The Wyrm’s quiet assaults on our wolf Kinfolk in Minnesota have been going on for several years, but these conflicts may soon escalate into a full scale war for which the local Garou are not currently prepared. A Kinfolk population spread out over a large area and a dearth of active caerns make it impossible for them to fend off the kind of all-out attack that may be coming.

They need reinforcements, and quickly. The Wyrm’s aim in this hunt may not be to wipe out Minnesota’s Garou, although it certainly could be given the size of the force they are directing into our wolf holdings there. It is more likely the enemy intends to strike a heavy blow against our breeding stock there. If we lose our wolf Kinfolk in Minnesota, we could lose the state entirely.

Yellowstone is widely held to be the world’s first national park. It spans over 3,500 square miles of lakes, canyons, rivers, and mountain ranges, primarily in Wyoming but with parts in Montana and Idaho. Forests cover about 80% of its area, particularly sub-alpine forests. It’s especially famous for its large number of geothermal features, including the geyser Old Faithful, most of which are fed by a massive and entirely active supervolcano.

The wolf population of the park itself is relatively small due to purges that took place in the first decades of the 20th century. Wolves only returned to the area in the late 1990s, and there are currently about 300 in and around the park. Despite competition with grizzly bears, which outnumber them by nearly 2 to 1 and compete for food, the wolf population is slowly growing.

The region has one of the highest densities of caerns in the world, and several tribes of Garou have disputes over control of them. The Uktena held these lands for millen­ nia, but the wolf Kinfolk from Canada used to repatriate the region include Children of Gaia, Get of Fenris, Red Talons, Shadow Lords, Silver Fangs, and even Wendigo. All of these tribes have some claim on the region, though have only two or three werewolves in the area at any one time.

Increasing the wolf population in Yellowstone further may attract unwanted attention from human hunters. It makes a good breeding ground, however, and we can use it as a staging area for expansion into other parts of the continent.

We need to take steps to defuse the tension between Garou in the area. If we can bring them to bear against agents of the Wyrm their Rage will no doubt prove a valuable asset. I can imagine using the Yellowstone Spirit’s blessing to raise veritable armies of shock troops where subtlety is less of a concern than brute killing power.

Finally, I would urge you to take steps to identify who is trying to set the Yellowstone Spirit free and put a stop to it. The battlefield value of a manifested Incarna, although not inconsequential, still is not great enough to justify the risk of loosing a weapon we cannot control and that may just as easily turn on us. Even if the Incarna ultimately joins our war, setting it free may well trigger a catastrophic volcanic eruption with consequences no less terrible than would have resulted from a nuclear war. I’m not convinced that the Garou behind the efforts to unleash the Yellowstone Spirit have not considered this. More than likely they consider such an eruption a doomsday device, a weapon of last resort capable of wiping out all the servants of both Weaver and Wyrm. That doing so would likely also obliterate nearly all of Gaia’s creatures is simply an unfortunate side effect to them.

Western Europeans spent centuries hunting the native wolf population and were nearly successful in wiping them out in places like France, Germany, and Denmark. Until recently, it seemed certain that while Eastern Europe might still shelter our kin, our foothold in Western Europe was lost. This is no longer the case on the Iberian Peninsula.

The Iberian Wolf inhabited much of Spain and Por­ tugal until the 1900s. An active extermination campaign in the 1950s and 1960s wiped out all the wolves in Spain except in the northwest part of the country, and similar policies in Portugal almost wiped out the wolves there. Conservationists successfully argued for the protection of the remaining population.

A sizeable population of Iberian Wolves roams in Sierra de la Culebra, and some isolated areas in Sierra Morena, and the population is expanding south and east. There have been reports of wolves returning to Navarre and the Basque Country, as well as the provinces of Extremadura, Madrid, and Guadalajara. A male Italian wolf found its way into Catalonia, where the last native wolf was killed in 1929.

In all, the wolf population on the peninsula is growing, and we have been able to reclaim a lot of abandoned terri­ tory. Three caerns have returned to our control, although many more now lie within the boundaries of human cities like Granada and Barcelona.

There is nothing I would immediately change about the way the Iberian wolf population is currently being managed by the Garou here. Improving the communications between rural and urban Garou might be helpful, but these two groups have a long history of conflict throughout Europe. In fact, it wasn’t until quite recently that the tribes here stopped actively fighting each other for territory and wolf breeding stock.

The outback is a vast, remote, arid area of Australia that is home to a diverse mix of animal species, including kangaroo, emu, and (of particular interest to Garou) din­ go. The number of humans that scrape out a living in the dirt of the outback is quite small, and most of those are engaged in mining or in raising sheep and cattle on the sparse rangelands.

While dingoes are often described as wild dogs, pure­ blooded ones are closer to wolves in pedigree than any domesticated breed of dog. However, the past century of contact with European dogs has tainted the blood so much that the pureblood dingo is dying out. Humans, who cannot generally tell half-bloods from purebloods and consider both nuisances, wage a never-ending war on them with guns, traps, and poisons.

