Older Brother tribe in South America

[Erinys]

I always thought the Uktena's tribe in the Amazon were a recent phenomenon, no older than Older Brother living in Australia and Hokkaido. But I recently picked up the novel Breathe Deeply, and it has Jubati saying their people have lived in the Amazon since before the Europeans invaded.

I don't understand this. South America has no wolves at all. Maned "wolves" are weird, solitary critters who eat more fruit than meat. They aren't marsupials, but they ain't wolves either, not even dingo-equivalents. They don't even live in the rainforest.

The Revised tribebook doesn't shed any light on when they arrived in South America. It mentions a cryptid called cuitlamiztli (wolf-cat) and implies some connection to the tribe, but without actually explaining if this is Garou sighted in Hispo, or some cryptic native Canis species that they actually bred with.

[Damian May]

Well, there could be an Older Brother remnant from an ancient migration there that was slowly losing the wolf even if they did manage to establish homid kin.

It basically comes down to it being an old book. There's some stuff in them that doesn't make a lot of sense.

[Erinys]

It basically comes down to it being an old book. There's some stuff in them that doesn't make a lot of sense.

I kinda figured that was all.

But on a hunch I looked up dire wolves (the real-world animal, Canis dirus) on Wikipedia, and their bones have been found in Ice Age deposits in South America. They were a separate species (and at most only a little bit bigger than grey wolves) and thought to have hunted in packs. The Pampas also had C. nehringi which may be the same species. So presumably, the Garou bred with these wolves. When they died out... or did they? Are the cuitlamiztli a tiny remnant population that adapted to the rainforest?

But if not, then these guys have had no lupus for about 10,000 years.

[Damian May]

I kinda figured that was all.

But on a hunch I looked up dire wolves (the real-world animal, Canis dirus) on Wikipedia, and their bones have been found in Ice Age deposits in South America. They were a separate species (and at most only a little bit bigger than grey wolves) and thought to have hunted in packs. The Pampas also had C. gezi. So presumably, the Garou bred with these wolves. When they died out... or did they? Are the cuitlamiztli a tiny remnant population that adapted to the rainforest?

But if not, then these guys have had no lupus for about 10,000 years.

I mean....there are Mokole there...there is an outside chance they got new animal kin the same way that the Kucha and 'Bunyip' did....however the only kin in range that fit that aren't foxes are Bush Dogs/Short Eared Dogs..

[Erinys]

I wouldn't buy maned wolf Garou for the same reason I consider the Bunyip to have been Fera mistaken for Garou. Bush dogs are pack hunters ... but they're also tiny. It would've been like jaguars going extinct, and the Balam becoming ocelots.

I could believe in maned wolf Nuwisha, though. It's a land with no native coyotes and no native ravens. But the Nuwisha seem implied to run around the whole world without regard to the presence of any suitable animals.

Edit: But suppose some of these wolves adapted to be smaller and more flexible in diet, and survived in the Llanos, Rupununi, and Cerrado savannahs. There are no wolves there in modern times. The Garou would have to be hiding any surviving wolves in tiny enclaves, either in the deepest rainforests or on top of Tepuis. I think Tepuis would be great places for hidden secret caerns and den-realms.

[Damian May]

I wouldn't buy maned wolf Garou for the same reason I consider the Bunyip to have been Fera mistaken for Garou. Bush dogs are pack hunters ... but they're also tiny. It would've been like jaguars going extinct, and the Balam becoming ocelots.

I could believe in maned wolf Nuwisha, though. It's a land with no native coyotes and no native ravens. But the Nuwisha seem implied to run around the whole world without regard to the presence of any suitable animals.

Edit: But suppose some of these wolves adapted to be smaller and more flexible in diet, and survived in the Llanos, Rupununi, and Cerrado savannahs. There are no wolves there in modern times. The Garou would have to be hiding any surviving wolves in tiny enclaves, either in the deepest rainforests or on top of Tepuis. I think Tepuis would be great places for hidden secret caerns and den-realms.

Definitely some options there. Yeah BD/SEDs are tiny but as the Uktena are said to rainforest based they're the only canid option in the area.

Or maybe the Uktena just lied and they've only been there a few hundred years and 'borrowed' some Balam kinfolk. I'd probably use this one as its the least work.

Though there are some Brazilian written sourcebooks on the area on the SV that may have other options:

https://www.storytellersvault.com/pr...5625_0_0_0_0_0

https://www.storytellersvault.com/pr...5625_0_0_0_0_0

https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/310210/Pontes-Queimadas?src=hottest_filtered&filters=0_45625_0_0_0_0_0

[Black Fox]

Different writers and developers have their own ideas as to what include in the game. Certain things that seem cool to them, don't to others.

If you think it is nonsense, then it doesn't matter how hard you try to not make it nonsense. It will always be nonsense to you.

There are a lot of things in "canon" that I simply don't follow in my own chronicles. The actual game lines themselves frequently excise what was established in previous editions, so I have no problem doing the same.

I don't think it makes much sense for the Uktena to be in South America. The historical range of the wolf population should be the normal range for Garou. This does not mean there can't have been solitary individuals or roving packs that visited there. But no prolonged presence, certainly not with any numbers.

[Konradleijon]

Yeah Uktena have been breeding with indigenous peoples from around the world.

[Gryffon15]

To me, aside from being an obvious case of old book-itis, it comes down to this.

The Garou are nosy bastards who have access to moon bridges. The Younger Brother tribe book mentions how they occasionally went on quests alongside the other Pure Brothers to central and South America to combat the Wyrm there and other imbalance.

It makes perfect sense to me that some of those adventurers may have staged behind and even a few hedge communities may have been born, perhaps to maintain waystations in South America for the vast majority of the Pure Nation to the north.

To the vast chagrin of the Bastet I’m sure.

[Erinys]

To the vast chagrin of the Bastet I’m sure.

Well GAIA personally asked the Three Brothers to come over to Turtle Island* to save it from all the horrible Wyrm monsters running around. So, obviously, the Fera already living there were total failures, or had turned away from Gaia and needed punishment...

I figure the Three Brothers also took part in the Wars of Rage, and used justifications like that. Also, apparently dire wolves competed directly with lions and sabretooths for the same prey. So like lions and hyenas in Africa, they would kind of instinctively hate each other. Yeah.... good times for sure.

*and [South America]

[Gryffon15]

Oh yeah, most certainly - great times for all.

The tales of the Garou aside, I’m sure there was a need for Garou in the Americas, to fulfill their role, but I doubt that Gaia expected them to go as far as they probably ended up going.

[Erinys]

Yeah, I mean Gaia sent Garou to the Americas not because the Fera failed to be good enough warriors, but because that literally wasn't their job in the first place.

Except for the Simba and Khara. They were social (pride) warriors, and... hmm.
But then, Gaia made 3-4 kinds of social warrior shifters for some reason. I guess they needed backup? Or each has a slightly different set of tactics? I dunno.