New Ways Old Grudges Werewolf WindShrine
North Wind Rock[edit]
Long, lazy winding rivers are a staple in the American Badlands and on the plains. If you stand on their banks, they look like they go on forever in both directions, some twisting and snaking to form islands and loops, others straight and uncomplicated. The bawn covers part of one of these rivers and includes some small rocky cliffs - hardly the great craggy faces of Southwestern mesas or canyon walls, but nothing to sneeze at here. There is even a little promontory - or at least, it's little if you look at it from the bawn north to the river beyond. Looking at it in the other direction is more impressive, because its projection above most of the rest of the rocky cliff face is more noticeable from the actual riverbank far below.
From a distance it does not seem high, surely only a foot or two. Then someone walks up it and discovers that it's actually a lot higher than it seems from the safety of the bawn - especially when the walker notices the ground falling away with the cliff beneath the rock. More than one local legend includes an arrogant young Theurge who made bad decisions and worse assumptions and came away with a lingering case of vertigo and broken bones after being scraped off a boulder or the stony riverbank some hundred feet below.
Its simplicity and lack of conspicuous adornment make it hard for most to identify the little peak as a shrine at all without looking closely. The attentive visitor, especially one walking on four paws with a wolf's keen ears, can hear the decoration before seeing it. Ancient roots stick right out of the rock face, gnarled and twisted and left by some long-gone tree. Hanging from and amongst these are the baubles and trinkets that mark the place as a shrine - dozens of bells, wind chimes and rattles of a hundred different types. Most are recent, including wind chimes made of shatterproof glass and recycled plastic. Others are older - one or two daring werewolf historians have examined some of the metal bells and declared them to be former trade goods given to Native bands by the Americans and the French in return for buffalo hides. The oldest are carved wooden rattles and hollowed out tree branches. The sound they make in a gust is rarely melodious to human ears and it's less so to wolves, but not unbearable - and to the North Wind, patron of the shrine, it is the most pleasant music to be had for hundreds of miles. It enjoys it so much, in fact, that it does not blow the bells from the shrine - why would it destroy something it enjoys and is given as a token of respect and reverence? Thus the bells are safe even during the fiercest prairie windstorms and tornadoes. From time to time a strap rots through, a chain rusts and snaps or a gullywasher floats some of the bells away - when this happens the sept makes every effort to recover them and return them, lest it be the day before the full moon and the time when the spirit's favor is most important.
One of the few traditions known to be preserved from pre-European times is receiving the North Wind's warning. On a full moon before the first snow falls and at certain other times scattered throughout the year, the sept's Ritemaster can go up on the rock alone and stripped to the waist if in homid, with bells or rattles tied to long hair and fur or worn on animal hide tethers. Speaking certain words and performing a certain dance, in conjunction with the shrine being in good order, enables the Ritemaster to gain the North Wind's favor and hear it whisper its intentions. The North Wind always knows when it will blow, but it never tells the other winds, which is why north winds on the prairie can bring so much storm and destruction in such a hurry. However, a combination of a good performance by the Ritemaster and care by the sept to ensure that the bells and baubles produce pleasant sounds will persuade the spirit to whisper the times and strengths of coming winter storms to the Ritemaster alone. Whether the Ritemaster is a lupus or a homid, a Mandan or a German, literate or not, the warning always takes the form of something the Ritemaster can understand and communicate to others.
The North Wind never goes back on its word about when the world will go cold or when the snowflakes will fall, or in what amounts. It is not a forgiving spirit, and it has been a good friend to Wendigo for as long as either spirit has been in the world - this is the way they have been for uncountable millenia and they are not about to change now. The known friendship between the two, in fact, is why most members of the sept believe that the Wendigo were the first to honor the North Wind at this spot. Some of the sept's wiser loremasters and the Wendigo and Uktena in general believe that at some point there were dances to gain the North Wind's favor about the other seasons of the year, but these dances have long since been forgotten. The North Wind does not care and has never answered a question about it despite the occasional elder's asking - it is to the werewolves to find those secrets, not for the North Wind to tell them.
