Wild Hunts

== Using The Wild Hunts: ==
The Wild Hunts is written in a sub-genre of the Fantasy Genre family. Here medieval life is enclosed to walled towns and cities as fearful serfs and nobles alike try to live out their lives under the threat of the monsters that lurk deep in the wilderness. In such a world, powerful and talented individuals are praised as heroes (and paid accordingly) for having the strength and skill to vanquish such beasts.
The Wild Hunts are meant for writers or players who wish to use Adepts in a fantasy setting, but want a setting that stresses the idea of a Quest and gives a solid reason for why heroes encounter so many powerful monsters. Players looking for a quick hack-and-slash game against monstrous evil will also find the Wild Hunts to be a real treat.
The Wild Hunts are all about danger and adventure in the wilderness. The races of the land have lost control of the Monsters who now roam the countryside freely. Farming and town life is conducted under constant scrutiny from guard towers and armored soldiers. Trade consists of heavily armed caravans whose small mercenary armies are the only thing that keeps the coins flowing between city states. Even the Nobility, the political rulers of the land, conduct their grand wars only after reading field reports on the latest monster activity.
It is into this kind of world that Adepts of the Wild Hunts will find themselves. The only force holding society together at this point is the Church, whose message of salvation and protection from evil rings in the ears of her hearers. In such desperate states everyone must do their part and so each Order finds itself serving some purpose for the sake of the Church.
Quests are undertaken by experienced Adepts in the name of The Father and the Church, be they Wild Hunts to slay Monsters, searching through dungeons for loot, stealing important ingredients from Wizards or simply tracking down a Blood Gang that's terrorizing local villages.
== In The Beginning, The Backstory of The Wild Hunt: ==
In the beginning there were the races, beginning with the elves who were fashioned first by the All Father, then came the various Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes, Orcs, etc. The All Father, in His infinite goodness, created them to live spread out across the land, each to their own domain.
In this time before time, of which only the grandparents of our grandparents remember anything, the races lived in peace. The Elves lived in the higher country where the sun rarely slept. The Humans kept to the plains, the Dwarves to their mountains, the Orcs to their jungles, and so on and so forth. Each knew their own place. Each race would come together to celebrate their shared faith once a year on the High Holy Day, the summer solstice, when the sun was at its zenith. It was then that the leaders of each race would offer up a sacred sacrifice to the All Father for His wisdom and benevolence.
The races knew peace, but such a time was not meant to last. In time, one race began to mass on the borders of its territory, a race whose numbers soon spread out beyond their allotted lands. These were the Humans, whose insatiable curiosity and need to explore and expand was the first to tip the balance of the Blood Races.
In their infinite hunger for more, the Humans began evolving and expanding unto the lands of other races. They came into conflict with the Orcs, who even in those times were known for their barbarism and aggression. They came into conflict with the smaller races and the Dwarves, whose lands they began to cultivate. Finally, they came into conflict with the Elves in their vast, Northern strongholds.
The disruption of lands sent the other races into panic. Orcs seized the lands of their neighbors in retaliation for the encroaching humans, Gnomes and Goblins made war for control of their subterranean worlds and the Haflings, frightened that they might be next, made war on their own neighbors to drive off any such notions of invasion.
High in their mighty fortresses and sparkling cities, the Elves watched as the tribes of early Humans slowly made their way across the world. And in their hearts they cried out as one to the All Father, Maker of All Things, for His swift resolution to their plight.
And so The All Father, hearing the song of lamentation of the sylvan race, roused from His throne in the firmament above and looked down upon the land. So say it our bards and song speakers. The All Father saw the tribes of Man as they moved across the land and seeing thus the All Father's spirit descended upon the world to examine these things. In His wisdom the All Father peered into the hearts of men and saw a burning need for more, a hunger for the unknown.
Knowing this, The All Father moved and restored the Humans to their lands. The other races praised the All Father and thanked Him for His glory. But The All Father knew better, and in time the Humans once again broke from their corral and set off across the land. No matter where He put them, the Humans kept bursting forth from their confinement.
The other races came to fear Man and saw him as a blight, a race sick in the spirit who would spread across the land, spreading their filth and pollution and dissidence along the way. They came together as one and tried to make war against Man, but Man had grown numerous in those days. Still, despite their superior numbers, the first of the Blood Wars devastated them. The first of the Blood Wars devastated all the races.
