Wulven

Wulven
Doyle Hadlee, a Vuldak Major in his second form.
Homeworld	Lycanthia
First Discovered
Average Lifespan
Sentient	Yes
Status	Non-endangered

The Wulven, natives of the so aptly named planet Lycanthia, are a race of bipedal sentient wolves that were once able to change form between their Human appearance and their Wolf. They have lost the ability to change form, but they have retained their ability to think and speak clearly.

Appearance

Wulven come in many shapes and sizes, and depending on the size and build of their human form, upon taking the blood ritual, their wolf form will look somewhat alike in stature and they will shed their old human form. The Vuldak who have a commanding control over most of the planet, have long attempted to put an end to the "blood-rites" that the Wulven go through at the age of thirteen to acquire their "true form", but have only been able to stop few from turning. The Vuldak calls those who cannot shape-shift "Mutts", and absolutely NO Wolves are allowed into the Vuldak army, but many of those that can shift have managed to slip through the Vuldak grip and survive and thrive in the galaxy.

Biology

Some Wulven are born as pure Wolves, while others are born as Hurons. Two pure Wulven will always birth a pure Wulven child, while a mix of a Huron born and a Pure Wulven's child could go either way. Two Huron borns children are completely random, but if a child is not born Pure, they must undergo the blood rites, where their blood will be meshed with that of a Pure Wulven, resulting in a transformation of body type. The transformation is extremely painful and thankfully is only experienced once.

History

The Wulven were originally Hurons . When the planet Huron died, and its people began to populate new worlds, one shuttle comprised of two thousand men and women crash landed on the planet Lycanthia. They constructed their first city out of the broken metal of their cruiser calling the small village 'Fort Debris', and began cultivating the lush land that they found themselves on. It was a beautiful planet, surrounded with pine trees, large lakes and snow capped mountains as well as good soil for farming and plenty of game for hunting. The men and women learned the lay of the land, and developed new technology for their weapons from native plants and minerals they found on the lake shore.

After a few years, the Pioneers as they called themselves began to grow very rapidly, and thus began expanding. The large group split into seven smaller groups and set out in opposite directions with the first remaining at Fort Debris. The groups one by one set up camps on the shores of the many lakes, in clearings in the woods, atop hills and near the base of the mountains, and they were extremely prosperous and very happy.

Then one night, a strange thing happened. At Fort Debris late in the evening, a group of strange creatures that resembled bipedal Bulldogs led by an even larger Werewolf assaulted their fort, biting and clawing and stabbing any Huron in sight. The pioneers fought off the giant wolves, but those that had been bit succumbed to a strange sickness, and only a day later began to transform into quadripedal Wolves.

There were four initial bite victims, but by the end of that night, the entire camp had been bitten and three men slain. By the second day, they were all transformed. The Debrisians set out to ask their friends for help, but every night when they reached a new village, they transformed, killing and turning more and more people until all seven camps had become monsters.

The seven villages, now infected thanks to the foolish actions of the Debrisians, returned to their camps and continued living and learning to control their urges. After fifteen years, the Wulven, as they called themselves had learned to control their urges, and advanced to standing bi-pedal like those who had attacked them and started the crisis. They no longer transformed with the cycle of the moon and actually lost the ability to revert back to Human form. After a long time they considered their plague as a gift, thus inventing the Blood Rite in order to pass it along to their children as their bites no longer change their victims.

Culture

The Wulven that live on their home planet are a very territorial people. Making their homes in small villages made up of log cabins and the like, the Wulven have a strong belief in democracy among their tribes, and thus every adult is allowed to cast votes on major occurences that would affect them.

Children are forced to go through what they call a "blood rite" at the age of thirteen if they wish to become an adult. The ritual is a two day event where on the first night the adolescent allows an elder Wulven to infuse their blood with the blood of a pure Wulven, which is followed by a large feast, and then upon taking their form the following night, they are taken on a ceremonial hunt which goes on until the morning. The child is then taken back to their village or city along with anything they killed. A second celebrtation lasts the the whole next day in which the newly pure Wulven feasts on its first kill.

Those who refuse to take part in the ritual are treated as slaves called 'Mutts ', and forced to work for free for an assigned family for a short period of time. The Wulven is then given one more chance to take part in the "Blood Rite" at fourteen. If the child agrees, all plans go accordingly, and he or she is treated as if they never wavered at all.

If they however still refuse, that child is then banished forever from the village and forced to live alone out in the wilds of Lycanthia where they could easily fall prey to their own kind or another more savage beast out in the wild. Many children who have refused to go through the rite have been picked up by the Vuldak and adopted into their ground forces in exchange for food, a pay wage and board. In some Villages, the Vuldak have actually forbade the "Blood Rite" deeming it dangerous and unnatural. These Villages are a prime reason that the Vuldak's ranks have swelled so much over the past thirty years.

Military

Wulven Tech has never been particularly 'advanced' but they have found ways of adapting their more primitive firearms and turned them into precise weapons.

• The BARB (Battle Augmented Ruinous Ballistic) rifle is a weapon whose bullets have been coated with a nasty poison that causes death within minutes of hitting the blood stream. The weapon is acrually named after the ammunition that it holds. The individual bullets are shaped to a point and are slightly longer than most standard ammunition types. These Weapons are always created with the individual in mind seeing that Wulven need to be able to wield it with ease.