The Werewolf Riots of 1942

Also known as the Lunatic Cry of 1942, the Werewolf riots were darkest days of Wolf-Kind, when the vast majority of European Werewolves Lost themselves to bloodlust and rampaged across Europe and the Americas, slaughtering thousands of innocent people and stalling the advance of both the Axis and Allies during World War II. Considerable resources has to be dedicated to stopping the rampage.

By the time the event was over, nearly half a million civilians lost their lives and almost 90% of all European Werewolves were killed by various armed forces across the world, decimating their power in sich a manner that they never fully recovered.

The consequences of the event were widespread, causing the Axis to lose one of their biggest allies in the war, and allowed the Allies to gain a foothold in parts of Central Europe previously thought impossible just a few months earlier.

In the year 1942, the second World War was already well under way. Major fronts of the war included western and Eastern Europe as well as various theaters in Africa and the Pacific. The was up to this point was mostly fought by pure humans.

The Vampire Clans, being in an uneasy peace with each other, refused to enter the war. The Anagi Clan of Tenerife and the Gala Clan of Aragon stayed neutral because Spain was. England tried unsucessfully to get the Bloodthorns and Hawthorns to join the war, going so far as to confiscate their land holdings and detain their leadership. The Dragon Clan of Wallachia was an Ally of Germany, and assisted with invading the Soviet Union, but refused to fight on any other fronts. The Lukas, the Raman, the Strixia, and dozens of other minor clans stayed neutral. Very few enlisted soldiers were vampires and even fewer were officers.

Then there were the Werewolves. The Vuka Clan of Eastern Europe was solidly an Axis Ally and was involved in the war on all fronts. The Wolfhelm Clan of Central Europe were allies with the Axis, but stayed neutral in the war because they were also allies with the Lobo and Garou Clans of Nothern and Southern France. Joining the Axis in the war would mean fighting them. They were in a thousand year blood feud with the Blaiddyn Clan of the British isles and would happily fight them, if the Axis could ever gain a foothold in England.

Elves and Dryads stayed neutral in the War, having barriers above their forest states to defend against allied and axis bombing runs. Elementals of various types were drafted into various armies, but didn't affect the war in a significant way, at least in the West. Demons and Celestials are forbidden from interfering with human wars and were forbidden from joining any human armies at the time, though they still attempted to influence both sides through various dealings.

The Vuka and Wolfhelm clans were both Axis allies, but they both also hated each other. The reason was that not only are they the two largest Werewolf Clans in the world, they also gain their power from the same Wolf God. All European Werewolves gain their power by drinking blood from the corpse of Leto - Goddess of Werewolves. Another name for her is Lukanthropis. The corpse of this goddess was kept in an sacred temple in the Swiss Alps, and similar to the country the body was kept in, the sacred temple was neutral ground to all Werewolf clans with no exceptions.

The Vuka wanted to get the Wolfhelms out of the picture, with aspirations of being the only Werewolf clan in all of Europe when the great war was over. In August 1942, the Vuka leadership approached the Germans with knowledge of a ritual that would grant them control over all European Werewolves. They backed this ritual up with historical examples from Roman times, when Hadrian performed the ritual to gain a Werewolf army to invade ancient England, and even further back in history when Agamemnon used the Werewolves to invade Troy.

The Germans had occult officers look over the ritual and the plan, noting how demonic the ritual was. They consulted their ally Mephistopheles in the Demon Realm about it. As the Demon Lord of Deals, they always told the truth, or at least a version of it, for the right price. Mephistopheles knew the true purpose behind the ritual, and how much chaos it would create. They claimed to have personally taught the ritual to King Agamemnon some three thousand years ago...

After collecting their payment (the souls of a million soldiers), Mephistopheles told the Germans what they wanted to hear, claiming that the ritual would in fact turn the Wolfhelms into servient dogs, who will attack on command. The German leadership in Berlin were quite interested after learning about this. They signed off on the operation, assigning several special units to retrieve the body fo the Wolf God.

On September 2nd, 1942, the body of Leto disappeared from the sacred temple. This threw the entire werewolf world into an uproar. On the full moon of September 24th, an emergency council of Wolf Lords was called and met in Switzerland. Every single leader of every European Werewolf Clan was assembled there, both major and minor.

As this happened, the Allies recieved communications that the Axis had retrieved the corpse of an ancient god and were performing a ritual on it in Feldberg, Germany. They connected the dots and realized what was about to happen. Commando units were immediately assembled and sent to the Black Forest to stop the ritual.

Led by Sergeant William York, this squad of American commandos quickly made their way through the dense forests until they got to the Feldberg Citadel. They broke through the fortifications and made it inside, but they were too late..

Heinrich von Dämmerung, the Nazi in charge here, had just performed the ritual. He drained the blood of a young maiden, Hilda Rosenrune, over the corpse of Leto and had cut open his own arm, offering his blood to the dead god as well. Hilda was the daughter of Klaus Rosenrune, the current leader of the Wolfhelm Clan. She had yet to undergo the ritual to turn into a full werewolf, where she would drink the blood of Leto.

The intention was that the mixing of this blood would grant Dämmerung control over all of the Wolfhelm clan until the next full moon. What he unintentionally did was far worse.

Leto was once the Goddess of Wolves, that demanded blood sacrifices from her followers. She demanded the sacrifice be a pure maiden and it be on every full moon. Unlike other gods, she couldn't sustain herself from drinking Ambrosia. Her blood wasn't Golden Ichor, but rather crimson. The infusion of blood kept her alive and kept her powerful. In return, she would grant her followers her own blood, which is where all European werewolves can trace their lineage.

