The Mother's Sons

*Elven Manitou ecoterrorists*

* **Name:***Thelem Makkanagee* (lit."Those Children who are born of Nature's Laws", colloquial "Mothers's Sons")
* **Location:**Upper Peninsula of Michigan, UCAS and surrounding areas.

The origins of the Mother's Sons are intimately tied to the beginnings of Adrienne Silvermoon 's original *Raén ke'Tolo*movement. When disaffected elves  who shared her desire for elven nationhood and her distrust of the Tirs began to gather in the newly-formed Niswi-mishkodewinan, there was still a divide between those of native and non-native origin. The Mother's Sons have their origin in some of the non-native "Anglo" elves, usually younger members of the tribe, who felt the need to prove themselves "real Manitou" by taking up Daniel Howling Coyote 's cause of thirty years before and practicing the "Way of the Warrior" on some industrial society, beginning with Ares  holdings to the south.

To begin with, the first Sons were considered fringe extremists that Manitou officials had to publicly disown every so often. But starting in the early 2050's, with growing Aztechnology influence in the Niswi-mishkodewinan, their targets tended to shift to the exploitation of the land by the Azzies and their status began to rise as they gained the support of anti-Aztechnology leaders among their own people. The group stayed out of the Highsun coup, although Lunar supporters with a more back-to-nature bent did tend to end up with the Sons. The "Lunar" faction of the Manitou Council used the Sons as one of their catspaws in their ongoing political and military struggle against Aztechnology and their collaborators in the Three Fires government.

The critical turning point in the history of the Mother's Sons came on February 7, 2061 when a terrorist bomb destroyed the Aztechnology building in Mohkínstsis (formerly Calgary AB) during a meeting with the Council, killing, among others, Civil Chief Bobby Bear and War Chief Hillborn. Manitou neo-druidic activist groups were blamed by provisional Civil Chief Joseph Bear and the Mother's Sons were on the top of the lists of his suspects. Most known or suspected members either fled the country or were arrested by the Three Fires police.

This begins the exile in which they had been operating ever since. Leadership was divided and it almost looked like the Sons were going to fracture in this crisis with one group wanting to turn their back on the Niswi-mishkodewinan and fight the big boys like Ares, Cross and Aztechnology on their own turf, while others insisted that driving them out of places like the Niswi-mishkodewinan was their best bet for protecting the wilderness areas that were left. This debate ended abruptly in November of that year, with the Hudson Bay Incident. Military and Aztechnology security forces, supposedly chasing the Mother's Sons, attack a boathouse on Hudson's Bay. All inside the boathouse are killed, and the some of the dead turn out to be leaders of the Manitou tribe, including their High Shaman Charlie Nightwolf and several Lunar faction leaders, including Councilor Trent Starblade and Marietta Greengrove, a former aide of Silvermoon and suspected leader of the Meraerth ke'Désach. This would be the inciting incident in the secession of the Manitou Council and the beginning of the Algonkian-Manitou Civil War. Ironically, the Mothers Sons are one of the groups not represented at that meeting.

With the Hudson's Bay Incident and the civil war that followed, the agenda of the Mother's Sons. They would, of course, continue their mission of terrorism and sabotage against industry and technology, but would also focus on the fight against the megacorporate despoilers and collaborators oppressing their own people, allying themselves unequivocally with the Manitou Council's side in the war. Years of fighting have driven them deeper into the Upper Peninsula and they have effectively become another Manitou faction fighting on the southern front against the government of the Niswi-mishkodewinan.

### Relations with Other Organizations

* **Faceless Men**: The small community of Shadowrunners in the Niswi-mishkodewinan (about a dozen or so for the whole nation at any given time), is generally made of non-elves and Three Fires veterans. Combine with that with the bounty on members of the Mother's Sons in the Niswi-mishkodewinan, you can guess that relationships between the Faceless and the Sons are somewhere between "rocky" and outright "blood feud".
* **The Mishibijiw Warriors ("The 1323"):** The relationship between the eco-terrorists and the top gang in the region is a lot more complicated. The bounty on their heads does create a tension, as does the tendency for 1323 to be ex-Military, meaning that a lot of them fought the Manitou at some point. But both groups also share enemies, such as their rivals the Faceless Men and the Niswi-mishkodewinan government itself. Every interaction is a delicate balance, depending on which of these factors ends up dominating the conversation.
* **Blood Worgs**: These shapeshifters and smugglers are unlikely, but reliable allies and business partners, sharing the Sons' disdain for civilization. The Sons are also among the Worgs' best customers, selling their magic skills in return for smuggling guns and supplies up to their allies in the Manitou Council , which has become a mainstay of Worg income. The fact that they share enemies, such as the Niswi-mishkodewinan military and the big megacorps, only makes their alliance stronger.
* **The Chinook**: The relations between the Sons and these smugglers are purely business on the few occasions they do business. The Sons do most of their smuggling with rivals of the Chinook, either the Blood Worgs or with the Black River Boys by way of the Regulation Army. There's no real enmity between the two groups, just not a lot of contact, except for "White-Wall" MacKenzie, an Elf crew chief of the Chinook, who does sometimes smuggle donations from the like-minded to them.
* **Regulation Army**: Politics make strange bedfellows indeed. Driven out of the UCAS in the aftermath of the New Revolution, the only thing that these heavily-armed, jingoistic survivalists and anti-authoritarians have in common with the Sons is that they've both been kicked out of nations they thought of as their own and come to rest in the UP. And that's apparently enough. The Sons trade food for bullets or gas, and both they and the RA seem to be happy enough to not discuss their differences while they have bigger enemies out there. The RA even does some business with the Manitou Council though them.
* **Meraerth ke'Désach**: This group of elite fighters for the Manitou cause often fight behind the lines in enemy territory and come in contact with the Mother's Sons. That being said, while they work together often, it is not always harmonious, with both the Warriors of Change and the Mother's Sons vying to lead the fight. Both groups consider themselves the "original" rebels and the power clashes between the two have not, yet, led to violence.
* **Manitou Council**: The Mother's Sons espouse the cause of the Council and do receive some support, both in materials and information, from the *Ozidan* underground. Occasionally the Manitou does despair of the infamously impulsive and independent eco-terrorists tendency to strike out on their own, but largely are grateful for any supporters they can get and will often use the Sons to hide out *Ozidan* on the run.
* **Tamanous**: The Tamanous are one of the great threats out in the wildernesses of the north. The UP is a regular area for harvest for the Tamanous who serve the greater Chicago area and they are better equipped and more numerous (as well as feeding a greater need). The Mother's Sons don't seek out conflict with the ghoul bodysnatchers but they have had to defend themselves against them on occasion, sometimes even teaming up with the Regulation Army in their ongoing battle against the Tamanous hunters.
* **Lake of the Woods Enclave**: There's a lot of tension between these two groups, despite their distance. The few times the Sons have reached out to their fellow back-to-nature elven survivalists have ended in complete disaster. While a lot of Lake Elves are sympathetic to the Manitou cause, they draw the line at becoming involved in any direct way beyond occasionally hiding out refugees or random donations, while the Sons consider this isolationism to be short-sighted, cowardly and a betrayal of Elvenkind. There is currently no contact between the two groups, which suits both of them just fine.
* **The Jacks**: The Mother's Sons are ambivalent about the Jacks, especially the weird mushroom-loving Jacks of the Upper Peninsula. They almost seem like wild animals sometimes, like something native to these parts. Other times they can come across as utterly unnatural, abominations that should have never existed. Generally the Sons try to avoid them except when both groups are trying to harvest the same telesma. The Sons have yet to find a way to predict the actions of these strange inbreds.

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