Snaka's Rebellion

Little is known of the stories of Snaka’s rebellion, so tangled the tale has become - it changes with each telling and no one is quite sure where it began or what version is true. The most common version of the tale is as follows.

A wolf named Snaka was born alpha pup of his pack, but was thrust into the alphaship at a young age when his parents were both killed in a bitter territory war between their pack and another, the pack of an old wolf named Cal. Snaka, young and nervous, led his pack in the war best he could, devoting himself to K’jal and praying to the god constantly, believing battle-god Vinneru to be a weak and insignifigant god.

Meanwhile, Cal’s pack had devoted themselves almost entirely to Vinneru, who respected K’jal to a degree but believed the golden god to be weak in comparison with the great Vinneru.

Both gods were flattered by the devotion and repaid them by appearing before their alphas, offering guidance and assistance. Vinneru offered the wolves of Cal’s pack stamina, enduranced, sharpened claws and fangs - and they became much stronger, almost invincible.

K’jal conceded that he could not offer Snaka’s pack such strength but, instead, taught them of courage and showed them truth - a truth that they could change what they saw, that they could master the elements and themselves, and be invincible.

This truth, in fact, was magic, or the Gift.

In next battle of the war was bitter. While Vinneru’s mighty wolves ripped apart many of K’jal’s wolves, K’jal’s wolves felled their opponents with the power of elements - hail flew from the sky, a fire errupted in the forest, wolves turned invisible as they attacked, and healers cured the wounded.

K’jal’s wolves won the battle, but the war was not over. Vinneru discovered the Gift himself and taught it to his wolves while K’jal’s wolves became stronger. The war lasted fifty years but, in the end, Cal surrendered and K’jal’s wovles were victorious.

Snaka’s pack called it “Snaka’s triumph” and offered their eternal gratitude and loyalty to K’jal.

Vinneru couldn’t stand it. He was the battle-god, after all, and K’jal had gained what he saw as an unfair advantage early on. If Vinneru had known of this Gift before, why, he surely would have triumphed over Snaka’s sniveling wolves!

So furious he became that he manifested before the wolves, errupting into a snarling rage. “So you rebel against your war god, your battle-god, and make it out to be a triumph! I tell you, you shall regret ever daring to rise against me. I hereby banish you into the wastelands beyond, where you shall reside, as well as your children and grandchildren and generations after that! I shall steal the Gift from you, and you shall regard Snaka’s rebellion as the wolves’s darkest times.”

And Vinneru chased not only Snaka’s pack, but all of the wolves, into the wastelands, snarling and snapping and leaving a wall of fire in his wake.

K’jal heard this commandment and could not overrule it - Vinneru was a god, too. But after a fifty-year sufferage in the wastelands, allowed them to find a small bit of hope - an ocean, a forest, some grasslands. The wolves believed they had found it on their own, but it was only because of K’jal’s will.