Diana Rides-The-Storm

Breed: Homid
Auspice: Galliard ("Artisan" to the Black Furies)
Tribe: Black Furies
Rank: Cliath (1)
Nature: Explorer
Concept: University Student

 

Image

A young woman in her late teens, of average height and build, Diana has a mane of black hair surrounding a strong-boned face full of passion and vitality. Her eyes gleam like emeralds or flash like verdant lightning, depending on her mood. Her carriage is proud and erect, her manner direct and confident. She prefers to dress simply, in well-worn jeans, T-shirts, and a black leather jacket that fits her like a shell. Her adornment is minimal -- an emerald stud in each earlobe, and a bronze medallion stamped with a Pegasus on one side and a star and moon on the other, suspended from a leather thong (a gift from her mentor at the Sept of Gaia's Hand before she left for Seattle). Her Glabro form looks much like her Homid one, though her features are coarser and her body more muscular.

Her Crinos form is nearly eight feet of muscle covered in night-dark fur relieved only by an elongated diamond of silver stretching from her chin to her stomach. In lupus, she is a graceful she-wolf with jet-black fur and white "boots" on her limbs; her throat and belly fur is a silvery-white color. Her Hispo form is much like her lupus one, though larger and more imposing.

Background

Diana was born to a perfectly normal couple in upstate New York, and was the second of their three children. Unlike her sisters, who were even-tempered girls, she was an odd child, given to wild mood swings and haunting dreams. The only person she really connected with was her father, who shared her passion for the arts, but even there, she felt as though something were somehow missing.

When Diana was twelve, her father died in a car accident. A year later, her mother began dating a man from her office; less than a year after that, the two married. For a number of months, things were good, but then Diana's stepfather failed to get a promotion at work and began drinking heavily to assuage his depression. The alcohol detracted from his performance, and thus began a downward spiral of drinking and depression. He became more and more volatile, and began to take out his anger by verbally abusing his stepchildren. And on no one did his wrath fall more than on Diana. Perhaps due to this treatment, the girl became angrier and angrier at school, and she was suspended twice for fighting other students. Things might have been even worse, if it hadn't been for Ms. Cheryl Collins, the physical education teacher. She took Diana under her wing, and began teaching the girl the rudiments of the martial arts (as she held a brown belt in karate herself) in the hopes that it might rein in Diana's anger to some degree. This met with some success, and under Cheryl's care, Diana began to blossom.

Meanwhile, however, things were continuing to deteriorate at home. Diana's mother and sisters lived in fear of her stepfather's alcohol-abetted rages, which came on more and more frequently as the months went by. One evening, when Diana arrived home late from a night out with her friends, her stepfather was waiting for her. Deep in the grip of an alcoholic rage, he began berating her for not having called. More castigating followed, and when Diana's mother intervened, her husband silenced her with a blow. As she saw her mother fall, something snapped inside Diana, and a red haze clouded her vision. A shriek of fury exploded from deep within her, somehow transforming into a bloodcurdling howl as it left her throat.

When she came to herself again, her mother and younger sister were huddled in a heap in a corner of the room, and a mutilated lump of flesh lay on the floor in the middle of a congealing puddle of gore. Shuddering, she tore her eyes away, only to see that her own fingers were covered in red-brown stains, and more of them were splattered over what was left of her clothes.

As she stood there in mute shock, she heard a low voice softly call her name. "Diana – it's time to go." She whirled, to see Cheryl placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. Still very much in shock, she let herself be led from the house.

Cheryl took Diana to her apartment, where she explained to the girl that she was Garou – a werewolf – and a member of the Black Furies tribe, even as Cheryl herself was. Thus began Diana's education in the ways of Gaia's protectors.

Once she judged Diana ready, Cheryl took her charge to the Sept of the Hand of Gaia, where the young Fury's training intensified in preparation for her Rite of Passage. For the Rite, Diana was sent along with a pack made up of other cubs from the Sept of Gaia's Hand to retrieve a fetish labrys, a weapon of great power, from an Umbral Labyrinth. Along the way, they freed a Lune from its imprisonment in the Scar. In gratitude, the spirit helped them find the Labyrinth, and the pack found the center of the maze, defeated the labrys's guardians, and returned the labrys to the Sept of Gaia's Hand.

The pack returned to the sept to be acclaimed as full members of their respective tribes, and Diana, her heart swelling with pride, heard for the first time her Garou name – Diana Rides-the-Storm, Artisan of the Black Furies. With the gibbous moon casting her silvery light on the assembled Garou, Diana told the tale of her packmates' brave deeds during the Rite to the sept, and the experience filled her like nothing else.

Leaving her mother and sisters saddened her, but Cheryl promised Diana that the tribe would see to their care, and soon the young Galliard found herself with more and more responsibilities among her new family. She learned the proud history of both the Garou and her own tribe, and worked very hard to memorize the songs and lays that were required knowledge for all the children of the gibbous moon.

Diana is currently attending the University of Washington, majoring in English and Creative Writing. Her hope is to use her training in writing along with her natural ability as an Artisan to help her craft stories that will be told at Garou moots for generations to come.


Follow these links to read Diana's journal entries!
Here are tales told by Diana at the Moots of the Sept of the Caverns.
Diana's character sheet
Follow this link to see a picture of Diana!

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This web page is copyright © 2001 by Midori Hirtzel-Church. Werewolf: The Apocalypse and all breed, auspice and tribe names are copyright © 1994 by White Wolf Game Studios; no copyright infringement is intended.

This page last revised -- November 12, 2001