At some point in the distant past, Leto was starved to death. Whether it was because her own followers overthrew her or another god did, it isn't known. Her followers still drank her blood to recieve her power. But What if this dead god isn't actually dead, and was just dormant? What if she was just waiting all this time for someone to offer her blood again?

Upon drinking the blood of this pure maiden, Leto, this terrible Goddess of Wolves, woke up. Heinrich von Dämmerung and the other Germans were understandably confused. Leto recognized immediately that none of them were her followers. she raised a single finger, immediately draining the blood of everyone near her, killing all the Germans instantly. This blood flowed into Leto, granting her additional power.

Sergeant York ordered his commandos to retreat and contact HQ. Even as they were several miles away, they heard a loud howl coming from Feldberg that chilled their souls. No one in York's squad has been able to look upon a dog since without feeling some sort of dread, even if the dog is a harmless puppy.

At midnight on September 24th, 1942, a wolf's howl was heard by every single person on Earth. This howl was so powerful and loud that it pierced the barrier between dimensions and could be heard in the Demon and Celestial realms. Somewhere, Mephistopheles was laughing, they never said who the werewolves would be serving!

Every single Werewolf that had previously undertaken the Bloodright of Leto was forever changed in this moment. Even if they were deaf, they could still hear the call of their lady and mistress. Leto had been dormant for almost two thousand years. She was in pain and was resentful about being starved for so long. Leto had only one order for her loyal followers after this....

So kill the werewolves did. Compelled by the orders of their goddess and struggling against them, they turned on anyone who was not one of them. They used their teeth and claws to tear everyone they came across to shreds. They shapeshifted into monstrous canines that rampaged across the countryside. Every clan of Werewolf in Europe turned feral and no one was safe from them

This occured everywhere on Earth where a European Werewolf was. In some lands where they numbered very few, their rage was contained rather quickly by local police forces. In other countries, it became much worse. Entire cities were destroyed and militaries that were supposed to be focused on a global war were instead fighting their crazed citizens.

Around Midnight October 10th, 1942, a unit consisting of commandos was assembled to raid the Feldberg Citadel, kill Leto, and free the Werewolves. A dozen squads were created consisting of various vampire clans, elves, and soldiers from America, England, and Greece. Intelligence reports had shown that Leto had yet to get the blood sacrifice of another maiden yet, and since it was a new moon, she should be at her weakest.

During this time, the Germans had built extensive foritifications throughout the Black Forest in an attempt to contain the goddess and the commandos had to fight through them first. Since the Germans had lost their werewolf allies, the area was mostly manned by humans without a bloodline, and were powerless against the vampires, who quickly ripped them apart.

After gaining access to the citadel, Leto was defeated after she was shot with arrows made of mistletoe and wolfsbane. It is not known who shot her with the arrows since no one from any unit was armed with a bow at the time. The Elven squad got to work sealing Leto's power, making her go dormant once again.

Then an argument started over what to do with the body. The Americans wanted it removed from Europe and taken back to the States to be experimented on. The British wanted it to be destroyed, somehow, even if it was 'divine'. The Vampires agreed that the body should be removed from Europe, but putting the body in the hands of the Americans was as bad it being in the hands of Germany, or Britain for that matter.

The squad of Anagi Vampires then made their move. They attacked the human soldiers, quickly incapacitating them. The Elves and other vampire squads had no desire to fight, allowing the Anagi to take Leto's body with them. The body was transported far to the Southwest of Europe, to the Canary Island of Tenerife. within a week, it was placed in a cell deep below the Anagi Castle on the top of Mount Teide.

Depending on the human nation of Vampire/Werewolf clan, the result of their actions with the Werewolf Riots had lasting consequences, many still felt to this day....

Defeating Leto did not stop the Lunatic Cry. Nearly all fully powered Werewolves still wanted to do the bidding of their goddess and only wanted to kill. Their urged would be greatest during a full moon, weakening and growing with the other phases. It took months, even years for the urge to go away in many people, but some were left with the effect permanently.

Each nation dealt with this in a different way. Most European nations passed laws forcing Werewolves to take periodic evaluations and if they were not under control of their urges, they were locked up for three days every lunar cycle.

America just outright locked them all up, whether they had the urge to kill or not. They were not willing to take a chance with any of them. This was also the reason that a Federal program was put in place to develop a cure. Multiple participants, willing and unwilling, were injected with various drug cocktails until an effective cure was found that fully suppressed the Wolven bloodline.

This cure was not effective in all Werewolves, so many that still had the urge to kill stayed locked up in prison-like asylums. Due to their long lifespans, many thousands of werewolves are still locked up like that to this day, forgotten about by the rest of the world.

Complicating matters was that young Werewolves still wanted to take the Bloodright of Leto, drinking Leto's blood and becoming fully powered. Older Werewolves, despite the madness, still want their bloodlines to continue and still encourage their children to do the ritual. If a young werewolf doesn't, then they eventually turn back into a normal human.

The problem is that the blood of Leto is now corrupted thanks to earlier events, and drinking it can forever have a chance of making a Werewolf go mad with bloodlust and have nothing more than a desire to kill. Many nations outlawed this practice, though literally all Werewolves ignored them. Leto's blood is still circulated around the world, and is still sourced directly from the dormant corpse of the Wolf Goddess, still imprisoned on Tenerife.