The Werefolk Quarterly

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Ear of mankind
overgrown with nettles
would you hear?

If the voice of the prophets blew
on flutes made of murdered children's bones --
and exhaled airs burnt with
martyrs' cries --
if they built a bridge of old men's dying
groans --

Ear of mankind
occupied with small sounds
would you hear?
- Nelly Sachs, in "O the Chimneys"

Well, its been another banner Quarter in our lovely neck of the woods. It's been a long time coming and I don't mean the months you've waited for this issue but the news. Eastern US - Were's spotted in CA 1 day, 500 people dead in a police station the next. Slaughtered hot dog vendor (betcha all missed that one), rumours of odd cemetary happenings, man-tigers robbing 7-11's or destroying wedding cakes at hotels. All in the last two weeks, though the last like be discouted as too much drinking by a cook.

New weres, you're saying to yourselves. So what? So, a few days before all this broke out, a San Fransico hospital had "problems" and some new weres were ordered to leave the country by the head vamp of the city. All the . . disturbances have taken place north of there. Kind of makes you wonder. Here's some more facts to make you worried:

The wild hunt was seen in Oregon and Washtingston State. 50 men were mauled by an insane fox in England during a Fox hunt; half of them vanished from the hospital 2 days later. 4 hunters in Russia reported being attacked by the deer they had "shot 7 times" and were all mauled near death; 1 of them vnaished later also. A wolf pack (yes, pack) loose in northern Canada is being hunted by the authorities; over 300+ people between 10 and 40 have been attacked by them in the last 12 weeks.

And that is just the stuff I've heard is reliable. I don't evem wamt to speculate about china, or mexico and the information coming out of South America is plain scary. New weres are coming out of the woodwork with no guidance, idiots are making new weres with reckless abandon and some idiot is going to put two and two together soon. Gentlefolk, I dont scare easily but I'm scared now.

Someones trying to break the secret. Lots of someones. Either its bi-polar disorder or someone planning stuff. Lots of someones. And that is what scares me. Either its an all out war on the Lords of Death or the Old Problem is being challenged again. If the latter, it might be better for us, but the humans will win. They'll kill us all.

Thanks, whoever you assholes are. Thanks a lot.

- The Editor

Real secrets can be kept by publishing them on billboards.
- Daniel Quinn

So the titles a joke, mates. We're not. Most of the weres yer gonna here of are the big fellas. Lions, tigers and bears, o my great PR. Yeah, PR. We're out here too, buds. An' I'm willing t' bet there's as much of us as you guys. We don't make the news like you do, or the films or stupid novels. We hide 'cause we're good at it. You don't. Maybe can't -- somethin' hunt you, you hunt back.

If The Time of All Hiding is gonna be over, it'll end in blood. Lots o' it. You'll all diem, an' likely most o' the other predators also out there. But we hide. We're good at it, the best o' the best, and ah think we'll make it when you're all dead and gone.

This ain't just idle talk, folkies. Ever wonder why there's no vamps older 'n 10,000 you hear of? Heck, 5 K even? Almost none, an' its not just them's a being "all powerful and hiding from the rest" it's that there was a purge I think. When man made cities and got together, us kinds couldn't hide. And they killed most of us, even then, I figure, cause they had magic then, and gods. Now they have guns and bombs which'll do a much nicer job for 'em.

Everyone fears what they don't know, but even more they fear what they do know being what they really don't know. They fear the changer who looks human more than the demon, 'cause one of those was once human, looked human, maybe even was human. We're the enemy within, boys an' girls. Fight or flee.

At least, we's got a choice. You predator types'll likely all die. We didn't an' we won't. Fight well. We'll be keepin' the home fires a burnin'.

"We are unable to alienate ourselves from nature or to "live against" it. We can no more alienate ourselves from nature than we can alienate ourselves from entropy. We can no more live against nature than we can live against gravity. On the contrary, what we're seeing here more and more clearly is that the processes and phenomena of the world are working on us in exactly the same way that they work on all other creatures. Our lifestyle is evolutionarily unstable -- and is therefore in the process of eliminating itself in the perfectly ordinary way."
- Daniel Quinn

Sooner or later, all of us have to meet vampires. Either socially or politically or for other reasons, like feuds. The thing to remember is always dress well and keep your word. An oath-breaker is perhaps the thing vamps most loathe. Don't be worried about being disliked on sight -- most vamps are OLD. They've seen stuff we never will, and likely done things we'd never contemplate just to stave off eternal boredom. As Neitzsche said: "Against boredom, even the gods contend in vain."

The vampires aren't gods, but they still have to contend against boredom. Hell, a companion of mine once said that 90% of them don't care what sex you are in bed, and 30% don't even care what species -- anything to stave off boredom.

However, the most important thing to recall is that vampires are afraid of werefolk. Most of their mind tricks don't work on us, we heal faster and, in point of fact, are actually harder to kill than they are. At least, when facing younger vampires. When facing Masters, vampires or werefolk, all bets are off. Most of us fear them -- their age, knoiwledge and suppossed wisdom. Besides, most cultures have a fear of vampires; weres are a weak second or third. It's because they fear us that we have to be wary. I don't think either side would survive an all-out war, at least not without dragging the unknowing masses into it somehow, which is good for no one.

The rest of etiquette is common sense. Don't show off your aura, by a good book on etiquette and the proper ways to eat and you're laughing.

The reality of the other person is not what he reveals to you but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, it you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather what he does not say.
- Kahil Gibran

Politics. Brings lots of images to mind, and most of them aren't pretty. Our lives are politics, torn between the old war and staying out of it. We are the lords of life. We have no choice about that, and vamps are the lords of death. And I think thats becoming a greater and greater problem. Too many of us are forced to fight. Or die when we would live. We're forced to act, instead of to be. We become killers, not lovers.

Maybe saviours, but never saints.

We become the slayers, then the slain. The fear, and then the nightmares. We give in when we should fight. Fight when we should give in. Kill when we should love. Never love what we kill. We play the old war. Old game. Politics is a game also. These words bleed sorrow. You bleed blood. Both the same, both cut deep. All for politics. All for a war we fight. Drafted, without cause. No hope, no way out. Truth dies, we die, they die. Defeat is death. No honor. No glory. No favorites. Just dead.

Maybe its time to go back. To step away, forget the war. Live our lives. Try peace, as mure than just a pause between battles. Try friendship, before the war consumes us. Try hiding, try ignoring the others. Anything but blood. Killing wears on the soul. Each death takes soemthing, withe each death you die.Soon there is no us, but the war. No fighting but the dying. No pain, no hope, no fear: no life.

This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang, but a whimper.
- TS Elliot

Editors Note: If there is another issue of the Quarterly, It will be either really long, or really short. I don't want to write "War" in large type, whoever reads this. Do something. While something can still be done.

F.A.Q. ~ Players ~ Powers ~ World ~ Main