❝

We are the Sorrows, for we weep with the ancestors. We spring from many roots, but we are all a part of the great tree. We look to our brothers and our sisters, and to the skies in times of need. We will carry on, under the heat of the summer suns, and roam where the howls of the winds and our fathers take us. We are the Sorrows, for as those before us stood; as other will stand, out of the many, one.

❞

The mysterious clan of the Sorrows have long lingered amidst the desert sands. Their culture is rich, and their home is ever changing, as if the dunes cannot decide where they should rest.

These wolves wandered the desert when they first set upon the bone-dry barrens of the West. They were all that was left of the Great Pack, made up of the small familial clans and the loners who ventured out of the badlands to the safety of the Sound.

But, the Barrens were no place for wolves, and the insects and snakes ate them up while the sun cooked them alive. The pack cried and cried to the Moon, but Moon could do nothing for them. The Mountains and the Eastern marshes soaked up all the water, and not a drop was left for them. The other clans called them the Sorrows when they cried out on the winds, and so that is what they became.

One day, though, the rains did come, but from the West. They thundered over the badlands on the Horned Father's clouds, and the sun shown on them while the lifeblood poured down and saturated the dunes and the rocky drifts. The grasslands grew up from the rains, and soon the summer beasts thundered in on clouds of their own - but this time it was clouds of dust kicked up by their numbers.

It was a time of plenty, and the clan rejoiced. They used their time and their newfound strength to expore their lands, and discovered the many secrets of their desert home. The grasslands marked the oasies, and the cacti made for drinking water, as well as posts above the hot sand.

But the pack could not settle in just one of these places, they learned that the oasies would go dry at certain times of the year, and the herds would move on. So the Sorrows trekked with them. In time, they grew used to their journeys, and they lived as nomads of the white sands.

In the fall they would come round to the ocean, it's warm waters holding back the cold emptiness felt when the sun was small and clouded, and they fished off of the coast. In the grip of the heat and summer sun, they would travel northward to the Snake, the creek that ran from the snowmelt in the green hills that brushed the mountain slopes.

There was no promise by the Daughter to bring the rainclouds, however. In these endless hills we find them in the grips of a terrible drought. The heardbeasts do not come in from the badlands, and the desert lizards don't even crawl from their holes. All the pack can do is follow the Howling Trail in hopes of finding food, or water. The white dunes hold little in their time of suffering and hunger. What are the Sorrows to do?

They pack had lived through the endless fire before, and it would again. They would be strong. Where there is nary a rabbit in the shade of a wildbrush, their families walk the dried grass. Where is nothing to drink but the bittersweet cactus, the gypsies of the West wait patiently, and give offering to the sun for the rain to return.

The offerings did not help, and so they brought greater gifts. And yet greater, until their old treasures were not enough. They found that the sun wanted blood, and where that was concerned, the wolves turned to their spiritual leaders. They knew what must be done. The blood fell, and so did the rains...

Other Clans
✘ The Cry ✘ :: ✘ Watchers ✘