Croatan

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An extinct tribe of werewolves from Werewolf: The Apocalypse, the Croatan were one of the three werewolf tribes indigenous to the Americas prior to Europeans, until one of the Triatic Wyrms, The Eater-Of-Souls, attempted to physically enter the world and the Croatan sacrificed themselves to the last, metaphorically and literally, to banish the Eater-Of-Souls back to Malfeas. Their death resulted in a rift between the Uktena and the Wendigo.

The tribe is an homage to the legendary disappearance of the settler colony of Roanoke, where the only clue left to their fate was a tree with the word "Croatan" carved into the trunk.

So, what happened to them?

Simply put, the Columbian Exchange brought a horrendous number of diseases (smallpox, measles, whooping cough, bubonic plague, typhus, and the like) with it. Since the indigenous peoples lacked any resistance to this, things swiftly went to hell as countless numbers of Native Americans caught these new sicknesses and began to die faster than a Vampire in sunlight; this included a number of Croatan Kinfolk and maybe even some of the Garou. The damage was compounded further as the European settlers (Garou and otherwise) began to colonise their lands, sometimes by force and almost always to the disadvantage of the natives.

Already a severe blow, shit really hit the fan as all the death, disease, starvation and other Wyrm-y goodness began to thin the Gauntlet between the Umbra and the real world. One of the Wyrm's tripartite heads, Eater-of-Souls (who's exactly as nice as the name implies, trying to eat literally fucking everything to restore the universe's balance) promptly took advantage of this and started drawing power from all of the foulness occurring there. This eventually powered EoS up to the point where it breached the Gauntlet outright and manifested in the real world - specifically, in the colony of Roanoke.

Needless to say, this was a massive "Oh FUCK!" moment for everyone in the Americas, Pure Tribe and Settler alike. Recognising that shit was fucked, no-one else was going to get there in time, and that EoS would likely set off the apocalypse if allowed to keep feeding on the dying souls, the entirety of the Croatan tribe decided to get shit done.

They essentially pulled what the White Howlers did centuries ago (albeit with much greater planning and better results), charging into the colony and enacting a great rite as they did so. The exactly details are spotty, but by the time the dust settled, Eater-of-Souls had fucked off back into the Deep Umbra to lick its wounds and resume stewing in its own hunger, pretty much saving the Americas and probably the rest of the world from being eaten by a hangry dragon. However, it came at horrific cost: the Croatan were completely wiped out (souls, bodies, and all) to the point where their Kinfolk can no longer bear Garou children, their fetishes were rendered inert or defunct, and their totem (Turtle) fell into a deep coma.

This also had consequences for the relationships between the other Garou tribes, Pure and otherwise: many Wendigo actually wanted to sacrifice themselves along with the Croatan, only to be held back by the Uktena, who felt the Wendigo would be needed to fight other threats in the future. The Wendigo are still horribly salty over this to the present day, feeling that the Uktena's meddling screwed the Croatan over and that they might have been saved if the damn tricksters hadn't intervened. They do, however, have a degree of unity in hating the European Garou's guts - both tribes have a great deal of resentment toward their Old World cousins for bringing the Wyrm to their homeland and ultimately necessitating the sacrifice of the Croatan. Ironically, the Croatan themselves were trying to play nice with the Europeans and promote unity, as per the original Croatan tribe accepting white refugees from the lost colony who married into the tribe, and some Europeans participated in the great ritual that drove off the Eater of Souls.

The Garou Tribes
Black Furies	Bone Gnawers	Bunyip	Children of Gaia	Croatan	Fianna	Get of Fenris	Glass Walkers
Red Talons	Shadow Lords	Silent Striders	Silver Fangs	Stargazers	Uktena	Wendigo	White Howlers