The All Father watched from His throne as the first of the Blood Wars was underway, and in His heart burned a father's anger. He moved again and suddenly the races of the land found themselves transported back to their kingdoms. All of them, save for Man.
The All Father summoned the early kings of men and demanded that they bring forth their wise ones. Their philosophers, mystics, philosopher-kings, and more. And so the tribes of Man did as much, obeying the word of The All Father. And The All Father rewarded their faith and their curiosity, and from these early humans came many of the first Adepts of God. Instead of chastising them as the other races wanted, The All Father saw their need to grow as a blessing and gave them the gift of Himself.
The Adepts spread out across the land, following the paths of the first tribes, and along the way they spread knowledge of experiencing God, and so soon the other races had their own chosen mystics. In time, the Orders could be found among all the races of the land.
But trouble came yet again, for in their need for power the kings of the various races began to make alliances with each other and to conduct war. What was worse, knowledge of magick, which the early races learned from the spirits of the land whom they often encountered deep in the wood, became common place. With magick came knowledge of the dark arts, of necromancy, infernalism and curses.
In time these things were added to the warriors who served the kings of the races. Thus the Second Blood War came about, with the Nobility of each race fighting for personal glory, heedless of the consequences of their actions. For in time, the unbridled magicks unleashed by these Blood Wars resulted in creation of new and monstrous beasts who came forth from the wood to make war on all the races.
These were the first Monsters of the Wilderness.
== End of the Blood Wars, Rise of the Church: ==
The Blood War ravaged the lands as fear and hate held sway over the day. The All Father sent Prophets to calm the people and bade them heed His wisdom, but in their hearts they made themselves deaf and dumb to the wisdom through which The All Father speaks. They deluded themselves into believing they actually fought for The All Father and in their pride and hubris they engineered their own downfall.
The Pagans, the descendants of the early tribes who rejected faith in The All Father, emerged from the wood ready to do battle. Long had they hidden there, using their pagan magicks to breed bigger and tougher monsters to serve them. The Druids ruled them and they preached a message of plunder and the ways of nature over The Father Of All. From deep in the wood they ruled and none but the hardiest adventurers ever saw them.
As the armies of the Nobility ravaged the lands, the forests of the Pagans grew slimmer and slimmer. Finally, they made war on the Nobility, striking quickly from their forests and retreating back there after. The Nobles made war on the Pagans, even as they made war on each other, all the while allowing greater uses of magick to give their warriors an edge in battle.
But things could not go on like this, and in time the armies of the Nobility found themselves besieged by monsters on all sides. Where once grand battles were fought against opposing armies, now those same armies fought side by side against hordes of mutants, beasts and foul monsters. Those armies died on such days and frightened villagers and lone survivors reported seeing alien beings in the woods and surrounding hills.
Each race reacted in its own way: the Dwarves retreated to their mountain fortresses, carved deep into the mountain sides. The Elves formed powerful and fortified cities in the far North, venturing south only on special missions or to do trade. The Gnomes built underground towns and cities, the Orcs now formed powerful tribes of their own deep in the South, and each race kept to themselves. Only the Halfings, whose reputation for friendliness kept them from isolation. They created communities of their own within the towns and cities of other races.
It was from the humble Halfings that the Church truly came to power.
The leaders of the old ways, the men and women trained in the stories and rituals of The All Father, emerged as one from the Hafling communities and called to their side those who still believed in the goodness of The Father. Adepts and believers rallied to them and soon the first Ecclesiarch Council was formed.
And thus the Order of Priests came to the fore. They gathered the people together and built churches and cathedrals. They issued warnings to the Nobility not to conduct war on holy days, to spare the innocent bystanders and not to conduct war with excessive magicks. In time, the Church's power became so great that kings found themselves dethroned and their subjects now embracing new rulers, rulers put in place by the hand of the Church.
In a time of chaos the Church was a force of order. The people prayed to The Father once again and soon the Orders of Adepts began building their Chantries, dotting the land with them. But only those parts not under the reign of the monsters...
