Dead Wolves

Dead Wolf
Plural	Dead Wolves
Nicknames	Wolves of Blood
Parent clan	Gangrel
Disciplines	Animalism, Protean, Resilience, Sublunario

The Dead Wolves are a bloodline among the Gangrel that originated in the Mexican wilderness. They are a curious mix out of Wolf-blooded and vampiric vitae.

Overview

According to legend, the first Dead Wolf was a young man named Juan Colmillo, who lived in Northern Mexico around the time of the Mexican-American War. Colmillo was born a werewolf, but before his First Change he was Embraced by a Gangrel vampire hunting displaced families in the Texas territory. Just why this Gangrel damned Colmillo varies depending on who's telling the story - some say Colmillo was planning to take his family to Texas and start new lives as Americans, others say Colmillo's wife had once been the Gangrel's wife when he was alive. Most stories agree, though, that Colmillo was made immortal so that he could witness America's eventual suffering and defeat on its Mexican border.

Heartbroken over Colmillo's fate, one of his werewolf cousins came to him in the night and tried to undo the vampire's curse. The werewolf bit him, stuck him with silver, and even gave Colmillo some of his blood in an effort to rouse his primal rage to overthrow his vampiric blood. Desperate to save his cousin, the werewolf provoked Colmillo into a bestial frenzy in the light of a full moon, hoping that Colmillo's inner wolf would slay his vampiric Beast. Instead, says the legend, Colmillo killed the werewolf and drank him to dust. Colmillo was never the same. Though nothing could free him from the damnation of the Requiem, his blood did change to reflect his familial connection to Father Wolf and Mother Moon. The Dead Wolves bloodline was born that night, with the death of one werewolf for the sake of his fallen kin.

The Colmillo legend seems to be a parable illustrating how werewolves should be willing to give their lives for the sake of the Damned and how vampires should be willing to adapt to make peace with their cousins, the Uratha. The legend is also held up by many diplomatic Uratha as a reminder that the Kindred are not necessarily, in their nature, blood-sucking monsters. Many of them were in the midst of other lives when they met with damnation, and many of them did not ask for it. Werewolves should consider each vampire as an individual, not as a breed.

Weakness

The Dead Wolves have inherited the Uratha's weakness against silver, which deals additional damage against them.

Also, the Dead Wolves are affected by the phases of the Moon. On nights of the full and new moons, a Dead Wolf must spend additional Vitae to stay awake and active.

Trivia

In the Classic World of Darkness, Kindred had a rare chance of embracing a werewolf or other form of Fera to create what was known as an Abomination. This bloodline may have been a way of translating the concept into the Chronicles of Darkness (which was called the "New World of Darkness" at the time).

References

• CofD: Shadows of Mexico , p.102-104