As told by Hymn of the Tides, Black Fury Galliard.
The oral traditions and tribal nature of the garou makes history rather difficult to definitively pin down. I tell you now that what I am about to sing will be considered heresy by my tribe. It may differ greatly from your own. But at the core of it, these are the things most consistent across our histories from the research I've been able to do. It may not be entirely accurate, but it's my best guess from compiled lore.
The Golden Age
Creation
It's generally acknowledged that Gaia created the earth and the Triat, populating it with plants, animals, spirits, and other glorious creatures and charging each and every one with a sacred task. For the wolves, she assigned the protection of her creations. Now for the sheer multitude of what had been formed, Gaia turned for help: To the Wyld, she gave the duty of creation; to the Weaver, the duty of formation; to the Wyrm, the duty of destruction. As time went on, one creation rose as the favored of Gaia: the Humans. So much did she love this form that she allowed a number of other animals to take their shape to help guide them to their bests potential. It was the wolf-as-man that taught human how to hunt, and the importance of pack. Wolves had established themselves as man's best friend when everything went wrong.
The Severing
The Triat had their own say in humanity, of course: the Wyld would birth new humans, the Weaver would help model and form them into their peak being, and the Wyrm would claim them when their time had run out. Some say the Weaver chose humanity as its favorite, and bestowed upon them three gifts that helped them rise in intellect above the other creatures and learn how to manipulate the carefully balanced ecosystems that had been put into place. This empowered humanity beyond all expectation, and in turn humanity empowered the Weaver. The Weaver, emboldened, grew infuriated that the Wyrm so effortlessly destroyed all its hard work. When the Wyrm would not cease, the Weaver trapped it in its merciless webs and bound it deep into the umbra so it could not destroy the precious humans.
Without the presence of the Wyrm, things quickly grew imbalanced. Humanity thrived in impossible numbers, tearing down the very vegetation Gaia had given them into something called agriculture to suit its own needs. The shelters that Gaia had provided for all beasts the humans refused to honor, instead reaping the terrain to build their own strange huts. Some tribes claim the Weaver even tore the ability to revert to their wolf form from a number of shifters. They say for the first time, Gaia wept. Many accounts say it was at this time that Luna ordained the Silver Fangs the Kings of the Garou, gifting transformation back to them so they may do what needed to be done to save their people.
The Pact
The first step was something called The Pact. Some claim this was a single pact bargained by the first Theurge, while others insist this was a multitude of pacts from across centuries that coalesced into the notion of a single pact. In attempting to put everything in its right place, the Weaver ordained spirits for the umbra and the physical for the realm, and lifted a gauntlet between them to keep them separate. In cutting off spirits from the world, they lost a great deal of their power, and in cutting off the garou from the spirits, the same could be said. Mercifully, garou learned how to cross this gauntlet, and made deals with the spirits on the other side.
It is the Pact, you see, that empowers us. The Pact is the source of our Gifts from the spirits. They say at this time, the Creeds of Renown were created and given to the spirits as an oath to uphold those core tenets. So long as we acted in this fashion and gave due worship to the spirits, the spirits would empower us with Gifts, rites, fetishes, talens, and more. We had taken the first steps to press back against the Weaver's division of worlds. Next we had to address its soldiers.
The Silver Age
The Impergium
Now, accounts differ on this. Some say the Silver Fangs acted on their own accord. Some say it was a decree from Gaia. Some say it was the insidious influence of the Wyrm slithering from the depths of its prison. Either way, King Rests-the-Moon called for the Impergium, intending to reclaim Gaia's creations from humanity. It was a wholesale slaughter of the humans, the very people who had trusted us. It didn't sit right with most of the tribes, yet others to this day still argue the necessity and resent the fact it was called off. To those who wished peace, they saw the slaughter of the kin that had borne their children. To those who wished for war, they saw new and cruel weapons and traps being made at the hands of humanity. But garou saw a threat, and fought, and as such humanity began to spread through the lands, migrating to the most unimaginable corners of creation in an attempt to escape.
The War of Rage
A similar perceived threat rose in the other changing breeds: other animals who had been gifted the ability of shapeshifting. Again, there are as many different accounts of the start of the War of Rage as their are storytellers. Some say it started with the Ratkin for not fulfilling their duty of population control. Some say the Gurahl denied the garou the resurrection of a sorely needed King. Some say the changing breeds struck first in defense of humans. Whatever the reason, the garou deemed the changing breeds incapable of fulfilling their duties to Gaia, and as such sought to slaughter them as well and take their place.