== The Merchant Class, Rise of the Aristocracy: ==
The Nobility and the Church now found themselves at each other's throats, each threatening the other but neither gaining the upper hand. But all of the civilized world was under threat from the Monsters and their Pagan allies.
The Blood Wars had divided the races and with each race and their kingdoms isolated from one another, there was no trade or communication between them. Individual, lone heroes plied the waters and traversed the lands, using their wits and, thanks to the Adepts, their powers to fend off the Monsters by day and to hide by night.
Thus was contact reforged among the races, not with royal treaties or mighty magicks, but with simple folk who dared the perils of travel to bring trade between nations. Through these early traders, the Merchant Class arose.
The Merchants came from all races and all walks of life, and in their likeness they discovered something long thought lost: a mutual respect among like-minded people, a respect that went high above issues of kingdom or even blood, for the Merchant Class was made from members of all races.
The Merchants gained power, and soon formed their own place within society: the Aristocracy. The Aristocrats were those wealthy sons and daughters born into the Merchant Class, whose future was set and whose purpose was to raise the family name to new heights.
The Aristocrats quickly found they possessed a power every bit as mighty as the military of the Nobility: the power of commerce. Through trade and commerce, the Aristocrats could rob a kingdom of its life-giving supplies, or bless a kingdom with bounties and riches.
In this, the Nobility and Aristocrats came to a mutual respect. Each needed the other, the Aristocrats needed the protection of the king when traversing wilderness, and the kings needed money and supplies to field their armies.
== The Modern Age, Rise of the Wild Hunt: ==
The modern age of Wild Hunts is one of stalemates. The Nobility control the guards and armies of each kingdom, but the Church leads the people and the Merchant Class control the economy. The Kings don't trust each other and so they can't unite, the Church can't seize full control because its scriptures teach separation of church and throne, and the Aristocrats are too busy fending off the various Monsters in the wilderness and protecting their caravans to do much else.
The Orders of Creators & Seneschals had been the unofficial but recognized patrons of the Merchant Class since their early inception, and the Meta Order's ranks held no small amount of Aristocratic blood. It was the Creators, in their quest for progress, who first devised the Wild Hunts.
Organized affairs of highly experienced and capable men and women, Adepts preferred, who could be sent into the Wilderness days or weeks before a caravan was to be sent through. The Wild Hunt would clear the way, eliminating monsters and allowing the Merchant Class to conduct its business.
The first Wild Hunts were bloody affairs, but with experience came success and today the Wild Hunts are called upon and organized for everything from city or village protection to farming, security and transport. Troupes who build a name in conducting Wild Hunts can easily find themselves working directly under kings and queens as royal administrators or military advisers.
Wild Hunts are groups of Adepts whose experience and powers are suited for working in the Wilderness. They are called upon by those with the coin necessary to pay for it - and even the cheapest Wild Hunt is still an expensive affair.
There is no formal training, no guilds, no organization to offer advice or equipment. A call is put out for a Wild Hunt by someone offering money, and if enough credible adventurers show up, the hunt is on. It's not a perfect system by far, but in a world like this, it's what the races of the land need.
== The Blood Gangs: ==
The races of the land are numerous and most of them still tend to their own ancestral realms, given to them by The Father Himself. The Humans now range across the world and are still at odds with the other races, a situation which shows no sign of abetting. Racial strife persists even into modern times with the rise of the Blood Gangs.
The Blood Gangs are rightly said to be the Third Blood War, since they involve groups of Humans, Dwarves, Elves, etc., working against each other covertly. Instead of campaigning whole armies across battlefields, these Blood Gangs strike at one another in the streets of cities and commit themselves to urban warfare. They are a stain on the land and have only succeeded in causing more harm.
== Races of the Land: ==
The races in Wild Hunt are xenophobic, they have long retreated into a mentality that the world is collapsing around them and they must seclude themselves away from others in order to escape destruction. Only the Haflings seem to have dissed this mentality, but the others, even the Humans, have succumbed to the despair of the world.
=== Drow ===
The Drow are Dark Elves who split off from their Sylvan ancestors ages ago. They live deep underground in massive cave complexes where they build dark cities to suite their whims and emerge to the surface only to trade and raid if possible.
