Overview
The Hollow-Oak Wolf-Man is the tall furred shape of Howling Fen — long in the body, high in the shoulder, and the whole of it reading as one dark line from muzzle to heel, the line of a conifer standing in the water. It stands 1.90 m upright and carries 110 kg, and it moves over the standing water the way a shadow moves over a floor, without the water knowing. It is the wolf-kin of the conifers, the one who lives in the carved hollow oaks and keeps the pack as a promise, not a family, because the promise is what keeps, and the family is what breaks. To the fen it is the howl that answers, and to the howl it is the oak that answers back.
Habitat
The fen is a vast conifer forest of standing water and hollow oaks, and the hollow oaks are the dens, each one carved into a floor and a bed and a door, the door a low arch that a deer cannot enter and a wolf-man can. The trees are carved into dens because the standing water will not take a burrow, and the oaks are hollow because the rot came first and the carving came second, and the carving is the kin's own work, passed down the way a language is passed. The water is black and still and a metre deep, and the howls carry over it for miles, because the water takes the howl and the water gives the howl back. The kin keep the dens in a line along the water's edge, and the line is the village, and the village is the howl.
Appearance
It has the body of a wolf and the hands of a man and the face of neither, and the whole of it reads as a conifer that has stood up and decided to walk. It stands 1.90 m upright and carries 110 kg, the male a head broader in the shoulder than the female, and the mane runs dark umber over the body, grey-ash along the flank and the jaw, and bone-white down the chest, so the coat reads as the water's own edge, where the dark tree meets the pale foam. The ears are tall and close, and the eyes are amber and set low in the face, and the one mark of the kin is the carving-marks on the forearms, the scars of the oak doors, taken the way a sailor takes his rope-burns.
Behaviour
It is pack-creature by the promise, not by the blood: a wolf-man joins the pack by an oath sworn at the oak door, and the oath is the pack, and the oath outlives the blood, so a stranger can be kin and a kin can be a stranger. It keeps the promise at any price, and the keeping is the behaviour, and the behaviour is the howl. It is patient in the water the way the water is patient, and it does not bark, it howls, because the bark is one voice and the howl is the whole of the line. When the howl goes up over the fen it is not a warning so much as a count, the pack counting itself, and the count is the only census the fen has ever kept.
Natural Weapons & Defenses
The fang is the wolf's and the fist is the man's, and the two together are the kin's own, taken from the best of both and none of neither. The forearms are thick as a conifer's branch, the carving-marks in them a second hide, and the grip of the kin can hold a deer's neck under the black water without the water knowing. Its defence is the water and the dark: a metre of standing water under a black conifer sky, and an intruder who cannot read the water is lost before the howl is answered. Against the promise it has no defence at all, and the promise knows this, because the promise is the only thing the kin cannot bite.
Magic Alignment
It answers to Korrath, the Fang, the god of the teeth, and the alignment is not a faith so much as a sharpening: the kin sharpens itself on the fang the way a stone sharpens itself on the river, and the sharpening is the prayer. The howl is the rite, and the rite is the count, and the count is the keeping of the promise. When Korrath's name is spoken the pack howls once, and the once is the whole of the liturgy, and the liturgy is complete. The fen's own dead are not buried but given to the water, and the giving is the burial, and the water keeps what the earth will not.
Society
The society is the line of oaks along the water's edge, and the line is the law: the eldest oak keeps the eldest kin, and the eldest kin keeps the count, and the count is the whole of the office. A wolf-man who breaks the promise is not punished, it is un-hewn, its oak door carved shut and its name taken out of the count, and the un-hewn one walks the fen alone until the howl answers it or the fen takes it. The pack has no leader so much as a count, and the count is kept by the eldest, and the keeping is the leadership. Two packs along the water's edge keep each other's count, and the keeping is the only treaty the fen knows.
Culture & Lore
The lore of the kin is that the first wolf-man was the fen's own howl, given a body by the rot, and the hollow oaks are the first dens, carved by the first hands, and the carving is the culture, because the kin carves everything it loves: the doors, the beds, the names, and the promise, which is carved into the door-lintel the day a stranger swears it. The Fen-Owl that nests in the highest oak is the kin's own priest, and the owl does not howl, it listens, and the listening is the kin's own scripture. The howls carry for miles, and the miles are the culture, because the fen is the only place where a howl can be heard from the far shore, and the hearing is the whole of the civilisation.
Home
Its home is Howling Fen, the vast conifer forest of standing water and hollow oaks, where the trees are carved into dens and the howls carry for miles. The fen is not a country so much as a count, the count of the oaks, the count of the kin, and the count of the howls, and the count belongs to the kin. The standing water is the fen's own floor, and the floor is the village, and the village is the howl.
Relations
It is of the Wolf Men of the fen, and the Wolf Men are the furred forest-kin of the conifers, and the kin are the fen and the fen is the kin. The Fen-Owl is the priest, and the High-Fang Wolf of the dry ground beyond the fen is a neighbour and a warning, because the dry ground has no promise and no howl. To the Howling Fen it is the howl that answers, and to the howl it is the oak that answers back, and the answering is the only law the fen knows.
In the Story
The story of the six has reached the fen by the howl: one of them heard the howl from the far shore and stopped, and the stopping was the hearing, and the hearing was the answer. The kin has counted the stranger in its own way, not by the blood but by the promise, and the promise of the story is the one the six made when they came through. What the fen keeps of the story is the howl that went up the night they arrived, and the miles it carried, and the shore it reached.