So many changing breeds were lost to the War of Rage that we have no record of what animals could shapeshift in the early days. Some say it was all of them and we caused the extinction of so many that you can count the remaining changing breeds on your fingers. Some say it was a targeted few (as the garou aren't mass-extinction levels of strong), but the numbers were definitely lessened. No one knows how many Fera were lost in this war. But mercifully, it was not to continue.
The Bronze Age
The Concord
Accounts once more differ on what caused the garou to reconsider their ongoing genocides. Some say it was the fact that humans learned the secret of Silver and the garou realized they could not match their numbers. Others say Gaia herself stepped down to intercede. Whatever the cause, a Concord was called, and the garou were summoned to meet at a place now lost to history. While not all the garou attended the auspicious event, those that did created something great: The Concord.
The Concord addressed four major things: the end of the Impergium, the end of the War of Rage, the creation and adoption of the Litany, and the official naming and solidifying of the Garou Tribes. This forever changed the garou's role in the world: They would leave humanity to its own devices, retreat from an overt presence in the world of men and try to guide and check them from the shadows. They would not kill with impunity, but instead maintain their own society separate from that of humanity. They would continue to take mates from the strongest, brightest and best humans, but never again attempt to guide the course of human destiny.
It was said that Gaia herself attended this meeting, and kissed each and every garou on the brow to grant them her blessing and gratitude for finding peace. This was the last time Gaia appeared in public before retreating into the Umbra, yielding the administration of the earth to those left behind: the bands of garou now known as the Western Concordiat. So too would a number of wolves leave to the far corners of the earth. They say five tribes moved east, and only one (the Stargazers) were ever heard from again.
And for a time, there was peace.
Of Wolf & Man
With the tribal nature of the garou, it wasn't long until the Western Concordiat established territories and human cultures under their influence.
- My tribe, the Black Furies, settled amongst the Amazons at Themiscyra and eventually spread over the Aegean Sea to take Greece as pour protectorate.
- The Silent Striders, our allies of centuries, have called Egypt home until very recently. Now, they've taken to wandering the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean.
- The Bone Gnawers eventually settled in with the Phoenician traders, enjoying their travel routes and early cities without calling any one place home.
- The Children of Gaia stuck to the 'seat of civilization', along with the Warders of Man, focusing on Babylon and gradually spreading their influence west towards us here in Greece. Now they're littered all over the place and have no real concentrated presence, but that's where they started.
- On the note of the Warders of Man, they've managed to produce the only caern in a city in all of recorded history. They call it the Tower, and it sits in the heart of Babylon. Recent attempts were made to form another city caern in Troy, but those efforts were for naught.
- The children of the Horned One, the innumerable tribes under Stag, have taken an interest in the Celts. While they generally base themselves out of Hibernia, the Celts have traveled across the continent. Just north of us, the children of Stag call themselves 'Night Claws' and have integrated with the Illyrians. Another clan, calling them the Children of Telesphorus, has settled just east of us.
- The White Howlers settled just east of them in Caledonia, isolated to the point that a good number of us thought they'd died out. Once their 'Great Winter' ended, though, migration began, and you'll see more and more of them these days.
- The Get of the Winter Wolf went further north than any other tribe dared. They have their influence over the Germanic tribes, mainly, though large portions of the tribe have traveled east as well.
- Between them and us are the Shadow Lords, masters of Dacia, but with influence over a multitude of local civilizations.
- Just northeast of them are the Silver Fangs, who claim as their protectorate the Sura/Moksha River Basins, and the human tribes of the Volga-Finn. That said, they can be found in nearly any sept in the world, and much like the children of the Horned Ones have concentrated, smaller populations in a number of regions. We ourselves share a sept with the group that calls themselves Clan Wise Heart here in Greece.
- The Stargazers ventured further east than most of us could imagine, establishing themselves in a mountain range at the end of the world they call the Himalayas. Only recently have they ventured west, seeking something in Greece, where we have welcomed them with open arms.
- The Red Talons eschewed any effort to integrate themselves with any human tribes, and have no particular place they call home.
The Iron Age
The Mycenean Impergium
As was the case with previous slaughters, no one group wants to take credit for what happened. Only the Red Talons are brazen enough to admit it. As Mycenean Greece rose, the garou just snapped. They'd seen civilizations rise and fall in cycles of humanity, but for some reason this one just pushed them over the top. Us. I'll admit the Furies took part in the atrocities as well. The assaults on humanity we refer to as the Mycenean Impergium.
