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Past Events & Major Developments
| 🜙 Bottom | ⤛ Navigation |
 Game-Changing or Unresolved Multi-Month Developments | |
| Captain Lykos • Queen Adira • The Masked Cult • Empty Einjar • City of the Free Peoples | |
| December 18 | |
| City Under Siege • Day of Lefkokó* • The Long Night | |
| January 19 | |
| Thlipa's Tribute* • A Tale of Three Cities | |
| February 19 | |
| Memento Mori • The Aftermath • The Oxen Gods* | |
| March 19 | |
| The Thaw • The Einjar Excursion • The Wyrm Moon • Arkoda's Awakening* | |
| April 19 | |
| Crowning the Cat* • The Calm Before the Storm | |
| May 19 | |
| The Song of Suffering • Return to Einjar • Seyra's Seenade* • Friend or Foe | |
| 🜙 Top | ⤛ Navigation |
⤛ Captain Lykos
January
During this rising confusion and concern a group of awakened began looking into the captain's disappearance starting with the individuals Daud and Rocket. They questioned the Defenders on where Lykos was last seen and whether or not the Defenders suspected foul play was involved. During Daud's questioning Rocket searched the warcamp for clues and eavesdropped on conversations between the defenders.
The Defenders were dodgy about answering Daud's questions, their responses were short and often limited to when he was last seen: the Long Night, however one guard was more helpful and offered a short summary of what she knew:
He was headed for one of the Southern bonfires. They found no evidence of a struggle or blood on the path he would have taken so they assumed something interrupted him before he made it to the bonfire. She added that she was certain something or someone was keeping Captain Lykos from returning because he loved the city too much to abandon it by choice. She grew too nervous to say much more and excused herself to get back to her duties of keeping the peace.
During Rocket's infiltration of the camp he overheard some of the defenders complaining about the pair of orcs who took charge after Lykos' disappearance, a large red orc named Koroc and a slightly smaller blue orc named Dervish. In his searching, he caught sight of two orcs who matched their descriptions and followed them to a large tent. There he overheard the pair discussing plans to forcible reign the city in and take back control. He also caught sight of some of Captain Lykos' belongings (his familiar hooded cloak at the top) and a large metal cage with a large gray wolf chained inside.
The pair kept an eye on the camp's activities for the next few days, catching glimpses of Koroc intervening in discussions of Lykos and occasional groups or individuals from the warcamp being sent to the South.
February
The Defenders were preoccupied during their mission by rioting in the streets and the growing resistance attacks the same day, using the distraction of the riot as a chance to raid the Defenders' armory and supplies. The double distractions provided the rescue team with a relatively clear path in and out of the camp and they were able to extract the wolf with minimal fighting and no loses.
The wolf was extremely weak and emaciated and the group discovered it had been branded on its left front leg with a crescent moon laced with silver.
Daud located a resistance member, a goliath blacksmith named Amisohn (Amy for short) who owned a blacksmith shop in the outskirts by the river and who was willing to let the group use his cellar to store the wolf in.
The wolf was seen to be protectively guarding a charm like those found on Tsekour's Stormers, but its trinket was white and the magic contained in it was stronger, suggesting the orcs' trinkets were replicas of it.
Once they had the wolf in the cellar Billie used her scrying stone to make sure it was Lykos and the stone confirmed it was him.
Shura then researched curses and spells that could be on the wolf and whether or not they were causing Lykos' wolf form, as well as if there were poisons beyond silver in his veins or any way to remove the brand or silver from his leg.
Daud, Shura, and Strange worked together to remove the silver from the brand and then Shura broke the seal by cutting a smiley face into it.
With the seal and silver no longer affecting him Lykos was able to regain some of his lucidity with the help of conversations from Shura and the other awakened.
As the full moon neared the wolf's fur began changing, growing darker as he grew more restless. He gave up the trinket he had been guarding and attempted multiple times to use arcane magic to teleport himself or teleport something to him.
The group kept him locked in the cellar through the full moon, preventing him from escaping, and the next morning his fur had changed to a snowy white. Amy let on that he knew their wolf friend was a werewolf but otherwise didn't change the deal or give them up.
Lykos, still trapped in wolf form, began attempting non-verbal communication with the group and directed their attention to a resistance network post about his cloak. Amy set up a meeting for the group to meet up with Lorna the leader of the resistance/rebellion who asked them to keep Lykos hidden for his own protection and gave them back his cloak.
With the cloak, Lykos was able to transform back into his elf form and after asking why they helped him Lykos provided answers for their questions with the addition of a comment that his memories of while he was trapped as a wolf were difficult to put in order.
During the Long Night one of his officers reported there was a large, unknown creature attacking the bonfires and attempting to destroy them. Concerned the fires would be extinguished, he had gone to check in with the bonfire guards but halfway there something had hit him like an elephant and flung him into a building. His memory after that is fuzzy, he remembers a dark, shadowy creature hunching over him and then his vision going black and his control over his curse slipping.
