Category:Lodge of Death CofD

Patron Tribe: Bone Shadows
Patron Spirit: Hithethal-Us, the Spirit of the Ashes of the Dead
Nicknames: Ash Wolves, Barghests, Pale Hounds

A mighty Ithaeur had fallen, struck down by a spirit as he tried to bind it into a fetish. His pack put him on a pyre, and the flames rose high into the mountain air. Many of the People came to mourn and pay their respects. But only the Pale Hounds remained to watch the last of his bones burn.

Those of the Lodge of Death feel that the greatest mystery lies not in the howls of the Cahalith or some pocket of the Shadow, but in the inevitability of the grave. What lies beyond the veil of death is a question that humans and werewolves alike have tried to answer — unsuccessfully — for thousands of years. All humans have to go on is faith in a few dubious stories of tunnels of light, but the Uratha have the testimony of the spirits.

The Lodge of Death hunt ghosts, the undead, and those who would live beyond their allotted time. All things must die, adherents say, and those who cannot (or will not) pass on inevitably bring imbalance should they linger too long. Barghests, therefore, take it upon themselves to track down such restless shades and send them off to what lies beyond.

Many adherents flock to the Lodge out of sheer morbid curiosity. They want to know death, to better understand their own time among the living and make the most of it, and to know what their own funerals might look like. Others have lost relatives and wish to know that they have passed safely on or wish to pick their brains for knowledge thought lost forever. Some even join after they have lost family, lovers, or friends. They wish to find them and ensure that they are safe or are otherwise put to rest. Still, others regard death as the ultimate test of mettle and courage. A werewolf who does not fear their own death is a truly dangerous foe.

Not all members of the Lodge of Death join with benign goals, however. Ghosts cannot, as far as most werewolves know, be bound into fetishes, or affected by most rites. Furthermore, human ghosts exist in a state of Twilight, similar to a spirit that has crossed the Gauntlet and found a source of Essence to sustain itself. Werewolves of the Lodge of Death wonder how such ghosts maintain themselves since they do not seem to gain Essence the same way natural spirits do and wonder if Uratha could learn to take spiritual sustenance in the same way.

As a Tribal Pillar of the Bone Shadows, it is no surprise that the bulk of the Lodge is comprised of Hirfathra Hissu. Many Iron Masters can be found in a number of schisms, though, as they inevitably face ghosts, vampires, and other forms of walking dead while mingling with the human herd. One such schism recruits from the Blood Talons, training its members on how to fight those of their kind that have been twisted by the power of death.

Members of the Lodge of Death approach their work in different ways. Some spend their time conversing with ghosts, searching out haunts and trying to find ways to follow ghosts into whatever rewards await. Other members search the Hisil for places associated with death, speaking with conceptual spirits of murder, starvation, disease, and other methods of demise. A few take a darker course, though. Death is regarded as pivotal, even sacred, and they would seek to observe (or even bring it about) whenever the opportunity presents itself. Hence, there have been many instances of one dying with a Pale Hound as a witness, whose eyes are the last thing he sees as they look for answers in his last breath.