The Band of the Wolf

The histories and songs of Tellene contain innumerable heroes and bands of heroes who rise up throughout the ages. But there is one company in particular that appears in a whole cycle of tales spanning centuries, if not millennia: The Band of the Wolf.

In truth, there is not just one Band of the Wolf, but many. The Band has come together to fight back the forces of darkness and Chaos, only for its members to die in glorious battle or to go their separate ways when their labors were completed, and then reappear a generation or a few centuries later of a new company of individuals completely unrelated to those who came before. Nevertheless, all know that there are not many bands, but one Band, always gathered together under a single Banner and bearing the silver, wolf-head dagger on their persons.

The Banner of the Wolf was woven in the dawn of the world by the Durvalk, in the days before their occultation. They knit it together of strands of sunlight and cords of blood on a loom of dragonbone, their skilled fingers crafting its weft of cunning spells and its warp of the blessings of the Creator. The Banner can neither be harmed nor destroyed, unless it be unraveled upon the very dragonbone loom on which it was made.

The Banner will always be found by a company, whether a cadre of paladins on quest or by a group of simple tomb-robbers seeking their fortunes. No one individual of the company is ever able to claim sole possession of it; it is always the fellowship's property. Those who find it, and those who ride under it, always have their lives changed, for the Banner never appears except when it is needed. When unfurled in battle, the Banner grants the benefits of a bless spell to all on its side.

The banner is usually found with one or more silver daggers with a distinctive wolf's-head pommel. The company will find themselves wishing to have enough for every member, and will seek out a dwarven smith to create enough for the company. And though the Adurek have lost much of their Art since the vanishing of the Durvalk, the making of the wolf's-head daggers is one that has been steadfastly passed from father to son.

The daggers are made of mithril, with ebony hilts, enchanted to afford a +1 to both attack and damage rolls, and doing double-damage to the undead. One who bears a dagger feels a subtle pull towards the Banner, and can always find it. This pull becomes urgent even to the point of a geas when the Band is in great need or as the Banner draws near to one of the great battles of the age. 

Though the Band of the Wolf is always destined to turn the tide of history, it is not always destined to do so for the better. Though Darryn Dracwn and his Band won many victories against the forces of darkness, in the end they were betrayed by the sorceress Aurora, also of the Band, leading to the fall of three of the Fhokki kingdoms and the Ban of the Doulathan. Nor does riding under the Banner guarantee victory, fame, and honor, as many a man resting in a shallow, unmarked grave can attest.