The Howling Keep of Pumori by Shabazik

The Village of Howls around the Howling Keep, under the rule of the werewolf chieftain Pumori White Fang, before the palisade of the perimeter was reeplaced by a stone curtain wall.

The Howling Keep

Around 2410, under the rule of Hel the Oathbreaker, the White Fang werewolf pack settled in an old abandoned castro in the border area of Mondwargh, Brûm and Polforia. She used the Keep as a base of power to reign over the lands of the White Fang, although her choice for the Howling Keep also was linked to her growing paranoia. Despite using the Keep as a fortified position, the pack did nothing to maintain it under Hel: part of the fortress walls were ruined, and much of the court and rooms were in a derelict state, making it unfit as a fortified defence position.

Following Hel's defeat in 2431, her successor and daughter Freya White Fang decided to retain the Howling Keep as a den for the pack. For a number of years, the Howling Keep was minimally maintained, only used for part of the year as a refuge.

The Founding of Howls

Around 2435, the White Fang permanently moved in to the Howling Keep, as trade with the neighbouring Kanov and Ozcura tribes increased, turning the Keep into a trading post. With the onset of the Second War of the Power, the Keep became an important military fortress as well as a trading post, and not only was the Keep itself expanded and rebuilt, but on the lands surrounding it a small settlement began to grow.  Especially the influx of slaves following the White Fang's involvement in the Fall of Roccasone led to a large-scale expansion of the settlement surrounding the Howling Keep.

Over the following years, as the War continued to wage in the West, the settlement around the Howling Keep continued to grow as both trade and troops flowed through the settlement. Many of the temporary structures from the early days of the settlement were either reinforced, extended or replaced by permanent structures, and slowly, the ramshackle collection of huts became an organised village.

Around 2445, the name Howls made its first appearance in an official document addressed to the city of Skallgard, when a request was made for the transfer of a large number of slaves for repairs to the Howling Keep itself, as well as for the construction of a stone defence wall around the settlement. A reluctant Laisha approved the transfer of a hundred human slaves, including, at the request of the White Fang, many children. Later documents sent from Howls to Skallgard report how most of the slaves died as a result of the hard labour regime they were submitted to, and how the few survivors were later executed for reasons of security after the completion of these works. A fierce flurry of accusations of foul play from Laisha against the White Fang's Alpha Pumori of the White Fang followed, countered by accusations from Pumori's side how the slaves provided by Laisha were of poor health, poorly skilled and undedicated to their task. Following this episode, the White Fang soon developped its own skills at building stone masonry, consisting of about a hundred specialised builders by 2450.

Demographics

Although nominally a White Fang settlement, Howls was a city with a very diverse population, consisting of numerous races and racial mixes.

During most of the year, the mayority of the Howls population was compossed of Kanovs, followed by minorities of elves, humans and  the rulers of Howls, werewolves. While was considered a werewolf city, due the werewolf habits, for most of the year they wandered in the territory of the White Fang, and only in special circunstances they will be the majority of the population.