The Lycan Raids of 8752 SE were a coordinated series of attacks in and around Elgaard carried out by lycanthropes associated with the Moon’s Shadow. The raids were organized by Ronin Meruvis at the direction of Luther Mortanas, whose influence in northern Patoris had already brought him into violent conflict with the Brass Blades.
The immediate objective Mortanas hoped to accomplish through the raids is not clearly preserved in surviving accounts. Their political significance is less uncertain. The attacks revealed that Mortanas could draw upon an organized supernatural criminal network to destabilize Elgaard while remaining separated from the violence himself, and they became part of the sequence of events through which his influence in the city was eventually broken.
The Moon’s Shadow
The organization that became the Moon’s Shadow began in 8732 SE, when Ronin Meruvis was hired to deal with wererats living in the sewers beneath Elgaard. Rather than destroying them, Meruvis befriended the lycanthropes and became their leader.
Over the following two decades, the Moon’s Shadow developed into a persistent criminal presence within Elgaard. Its lycanthropic membership gave the organization capabilities that conventional guards and investigators were poorly equipped to counter, while Meruvis proved willing to work with politically powerful patrons when doing so benefited his position.
By 8752 SE, Meruvis had entered into an alliance with Luther Mortanas. Mortanas was an ancient vampire with extensive experience in politics and manipulation, and his influence had already touched several of the people and institutions surrounding Elgaard.
Mortanas and the Brass Blades
The Lycan Raids occurred during an existing conflict between Mortanas and the Brass Blades. In 8751 SE, the Blades became involved in events surrounding the Ariessus family after Brenton Woolfe and Darieth Ariessus brought a contract to Davrek Valzorwyn. Mortanas’s influence over those events ultimately contributed to the deaths of most of the Ariessus family and the near-destruction of the Brass Blades themselves.
Surviving members and associates of the organization scattered. Bozas Dask, who had served as the Blades’ spymaster, went into hiding, as did Zackon Truehelm. Both later returned when the organization began rebuilding under Davrek and Phelps.
The raids of the following year therefore did not begin an entirely new conflict. They took place while Mortanas and the surviving Brass Blades were already maneuvering against one another and while Elgaard’s political and criminal institutions had become entangled with their struggle.
The Raids
In 8752 SE, Ronin Meruvis organized the attacks on Elgaard at Mortanas’s direction. Lycanthropes associated with the Moon’s Shadow carried out the violence, giving Mortanas access to attackers who could move through ordinary society more easily than an invading army and whose connection to him was not immediately obvious.
For the inhabitants of Elgaard, the raids created a different kind of threat from open warfare. Attackers could be difficult to identify before violence began, while the organization’s existing presence beneath and within the city gave it knowledge of routes and spaces unavailable to outsiders. Measures intended to secure the city could therefore interfere with ordinary life without guaranteeing that the attackers had actually been excluded.
The raids also demonstrated how far the Moon’s Shadow had developed from the small group Meruvis first encountered in the sewers. By the time Mortanas called upon the organization, it was capable of participating in a coordinated campaign whose consequences extended well beyond ordinary theft, smuggling, or protection rackets.
Meruvis Turns on Mortanas
The alliance between Ronin Meruvis and Luther Mortanas did not survive the conflict. After helping to orchestrate the raids, Meruvis turned against Mortanas and began cooperating with the Brass Blades.
The change did not transform Meruvis into a conventional ally of Elgaard’s authorities, nor did it erase the Moon’s Shadow’s responsibility for the attacks. Meruvis acted according to the interests of himself and his organization. Once continued loyalty to Mortanas appeared more dangerous than cooperation with his enemies, he chose survival over allegiance.
His cooperation nevertheless gave the Brass Blades an important advantage against Mortanas. Meruvis understood both the criminal environment of Elgaard and the network Mortanas had used to exert influence through intermediaries. The alliance helped the Blades undermine a patron who had previously been able to attack them while remaining protected by layers of political, social, and supernatural power.
Aftermath
The Lycan Raids became one episode within the larger dismantling of Luther Mortanas’s influence around Elgaard. They exposed the connection between Mortanas and the Moon’s Shadow while also contributing to the circumstances in which Meruvis abandoned his patron and aided the Brass Blades against him.
The Moon’s Shadow survived the change in allegiance. Its participation in the raids did not end its existence as an organization, and Meruvis remained capable of adjusting its relationships according to changing political circumstances. That survival distinguished the group from many of Mortanas’s other instruments: the organization responsible for carrying out much of the violence was able to separate its future from the patron who had ordered it.
For the Brass Blades, the conflict formed part of the period in which the organization recovered from its near destruction in 8751 SE. The rebuilt company emerged from the struggle with new allies, restored connections, and a growing role in events far beyond Elgaard. Within a year, many of those same figures would be drawn into the sequence of crises that culminated in the Harrowing.