The presence of Garou in Australia greatly predates the arrival of the first dingoes from Asia. We cannot think about Australia without recalling the tragedy that befell the Bunyip and their Kinfolk at claws of our ancestors. It is right that we should grieve for that terrible chapter in our history, but we are at war with an enemy that threatens Gaia herself, so we must put it behind us. The Bunyip are no more. They left behind and countless caerns that Garou have neglected far too long out of shame over the War of Tears.

Respect for the dead is admirable. The War of Tears has been a tremendous source of shame for Australian Garou for centuries and rightly so. However, leaving powerful caerns unguarded does not serve Gaia. Rather, it affords the servants of the Wyrm ample opportunities to plunder and corrupt the sacred places of the Bunyip and to use them against us. Australia already has too many Hellholes because werewolves refused to reclaim and were too slow to defend Aboriginal caerns.

Many werewolves remember how terrifying the Bunyip could be when provoked, but they can neither aid nor threaten us now. At this point in the war, we need to move on the caerns the Bunyip left behind. Many of these places are dangerous, but Garou who snarl in the faces of Banes and fomori should not cower in fear of the sacred places of a tribe that vanished from the Earth a century ago.

We need to adopt the Aboriginal Kinfolk the Bunyip left behind and preserve them from further human purges. It could take decades or even longer to regain their trust, for they have every reason to resent and fear us. After all, we Garou stood by and did nothing as the Aboriginal Protection Board separated children from their parents for more than a century. Even the Children of Gaia fought this atrocity with empty words when we should have taken action.

The situation in Ethiopia has become desperate, and the Silent Striders of North Africa and the Middle East are, to be perfectly frank, too tied up with the events of the Arab Spring and its aftermath to devote much attention to a country that isn’t under relentless assault by servants of the Wyrm. We need to send reinforcements to defend the caerns. While I applaud the Black Furies’ willingness to perform a necessary task that many werewolves have no interest in, I fear that the native Garou are not taking them seriously enough. We may need to send some high ranking werewolves who can win their respect. I honestly believe this is a job for the Silver Fangs.

We need to focus on reducing the suffering of Central Asia’s humans, to raise them up beyond the easy reach of the Wyrm. Yes, this may sound like a strange suggestion coming from a lupus, but I see no other solution to the endemic influence of the Wyrm in these five nations. The Red Talons and Shadow Lords of the area will not like it, but we need to bring in new tribes who are used to fighting these kinds of wars where Weaver meets Wyld. The Black Furies and Glass Walkers are the first ones to come to mind, but it also needs Get of Fenris warriors, Silver Fang generals, and Silent Strider scouts. The wolf population of Central Asia is large enough to support many more Garou than currently claim territory in the region.

Even then, this may not be a battlefield where we will carry the day. Gaia bears deep scars in Central Asia. With the exception of the wolves, there is really very little left of strategic value to the Garou Nation. I simply don’t know if we can spare the resources that would be required to wage war on the Wyrm’s minions here.

Following the 1986 meltdown of Chernobyl nuclear reactor #4, this area was evacuated and placed under mil­ itary control by the Soviet Union. Today, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is one of the most radioactively contam­ inated areas in the world and draws significant scientific interest due to the high levels of radiation exposure in the environment, as well as increasing interest from tourists.

Abandoned by humans, Gaia’s creatures have reclaimed the zone. This includes nearly 2,000 wolves, which face few natural threats. Make no mistake: all these animals are living in the shadow of a major victory for the Wyrm. The radioactive materials in the area haven’t disappeared, and something as simple as a grass or forest fire can release new radioactive fallout. While the number of animals living in the zone is higher than it was before the Chernobyl disaster, this is only because humans aren’t hunting or fishing there. The background radiation sets a hard limit on the number and diversity of the area’s flora and fauna. Even animals that survive in the area often suffer mutations ranging from sterility to partial albinism to hideous deformities usually seen only in servants of the Wyrm.

The Chernobyl Elders tried to impress upon me their dire need for reinforcements. However, I remain unconvinced that this is in the best interests of the Garou Nation. The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone has too many secrets, far more than anyone there would admit — things

they would not let me see, places they would not let me go. I can’t help but wonder if the Wyrm has chosen it as a breeding ground for its minions and a place to train its Black Spiral Dancers — or even a place where it can create a new werewolf tribe devoted to Gaia’s destruction.

We may soon be called upon to contain a major incur­ sion by the Wyrm in this region. Even now, it is probably for the best if we prevent werewolves and Kinfolk with any significant exposure to the area from leaving it to breed.

At the very least, we need to watch the zone carefully. Monitoring the spread of corruption among the Garou and Kinfolk population might give us a better understanding of the enemy and so allow us to fight it more effectively. Any such inspectors we send must not be allowed to spend more than a month or two at a time in the zone. Exposure can begin to corrupt the flesh of a Garou in as little as three months, and Kinfolk are even more vulnerable to its influence.