Drow are deadly fighters when fighting in the dark. They can see at night and their sense of hearing is second to none. Drow have given up the ways of The Father and have turned to paganism. They actively work against the Church and seek its destruction, as well as the destruction of all agents of the Church.
Because they have turned to paganism, the Order of Pagans is the most common Order among the Drow. Although there are plenty of Marauders, Heretics, and even Fallen as well. 
=== Dwarves ===
Dwarves are a small but hardy race who live within their vast mountain fortresses. Entire kingdoms of Dwarves are kept locked inside the security of whole mountains from which the Dwarves will emerge only but rarely.
Dwarves are renowned for smithing work and their ornery nature. They are a hardy race and have excellent constitution. The Creators, Champions and Seneschal are the most common Orders among the Dwarves.
=== Elves ===
The Elves are the oldest of the races and the most learned and graceful of them. They hail primarily from the North where they keep their walled cities and kingdoms intact. Elves are tall and slender but swift and deadly in combat. Creators, Crusaders, Shields and Kings are probably the big three Orders among the Elves.
=== Goblins ===
Goblins live primarily in caves and thick wooden lots where they build their crude shantytowns and emerge only to loot and hunt for food. Goblins are notorious for lying and trickery of all sorts so they are never really welcomed anywhere. Except maybe with the Orcs?
The most common Orders found among the Goblins are Creators, Tricksters and Anarchs.
=== Gnomes ===
Gnomes live in small, underground villages beneath hills and mounds where they emerge to work their farming fields and gardens. Gnomes are renowned for their mechanical knowledge and their small villages are often equipped and defended by complex machines. Creators, Healers and Remnants are the most common Orders among the Gnomes.
=== Haflings ===
Halfings are slightly larger than Gnomes and they are found specifically in forests where they build huge towns suspended in the trees. They are renowned for their skill and accuracy with ranged weapons and they use the forest against their enemies when in battle.
Haflings also have a diaspora among the other Blood Races and small 'Half Towns' can be found within the walls of the villages of other races.
Seneschals, Creators and Tricksters are probably the most common Orders for Haflings. 
=== Humans ===
Humans are found across the land, in all climates and in all settings. They build everything from hidden villages to grand cities and meager underground towns. They use a variety of weapons and styles and they speak a plethora of languages. They are also the most adaptable, able to figure out new ways of doing things that allows them to overcome even the most impassible of situations.
The Order of Creators is most common to Humans because of their Divinely inspired creativity. However, all Orders are open to humans and they can be found aplenty in all of them. 
=== Orcs ===
Orcs hail from the South where their nomadic tribes roam through the jungles and desert lands. They are a barbaric race of primitives who believe in might makes right and the way of the sword. Orcs are tall, muscular and powerfully built, but not the brightest of the races by far. The Barbarians, the Destroyers and the Marauders are the most common Adept Orders among the Orc tribes.
=== Half-Races ===
The hybrid children of unions between members of different races are an affront to most people. While not explicitly forbidden, such unions are socially unacceptable and the children produced often live lives of shame and persecution. Often, Half-Races quickly learn to disguise their mixed heritage in order to blend into one race over another.
Strangely, among all the races, the Half-Races are the least spiteful and ready to go to war. Perhaps their mixed heritage makes them realize the true tragedy of the Blood Wars, but the Half-Races have consistently shown they want nothing to do with it. In fact, a few intrepid and heroic souls have risen up to speak out against the senseless violence.
== The Monsters of the Wilderness: ==
The Monsters of the Wilderness, the bastard offspring of long ago magicks conducted in the heat of bloodshed, today carpet the world in terror and mayhem. The Monsters come in countless forms, from slithering snakes of gigantic size, to Werewolves, Ogres, Trolls, Infernal Bats, and Dragons of all sorts.
Most Monsters simply roam by day, preferring to hunt by night. But some Monsters go against this typical behavior and hunt almost exclusively by day. Some Monsters lair deep within the wood and will not emerge unless summoned to do so by magick. Others roam the trackless wastes for miles and will attack settlements just because they can.
The only consistent truth to the Monsters of the Wilderness is that they prey on the races of the land and are uncontrollable. They are a constant threat and their existence and depredations are the defining characteristic of the modern landscape for the Wild Hunt.
Category:Infinity