Corazon Bitefinder

Corazon Bitefinder is a Bone Gnawer Homid that helped lead the exodus of Bone Gnawers to the New World during the Age of Exploration.

Overview

Born to a Portuguese fisherman in the late 15th century, Corazon Bitefinder loved the sea since his birth. Granted, he was somewhat dismayed when his mother tried to drown him, but his father was even more surprised when he survived. From that moment on, he lived a charmed life, despite capsized boards, tough seas, and even the occasional attack of Wyrm-spwaned sea monsters. With each generation that has told the tale of Bitefinder, hi life story has grown to epic proportions.

From any early age, Corazon rowed out to sea with his father to catch fish, immediately displaying an uncanny knack for finding them. Although unschooled in the ways of spirits, he amused his father with songs that practically called the day's catch into the boat. His mother, on the other hand, was horrified at such an unnatural talent. Some months, she would insist that the bought had learned the black arts of witchcraft. In other months, she claimed that the boy's real father was an incubus who had seduced her in the night. In truth, the boy's mother did not know she was Kinfolk. She never spoke of the boy's real father, and had always been reticent to tell of the shameful story of her own father, a salty old pirate who died shortly after spawning her.

Unable to endure his mother's abuses and insanity, Corazon set out to sea on a fishing vessel at the age of 14. From that moment on, he became a legendary "Jonah" known throughout the Garou Nation. Every vessel he set sail on met with catastrophe, yet somehow, the sea always threw Corazon back. On his fifth and final voyage, Bitefinder underwent his First Change, an event that led to widespread panic on his ship and the eventual death of all hands on deck.

A Kin-Fetch dispatched two generations earlier revealed this remarkable boy to a local stomping ground a Portuguese Bone Gnawers down by the docks of Lisbon. The elders insisted that the boy never set sail to sea again. Instead, he was enlisted to use Gifts to catch food for the poor and needy humans and homids the tribe cared for. By the time he was eighteen, Corazon was ready to set sail again anyway, whether the elders liked it or not.

Then, in 1540, one of the greatest events of the tribe's history took place: the Great Piping of Lisbon. Hidden from watchful eyes, and masquerading as a colorful feast of fools, Bone Gnawer elders came across Europe to speak of voyages to the New World. The elders knew that many other supernatural creatures, from Leeches to Black Spirals, also hungered to exploit this new continent. Accordingly, at the early stages of the Piping, there were few volunteers for such a great Exodus.

The tribal elders laughed when Corazon Bitefinder insisted that he scout out the New World himself by sneaking aboard the next shop bound for America. While his courage was admired, his reputation for sinking every ship he had sailed aboard preceded him. Outraged, Corazon set out to prove them all wrong, determined to break whatever curse he had inherited. A pack of Bone Gnawer sailors then volunteered to follow his lead, eager to win glory and reputation, and nervous about not surviving to claim such accolades.

Corazon was miserable throughout the first few months of the journey. The Bone Gnawers had used their spiritual Gifts (like Blur of the Milky Eye) to stow aboard, and used other Gifts (like Cooking) to sustain themselves by eating discarded fish parts, stewed wood from the cargo hold and oakum. When their morale was at their lowest, Corazon stepped sideways onto the deck to remined himself what he was fighting for. He witnessed the spiritual reflection of the open seas - a sight that always lifted his spirits - and the monstrous Wyrm creature that was about to devour the ship. In a great and terrible conflict, Corazon's pack fought off the beastie in an epic swashbuckling battle with belaying pins, crates of cargo, thick ropes, and sharpened claws. As the tale is told, Corazon finally leapt into the water in Crinos form to stab the beast though the heart with the ship's anchor. Whether this fish story is true remains a manner of much debate.

Nonetheless, Corazon Bitefinder returned from the New World two years later, with stories of the vast wilderness that awaited the tribe's cubs and cliath. As one Galliard put it, if Bitefinder could survive the journey, he was sure that any Bone Gnawer could. Confident that Bitefinder's ships were no longer sinking, Rat's brood swarmed aboard them. The fisherman's son personally helped over a hundred Garou from his tribe make the journey to the New World, and led the way for an entire generation of American Bone Gnawers.

References

This article is issued from Whitewolf. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.