From this point on, legends differ. Some modern Galliards debate what exactly happened to the White Howlers to cause their fall. The various myths of the Tribes tell of messengers of all sorts arriving at Caerns around the world, each saying that the Howlers had found a path to the heart of the Wyrm itself. The exacts are lost to time, but the result is clear: For their numerous reasons, the Tribes did not or could not go to their aid, and the Fianna reported that no White Howler was found alive in their homelands. They mourned their cousin's loss and performed burial rites for the corpses they could find.
However, the consequences of the Nation's inactions would not be truly felt until the first members of a new Tribe crawled their way from the earth, and began to spread like a plague across the face of Gaia. The Wyrm had learned a new and terrible trick, the truth of which would become a nightmare for the other Gaian shifters: death was far from the worst fate the Wyrm could offer, and the mutated and corrupted husks of these former White Howlers was an undeniable proof. Even their Totems were not safe, as the once brave and true Green Dragon now fought as one of the greatest of the Wyrm's champions breathing noxious Balefire on his former allies.
To fight these new creatures was to fight an enemy the likes of which the Nation had never seen. They moved like Garou, acted like Garou, they knew their ways, their Gifts, and worst of all, their secrets. These creatures knew where to look for Gaian Caerns and how to destroy them, or worse, corrupt them and take them. Had they acted like any other army, perhaps the Nation could have organized to drive them off for good. But for as mad as some acted, others were far more crafty. They dug deep into the earth in dark spaces and multiplied faster than they could be killed. They infiltrated and worked to corrupt Gaian shifters from within, swaying new cubs to their side and tempting them to fall. It might have started with one ignored and forgotten Tribe, but to the Nation's shame, the Dancers' numbers now include families and bloodlines from all Tribes. While the numbers of the Nation lean on a downward trend, the Dancers' seem only ever to be increasing.
Organization
Black Spiral Dancers are organized into septs called Hives. Caerns where they raise their young are called Pits. Black Spiral Dancers have lived underground among foul and cancerous children of the Wyrm for centuries. Their Hives tend to be nestled amidst labyrinthine cave systems, hiding underground from even the most vigilant eyes. The heart of the Pit, where any true Caern would hold its Caern Stone, is instead marked by the noxious green glow of the toxic balefires kept constantly burning.
Tribal Culture
The Dancers have lived underground among horrors for ages, and all are quite insane; however, the Wyrm has given its slaves terrible powers of their own, as well as a violent hatred for the Garou. The average Black Spiral Dancer has a short and violent life, their goals bringing them into direct conflict with the remaining Garou tribes.
Black Spiral Dancers roughly resemble a mockery of other Garou; however, many of them are malformed, either through metis birth or close proximity to the radioactive balefires of the Wyrm. The heads of their Crinos forms are often huge and slaver-jawed, resembling a hyena's, while their ears are hairless and pointed like a bat's. Their eyes are huge and round, glowing with red or green luminescence, while their fur is filthy, gnarled or patchy and most commonly either dirty black or sickly greenish white. Only the occasional throwback with strong lineage to their former Tribe might still retain a pure white pelt. Black Spirals' human forms are usually twisted and deformed, but some are quite beautiful.
Political Culture
As a group, the Black Spiral Dancers blame all other Garou tribes for abandoning the White Howlers when they descended into the depths of the Earth and refusing to save them when it became clear that the future Black Spirals Dancers would find only madness there. While it is a rare Spiral that actually survives from those days, this belief does translate into who the dark tribe targets for recruitment; they will happily offer revenge to any werewolf who joins them.
The Black Spiral Dancers may revel in their uninhibited passions, but they are not without guidelines. The Dark Litany stands as a means of unifying the disparate Hives and spiritual allegiances into one consecutive Tribe.
In their arrogance, the Garou have written the Spirals off as puppets and handmaidens of the Wyrm, monsters more vicious and personal than Banes, but monsters nonetheless. This does not mean that Dancers are non-functional, however. Garou seem to think so because the most self-destructive Black Spirals are used as shock troops against Gaian packs and Septs. At their best, functional Spirals are cold and calculating psychopaths capable of infiltrating and subverting human society and even passing as Gaian.
The insidious truth is that the Black Spiral Dancers owe much of their existence to Gaia. It is through their connection to her that they may carry on the Wyrm’s war and the Wyrm’s mission even if the Wyrm ceases to matter.
Religious Culture
The Dancers' totem is Whippoorwill, whose mad call the Dancers emit during their hunts. They name themselves after a mysterious Labyrinth that exists in the realm of the Wyrm; they are said to "dance" this Black Spiral to gain dark powers and wisdom. Indeed, to dance the Black Spiral and survive is considered by the Black Spiral Dancers to be the most sacred of feats.
This "dance" is not the source of the Spirals' madness, though. Garou in the early days would try to rescue cubs of the Tribe from Hives in an effort to return them to Gaia. But as they learned, even if a black spiral cub is separated from its own kind, the werewolf's downward spiral into insanity is inevitable. Many Garou Tribes have thus come to the conclusion that it is better to kill and cleanse all they find there in an effort to return them to the cycle.
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