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A
Man for the Making
 The
House of Vrdoljiak [ver-DOL-lee-yak] was founded
when Václav Yellow-Eye, second son of
Matej Thunder-from-the-East, won the right to name, title and land by
sword and claw. They were a line of wolf kings and mountain lords,
once counted amongst the greatest of Shadow Lord families. The
Vrdoljiaks ruled atop the highest mountains of East Europe, and though
never blessed with fertility - not once did a generation see more than
three children trueborn - they were blessed with valor, cunning and
might. Seventeen generations of Vrdoljiak entered twenty-one names
into the Silver Record, fallen heroes remembered for all the ages to
come.
For six hundred years, Vrdoljiak banners flew untattered through snow
and storm. Their name rang across Caerns and vampire havens alike,
respected in one, hated in the other, and always feared. Some say
it was the venom of an ancient vampire lord's dying curse that undid the
family; some whisper it was the jealousy of their brethren and rivals.
Either way, the tenuous thread of blood ran thinner and thinner with
passing ages. Three trueborn every generation became two, then
one. Finally, the line of succession snapped.
It has been five generations since the Vrdoljiaks bore a Garou child.
The last Vrdoljiak hero fell nearly a hundred fifty years ago, and their
last warrior nearly a hundred. Their kin have drifted to every
corner of the world, bred as they willed, and scattered. As the
Apocalypse draws near, the young have forgotten and the old have passed
on. The family is on the brink of extinction.
Until now. Until Konrad.
In the July of 1980, a Vrdoljiak who kept true to the old ways finally
sired a child that the Theurges named truebred. Bearing their
precious burden, his parents returned to their ancestral homeland, where
the child was raised in the company of his kin and taught the ways of
his people. All the power and wealth of his family backed him:
young Konrad wanted for nothing. All the history and prestige of
his blood were laid upon him: he knew the Litany by heart by the time he
could walk, and knew the art of swordplay by the time he could run.
He learned the history of his proud blood and knew the path of his
destiny. There was never any doubt, any hesitation: the Vrdoljiaks
were heroes through the ages, and he would be the hero to bring them
into the Apocalypse.
On his thirteenth birthday, he was deemed ready to face the world.
He returned to the United States, where he had been born, and returned
to a seminormal life to await his Change. Meanwhile, his family
began to press him into increasingly trying situations in an attempt to
spur it on. Yet the curse of his  family's
weak blood still lingered, and his Wolf resist every attempt to draw it
out. His fifteenth birthday passed, and then his eighteenth, and
then his twentieth. His parents began to despair. He didn't.
His First Change came upon him in his twenty-first year. It came
without warning, without design. There were no dreams, no visions.
One moment he sat reading a book; the next, the call of his blood
suddenly became too strong to ignore. He staggered to his window,
threw open the drapes and the panes, and beheld the moon of his birth.
Sweatdrenched, his heart pounding, his head hammering, Konrad fell to
his knees and clasped his head with his hands.
He felt claws against his scalp.
He felt fur against his palms.
His parents were overjoyed. His family was overjoyed. Konrad?
He expected it and, already knowing much of what a cub must learn,
passed through his First Year in a matter of months. Two,
precisely. He didn't need fostering, after all - what he needed
was a chance to go out into the world and claim his destiny. And
when his Rite of Passage was finished, his chance had come. He
would go forth and bring glory to his family again. He would be a
hero - any way, any how.
After all, to his people, the ends justify the means.
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