Wolfborn

Appearance

A wolfborn has gray hair of some shade, and yellow eyes. They also have a lean, wiry build, vaguely lupine faces, wolf-like ears, and a doglike tail. In addition, despite their insistence they can eat vegetables, all of their teeth are canines. Pureblood Wolfborn usually have pale skin, though in cases of interbreeding with humans darker skin colors exist. They're also usually fairly short, ranging from four feet to five and a half feet in height.

Culture

The Wolfborn of Felitora are a strange breed, even for Beastfolk. They worship Yphine, as most in Felitora do, but unlike their fellows posses a largely patriarchal society. The group is emphasized over the individual, but strangely, the immediate group is more important than any other. A wolfborn will die for the man in the foxhole next to him, but most likely would not for the general.

Wolfborn form into tightly-knit social groups called packs, and the pack is considered the most important thing in a Wolfborn's life. Packs are almost mini-kingdoms of their own, with their own customs, rituals and ideas. An individual pack could be as small as four or as large as twenty-three. In addition, packs are never formed from families. Children raised in a pack are marked so that their family is quickly recognizable, and sent to another pack to raise. This emphasis on their own pack above all tends to mean that wolfborn do not form cities as we would generally think of them - they'll visit, and occasional packs will even live there for a time. Many packs even form little markets on the streets and trade with other packs passing through the area. However, the packs are nomadic in nature and will usually leave before too long.

Lone Wolves are considered the criminals and dregs of Wolfborn society, and to be one is to be lower than garbage. A lone wolf can attempt to join a pack, but few ever do - nine times out of ten, if you meet a lone wolf, it's because he or she willingly left their pack. And many times it's because the pack was dieing and the wolf wanted to live. This is because a wolf without a pack is generally emotionally crippled and physically vulnerable - they would likely seek out another pack nearby and either be allowed in immediately, or killed to prevent his/her pack from ambushing them (yeah, the old pack is dead, but the new pack doesn't know that).

Religion

The Wolfborn of Felitora are largely Doctrine of Frost adherents. However, they utterly reject the idea of a matriarchy in favor of a patriarchy (even the females, oddly enough). This causes a bit of friction between the two groups, but the wolfborn seem encouraged by it. Some sociologists believe that the reason even the female wolfborn have adopted the idea of a patriarchy in almost direct contradiction with the Doctrine is to delibrately cause friction with the religion - a Wolfborn feels exposed and uneasy when a situation has become too comfortable for it and is tempted to wander.

Behaviour

As you might imagine, the wolfborn excel in small-group tactics. Packs often develop their own code that makes their exact movements in battle hard to translate or predict. However, their distaste for the larger picture means that a wolfborn's priorities are exactly where a general doesn't want them to be. Packs are usually asked to guard a person (to take advantage of their 'individuals are more important' mindset), spy in a group, or to act as shock troops. Lone wolves will occasionally work as assassins or spies, but for the most part wolfborn who have forsaken packs simply cannot trust their commanders, and wander off on their own before long.