Redclaw

Redclaw is a character in The Fearsome Encounter.

Profile
Biography: Redclaw was born a werewolf, to the Lakes People whose range extends through northern Minnesota and southern Ontario, near the northwest shore of Lake Superior and around the numerous smaller lakes that pepper the area. The organization of the Lakes People is extremely loose, owing mainly to their small population density. Only a few hundred werewolves have the pride of being a Lakes Person. All are considered equal, apart from the warchief and the arbiter, who are priveleged to decide matters of an external and internal nature, respectively. Redclaw was the first son sired by the Warchief Redtooth, and had been groomed since birth to take up that mantle.

As an adult, Redclaw has become convinced of the moral superiority of the People's way of life, living without heirarchical structures and without infrastructure, in a state of nature. He views all the works of man as an evil to be scrubbed from the earth, and it was this belief that led him into direct conflict with his sire. When Redtooth's mind could not be changed, Redclaw slew him and became warchief sooner than any had expected. Any in opposition to his plans were cowed by his raw power, though the arbiter may have had people of his own sharpening their claws in the deep darkness at new moon.

At the next full moon after the winter solstice, when their power was at its zenith, Redclaw led the Lake People in a raid against the Clay Boswell Energy Center, the largest power plant in northern Minnesota. As the moonlight gleamed silver on the snow blanketing Cohasset, hundreds of werewolves descended on the furnaces and trucks and generators and offices of the coal-fired plant and reduced them to rubble in the space of a night. The weak would perish in the bitter cold, Redclaw claimed, and the Lake People would return for the strong to turn them and bolster their own ranks.

Alas, this was never to be, as Redclaw vanished before the night was up.

Description:
Redclaw is a hulking brute, eight feet tall when standing upright, though he tends to move about in a hunched lope or on all fours. His head is lupine, though with a shorter muzzle than a typical wolf, and he is covered from head to toe in grey fur, with a lighter shade around his chin, neck and chest. His limbs are long and his hands and feet are outsized compared to his body, and all his digits have wicked two-inch black claws. He prefers to run naked, though he has a small ornament of copper and dangling feathers clipped behind his left ear to signify his status as warchief.

Even in human form, Redclaw is a large, barrel-chested man. He is of mixed Chippewa and Scandanavian ancestry, though he considers himself always and only a Lake Person.

He has absolutely no compunction about killing, and thrills in martial confrontation. Any artificial construction offends him on a deep level, and is seen as an affront against the natural order. Whenever feasible he will seek to destroy such things. He believes very strongly in the power of oaths, and will not make them lightly, though he is not fool enough to believe that others feel the same. A broken oath to Redclaw is a sure way to find yourself divested of your entrails.

Abilities:
As a werewolf, Redclaw can shift between human and wolf form. The human is in fact his default state, and moonlight is required to maintain himself in wolf form. However, due to his long lineage and training, the amount of moonlight in a lunar cycle is enough to power the transformation for a month, allowing Redclaw to stay in his more powerful form indefinitely as long as the available moonlight is absorbed. He prefers this to his human form, as it comes with supernatural strength, speed and senses. He can be killed as any man, though silver can sap the moonlight from his body and force a reversion to human.

A mixing of bodily fluids (most commonly, the saliva of a werewolf with the blood of a human) can transfer the blessing to a human, though their efficiency at using moonlight will be low, as will be their ability to control the shifting. Typically this means they will shift involuntarily to wolf form during full moons. Control of the shifting can come with practice, though it will never be as fine as one born into their powers.