of the Aztecs. 

And then, in July of 1585, settlers from Europe arrived on Roanoke Island, Virginia.

The Croatan soon realised that the settlers had unwittingly brought something with them.  It was a part of the Wyrm, the great universal force of spiritual and physical corruption.  A dark and ancient spirit called Eater-of-Souls.

For several years the settlers and the local tribes fought and allied and fought again.  The influence of Eater-of-Souls pervaded the colony, turning brother against brother and filling the souls of the settlers with darkness.  Then, in 1587, Governor John White sailed back to England for supplies.  While he was gone, the werewolves and tribesmen of the Croatan, led by Manteo the shaman, struck against the corrupter.

The battle raged for three days and nights.  Finally, with half of his brethren dead, Manteo enacted a great ritual to save the earth from the dark spirit.  All across the world the Children of Luna awoke screaming as they felt reality itself torn asunder. 

Eventually, scouts from the Wendigo and the wereravens uncovered the truth: Eater-of-Souls had been forever banished, but at the cost of the entire Croatan breed of Lupines and all the English colonists.  Their sacrifice ensured them a place of honour in the legends of the Changing Breed.  Or so it was thought.

Centuries afterwards, however, reports began to emerge of a new breed of dark Lupines, werewolves outwardly identical to their kin but whose souls were blackened and twisted.  Auguries were cast and rituals enacted, and at last the truth emerged.  The Croatan had been cast into Malfeas, the blackest pit of the Umbra, and forced to tread the Black Spiral.  They had come out of the Abyss and returned to earth, but what came back bore no resemblance to the noble tribe that had gone in.  They were evil and cruel, vicious beasts who lived only to serve the Wyrm.

They were the Black Spiral Dancers.