Editing Nobledark Imperium Xenos (section)

=== Fenrisian Wolves ===
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">'''''Homo sapiens fenrisiensis'''''

Leman Russ’ initial experiments with the Canis Helix on Fenris were, to put it bluntly, a complete disaster. Although the idea behind the Canis Helix was to augment the abilities of human soldiers with genes from other animals on Old Earth, the first trials went way too far and ended up producing creatures more beast than man. Russ was horrified by these first experiments, and tried to put the aspirants out of their misery. However, some of these experiments managed to escape and life in general has a funny way of surviving in places it’s not supposed to. Within a few generations, the harsh native ecosystem of Fenris was being dominated by a new, invasive predator. The people of Fenris may not be splice descendants, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any around.

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Most people who know the origin of the Wolves of Fenris often expect them to look like merely hairy humans, or at least something that can reasonably be described as humanoid. This is not the case. Your average Fenris Wolf weighs somewhere between 500 and 600 kilograms (over 1000 pounds), and has a skull nearly a meter in length. Fenris wolves will actually grow in size throughout their entire lives, which is thought to be an indicator of their super-soldier ancestry, artificial genes used to promote muscle and bone development being re-purposed for continuous growth. Their canine teeth have distinct knife-like edges, resembling a monkey more than a wolf, and their front limbs are disturbingly human-like with dexterous opposable thumbs despite primarily walking on all fours. The overall body shape of a Fenrisian wolf is more like a cross between a wolf, bear, and a lion rather than a straight wolf, allowing them to grapple with enemies or climb low branches in search of prey. There are some human traits remaining, such as their eerily human eyes with white sclera, but one would be hard-pressed to see them.

It’s not clear how intelligent the Fenrisian wolves really are. It is clear they are clever, moreso than any non-human organism on Old Earth, but the question is are they only intelligent as, say, [[Nobledark_Imperium_Imperial_Forces#Beastmen_and_Ogryn|Primeval Beastmen]] or are they really more intelligent than they appear and merely limited by their lack of ability to communicate. At the very least, the fact that Fenrisian Wolves are easily tamed, their tendency to adopt and raise human children lost in the woods as their offspring, and the fact who are capable of performing way more complex behaviors that an animal like a dog isn’t capable of suggests there is something going on in their brains. The Adeptus Biologicus would love to try to uplift the Fenris wolves back to sapience like the Beastmen and the Ogryn, but they’re worried any attempt to do so would blow back on the people of Fenris because of how genetically close the two are.

The people of Fenris venerate the Fenrisian wolf above all other creatures because out of all the animals on Fenris it alone represents all the virtues of man. Like humans, the Fenris wolf is clever, strong, brave, loyal, and stubborn, all at the same time. The fact that they behave this way because they are actually abhumans rather than actual animals is something that is either not well known among the people of Fenris or glossed over, especially since Leman Russ made sure that wasn’t common knowledge in the first place.

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