Denver (CofD)

Beginnings

War with the Utes

After Russell’s discovery of gold in 1858, the Colorado territory was flooded with all manner of gold miners, all of them hoping to strike it rich. Neither the Utes nor the Arapaho wanted these trespassers tearing up their land, so they fought back, only to be brought to heel by the United States Army over a period of some 20 years. Both sides took casualties, but eventually in 1881, the Utes were removed to reservations, their culture nearly destroyed.

The preceding account raises the question as to the degree of Uratha involvement. Indeed, newly changed werewolves learning their history for the first time wonder if the tribes were represented among the indigenous people and whether the newcomer People fought against them or stood by their own. A few sad facts survive this period.

War on Wolves

With the Utes and the Arapaho pacified, the settlers now dominating Colorado’s wilderness turned their attention to another thorn in their side: the Rocky Mountain timber wolf. It took awhile, but their efforts paid off. The last wolf in Colorado was killed in 1943, near the Platoro reservoir in Conejos county. This is as much as humans know, at any rate.

The hidden truth of the matter is a bit more complicated. As one might expect, the People had many different thoughts on the issue. Urban packs, particularly those who followed the ways of Red Wolf, thought the demise of the wild wolves was unfortunate, but ultimately not their concern. They had no direct connection to the wolves, after all, and that meant the wolves’ loss was not an assault on the Uratha per se. By contrast, many Hunters in Darkness packs had a much more primal connection with the wolves, and they did everything in their power to keep the animals around. As the wolves masked the Hunters’ movements.

When the Hunters saw that they could not destroy the humans who hunted their lupine charges, they instead went underground, hiding their packs so that the humans could not find them. Their gambit worked. For 60 years and more, the wolves have flourished in the Colorado wilderness, remaining today as an example of all that the Uratha can be when they walk as wolves.

Railways and Iron Horses

To no one’s great surprise, the gold rush that began in 1858 wound up being a bust. Most people didn’t find the riches they were hoping for, and that meant Denver was in real danger of becoming a ghost town. Fate seems to have other plans, though, because in 1868 John Evans and David Moffatt formed the Denver Pacific Railroad, which hooked up with Cheyenne, Wyoming in the north and the Kansas Pacific Railroad in the east. Tributaries of this railway eventually opened up western Colorado to mining and settlement.

Not surprisingly, a fair number of Iron Masters rode along in the railway wars and the rail barons’ agenda ruled the day for decades thereafter. Unfortunately, the rails had an altogether different significance for other supernatural creatures, and the Uratha’s failure to recognize this fact still haunts them to this day. For example, the Azlu used the railways as a means of strengthening the wall between walls. While conversely, the railways seem to scratch the Beshilu’s fevered instincts in quite another way. For reasons that they likely never understood themselves, the Rat Hosts have seemed to grow more maddened and irrational when in the presence of a railway or train. Nobody knows precisely what it is about the iron roads that stirs up the interests of the Hosts in this way. In fact, few werewolves even realize that it’s happening at all.

The Coming of the Vampires

Gurdilag

The Brethren War

War for Denver

The Shattered City

Separate Paths

The Present