Editing Nature of the Beast (section)

==Background==

"''Gather around, cubs, and let me tell you stories of heroism and adventure''"

During the 1980s and 1990s, '''Black Gold Oil Company''' was an implacable enemy of the Garou and Gaia. The Wyrm-corrupted board of directors wielded the company like a weapon to corrupt and defile everywhere they operated. All over North America. And all over, heroes rose to oppose them. Many songs have been sung and stories told of the battles of the era, but one name rises above the others.

Stories tell of the renowned warrior '''Dancing Flame'''. He had made it his personal mission to bring down Black Gold, and he pursued them all over the continent. Wherever warriors of Gaia were hard pressed, Dancing Flame would appear to turn the tide. And he did not fight Black Gold with just fang and claw. With his allies, he fought them in the stock market, in the courts, and in the media. Exposing their crimes and corruption.

It took close to two decades, but ultimately Black Gold was in ruins. Their armies of abominations slain, their assets taken away or destroyed, their reputation in the gutter, and their influence gone. In the final battle, Dancing Flame and his allies took on the corrupt board of directors. And destroyed them. Black Gold filed for bankruptcy, and the battle was won.

And what happened to Dancing Flame? In some stories, he lives in a remote farm with his kin, enjoying his well earned retirement. In others, he went on to fight other battles, somewhere in the jungles of South America or Asia. But those are just stories. The truth is that no one knows what happened to Dancing Flame afterwards. The only thing that is certain is that he is not around anymore.

And that is unfortunate, for Black Gold is back under a different name.

The remaining assets of the company were bought in bankruptcy auction by an European investor, '''Augustus Wittger'''. He started rebranding and rebuilding, and what used to be Black Gold became '''Prospect Oil''', with a corporate motto of "''We look to the future''". Under Wittger's direction, Prospect Oil started branding itself as an ethical company. Hiring minorities, paying the workers above the minimum necessary, having zero tolerance policies on bigotry and harassment. Yet their core business remained. Where many energy companies started migrating to green energy, Prospect Oil remains focused on fossil fuels.

Prospect was among the first companies to get into shale oil business. The oil shale deposits in the United States are the largest in the world, with the Green River Formation in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah among the richest oil shale deposits in the world.

'''Wyoming'''. The least populous state in US despite being the 10th largest by area, with the second-lowest population density after Alaska. Almost half of the land in Wyoming is owned by the federal government, generally protected for public uses. Including the '''Bridger–Teton National Forest'''. The forest consists of 3.4 million acres (14,000 square kilometers), making it the third largest National Forest outside Alaska.

And it sits right between the Prospect Oil shale oil extraction site at the headwaters of the Green River and their refinery and distribution hub in Casper. Casper is nicknamed "The Oil City" and has a long history of oil boomtown and cowboy culture.

Within the area is a region called '''Moonrise Woods'''. It is an area of primeval forest - a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance and thereby exhibits unique ecological features. Unique enough to set it apart from the rest of the national forest. Through a proxy company supposedly focused on ecological studies, Prospect pushed through a ruling that Moonrise Woods should be classified as a separate region of its own. As a result of this ruling, Moonrise Woods is no longer a part of a national forest. And therefore currently not protected. Prospect wasted no time in obtaining permission to build an oil pipeline through it. The work crews and machines are already gathering in a small town of '''Firdale'''.

Firdale has less than 2 000 inhabitants. Already struggling, the recent Corona pandemic struck the town's traditional farming and forestry industries hard. Unemployment is high and the number of people living under poverty line is on the rise. Many people in town welcome the pipeline, seeing it as a source of employment that will revitalize their town.

Yet Prospect's pipeline faces opposition too. Outraged by the legal shenanigans, out of town protesters have set up camp at the edge of Moonrise Woods, determined to keep Prospect away. More activists are gathering from all over the country. Among them are several young werewolves. The threat to Moonrise Woods would be bad enough, but the Garou are also aware of the oil company's past, even if to the young generation that past is known only through stories. Nevertheless, while there is no indication that Prospect is anything else than a ruthless oil company, no better or worse than the rest, there is still the possibility that something worse than typical corporate exploitation is going on.