It started with an assault on Thebes about 800 years ago, and didn't let up for another 250 or so years. We attacked from everywhere: the land, the sea, the umbra, the sky. The list goes on, and the atrocities were endless, as much as tribes love to justify them or claim exemption from participating. Even worse, as much as I'd love to say what singular noble garou brought the Mycenean Impergium to an end, it wasn't us.
Divine Intervention & The Trials
The sacking of Troy wasn't an especially proud moment of Garou history. Granted, it wasn't entirely us, but most warring humans will conquer another territory without completely destroying it. Troy, however, was a sacrilege in a sacred region: a caern within a city. The Warders of Man had succeeded in doing as much once, but to repeat this was considered a defilement of Gaia. The garou aided in the sacking of Troy to see the city burn, hoping to remove the waste around the caern heart to turn it instead into something beautiful and wyld and perfect. But in the rubble, we found something else.
Here the garou met the gods for the first time. The ensuing battle was laughably brief (not in our favor), and soon diplomacy was sought. The gods were incensed their shrines had been desecrated and their worshippers targeted, the garou furious their quarry had been protected. There was a proposal for the garou to look after the gods as they did the spirits, earning them worship and gaining blessings in return, but the garou were refused outright, and the groups separated as amicable enemies.
What the garou did not expect was the tests to come. Over the next century or so, the gods threw every conceivable obstacle in our way, and time and time again we overcame then. Relentless. Devoted. Our focus shifted from slaughtering humanity to becoming better warriors and fighting ever harder to defend our sacred spaces from the beasts and bygones they unleashed. This time of period was known as The Trials, and nearly every garou has a three-hour epic of what their favorite pack did during the Trials, so I won't even begin to touch on that here.
As the trials came to an end, the garou and gods met once more. The garou intended to call a cease-fire, and were surprised to learn that the Trials had been an ongoing test of the worthiness of the Nation, and the gods would indeed grant their blessing to the garou after all. This formally ended the Mycenean Impergium, as the garou needed to learn how to live with these new Divine Patrons.
In the centuries since, we learn more and more what this patronage can truly do. Abilities on par with the greatest of heroes come to our garou with ease. Our kin can join packs, and while most don't carry Gnosis, the blessing in Greece is more likely than anywhere else I've heard of. Priests and galliards work in tandem to regale one another with the deeds of our heroes. But as mortal war looms unlike an other, we can only hope these gifts are enough.
Remaining Threats
The Wyld remains the strongest aspect of the Triat right now, after the loss of humans suffered by the Weaver and the loss of autonomy suffered by the Wyrm. Sometimes its influence grows a bit too strong, I'm loathe to say. Mind you, I myself will defend wyld places until my dying day... there's a reason its wyld-fallen creatures are called Gorgons after the bygones in the Fury's home lands. But I've seen... I've seen things that... but I digress. Forgive me.
The Weaver lost enough influence and assets in the Impergium that it now proceeds at a reasonable pace, building cities where the herded humans once gathered in huts, but it seems satisfied enough with these urban centers that it leaves the surrounding wyld in moderate peace. That said, I will never forgive it for what it did and what it caused, and I must warn you of the danger of spending too much time in cities. Especially the umbra.
The Wyrm remains imprisoned somewhere in the Umbra, but it seems to have warped it into something far worse. Rather than an avatar of destruction, the Wyrm seems to have become an avatar of corruption. I've seen garou and countless spirits and humans fallen to the wyrm, and it's a horrifying sight. There's a reason the Litany created at the Concord targeted the Wyrm as the primary focus. It must be stopped. I can only imagine what this world would become with the slithering corruption of the Wyrm having its way.
Humanity maintains its fear of wolves from the Impergium, though mercifully the fear is instinctive and they do not have the memories or tales to say why. But they've also modeled themselves as the rats that stink up their cities and will lash out when they feel cornered. Some say humans have Ancestors like we do, but lacking the spiritual connection the garou have, they only manifest in the form of the Curse and the Delirium, causing them to react poorly to our rage. While I personally put little stock in this theory, I can't deny that humans seem to instinctively recognize our rage and avoid it. Be careful around them, and don't forget their greatest strength is their numbers and cunning.
There are other threats that remain, surely, but they're innumerable and better suited for you to learn about from your Wyrmfoe than your humble Talesinger. But that's the road thus far. Where we go from here... well, that's up to you.