He remembers one of his Defenders coming to his aid and talking him down, and then a fight he could only hear and not see. She screamed, a heavier and familiar masculine voice cursed, and he struggled to find either of them in his blindness, feeling his curse overtaking him. In a last effort to keep his sanity he had shifted into his wolf form. Someone tried to call his name and then the trinket was being shoved into his mouth. He remembers nothing for a long period following that, only darkness and pain.
His next clearest memories are of Dervish and Koroc watching him from behind the bars of a cage and discussing plans, and of the two of them branding him with the seal his rescuers had broken. He remembers Koroc attempting to take his blood once without Dervish's help and how he had lunged for the orc's throat, missing and sinking his teeth into the orc's arm. It was an action he had not made while in his right mind, and he seems horrified at the realization of what it means. After that Koroc kept him muzzled and heavily chained until they rescued him.
He also informed Shura that only Koroc, Dervish, and Alice knew of his condition, and that they had all discovered it the full moon prior to the Long Night when his cloak had temporarily vanished in the night. He had been forced to ask them for help keeping him locked up in case the moon drew his curse out in the night. The cloak had turned up a few days later and while Lykos had been suspicious, he hadn't had time to address it between the aftermath of the orc attacks and the approaching threat of the Long Night.
He also told them that Koroc was the likely cause of the rise in werewolf numbers around the city and that Koroc and Dervish had been using his blood to boost their strength.
He promises to honor the debt he owes them for saving his life once he has dealt with Koroc. He also warns that Lorna is likely invested in this fight for her own interests, whatever those might be, and lets slip that he has seen the vials of the awakened before, on Alice and Lorna.
Full details
March
He contacted Alice for further information and she provided that Wolfsbane dipped arrows could incapacitate the werewolves.
Billie asked Lykos about Lorna and Alice, who they are and what part they played in the Defenders to which Lykos provided answers.
He stated that as far as he knew they were formerly knights of Krimnos, and that they showed up a year prior and were known for being exceptionally lucky, surviving fights and injuries that would have killed most. They came to the city of the free peoples to join the Defenders after he took it over from the orcs who were fighting for control of it.
He mentioned that Lorna is a very skilled fighter and exceptionally clever she tends to play by her own rules and has never been a fan of moderation or teamwork. Her method has always been hard force and survival. He also mentions that she left the Defenders in November because while she had incredible luck others who went on missions with her were rarely as lucky and a lot of her partners for scouting or patrol missions had ended up dead. This had created animosity and unease between her and the other Defenders.
He openly admitted that he didn't trust Lorna, and that her motives and allegiance had a habit of shifting when what she wanted or thought would help her get what she wanted changed. He used the word opportunistic to describe her.
As for Alice, Lykos said she is a Defender range scout and a strategist. She has always had a way with animals and wild beasts and he has relied on her intuition for many of the creature attacks that had hit the city in the last half of last year. He admits that both seem to be animal lovers, though Alice's connection to wild creatures was much more pronounced and Lorna mostly seemed to care only about her personal pet.
Billie then helped Lykos find Alice and he decided to try and get her help with Koroc, hinting to Billie unintentionally that he might have a thing for Alice.
Daud procured a courier for Lykos to track what was happening in the city and Lykos observed but did not respond to them. Daud also questioned what Lykos was before he was Captain of the Defenders, and why he challenged the old leaders to get that position. He learned that Lykos had lost his family and his home and that the city was all he had left of them. He was taken in by the farmers outside the city who had told him the city was built on the idea of equality, and that anyone could live there no matter their history. Those were ideas that meant a lot to him and that he wanted to see continue, but after the aggressive but respected orc leader had died Lykos saw the grim potential of any of the other bickering orcs fighting for control of the Defenders coming out on top. He fought them for control to protect the idea behind the city and the people who lived in it.
He told Daud about how Lorna and Alice had joined the Defenders once he took over, and the circumstances of Lorna leaving. And when Daud asked how he had lost his family, Lykos tells him the full story as he remembers it.
The two then began to work together with Strange's help and using Lykos as a guinea pig, to create seal trinkets like the one that had been carved into his arm that could be used to weaken werewolves and prevent them from transforming.
Daud also put the idea of tricking Koroc into incriminating himself in the eyes of the city in Lykos' head and the former captain began creating a plan to do that using Daud and Billie's help, and Ardis and his men, if it came to the need for it.
April
During this month, Billie also discovered that Lorna and Alice were not knights of Krimnos, or if they were, they weren't knights there in the last 80 years. Additionally, Daud attempted to get a count of the werewolves still at large and learned that people within the city seemed to think that the Defenders and Koroc himself had protected them from the attacks.