In the World of Darkness, Lycans have walked among humanity for as long as humans have existed. They can blend into human civilization. They are natural predators at heart, and people can sense as much on an instinctive level. In his  heart, a Lycan is a creature of both human and wolf nature, but it is neither fully.

 

Lycan society is older at its core than any human culture. Many of its traditions date back to a time before agriculture, ' before the first humans settled Australia, and even before history as we know it. They have managed this amazing longevity while keeping their true nature a secret from humanity by two means: oral tradition and keeping of the secret or their nature.

 

To the Lycan, the past is a living thing. They keep tales of their ancestors alive, retelling them at gatherings to inspire the latest generation to strive for similarly heroic deeds. The laws laid down millennia ago are learned and recounted by each generation until every Lycan knows them by heart. By keeping all their lore alive in an oral tradition, the Lycan have retained a sense of continuity that binds each generation to the next.

 

The world of Lycan is not human, although it resembles the human world in many ways. Externally, little differs between the two. The established institutions, personalities and attitudes of the human world are still there. This world is one of extremes. Vast expanses of untamed wilderness punish intruders with feral brutality. Cities hide things the human world does not dare suspect. From the streets of major metropolises to the secret places of the wild, horrific creatures stalk unseen, preying on the innocent and the weak. This is a world where the Lycan must watch and guard and maintain a fine balance.

Any lycan can try to live among them, but modern cities are cold and alien places, vast and sterile. Lycans are aware of sinister things lurking in the shadows, horrible creatures mankind simply does not understand . . . or even recognize. The presence of the unnatural awakens their most feral instincts. No matter how civilized human cities may seem, foul things dwell in the darkness. A Lycan may escape into the natural world, but that realm has also been dying steadily. Thanks to ecological devastation, the wilderness is shrinking. As the lycans are keenly aware, the number of wild wolves on the planet is decreasing rapidly. Hated and feared by average folk, the wolf is a villain in children's stories, a menace to farmers and fair game for hunters. Only in Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia can wolves be found in their natural habitat. In light of this Lycans often live on big refuges where they encourage nature to flourish often being a haven for their four footed brothers.

 

For lycans, the most dangerous hunting grounds are in the cities, for nothing in them is what it seems. Most lycans openly despise the major metropolises as cancerous tumors on the flesh of the world. Even the human inhabitants find them bleak. Hunting in a city requires great caution, for the quarry is often devious and deadly.

 

A wulf is as out of place in a concrete wasteland. The smells are all wrong, the logic of the streets is twisted, and natural laws warp and mutate. In the cities of mankind, lycans sense strange activity everywhere. Making the need for caution whenever they leave the relative safety of the wilderness.

 

The wild is more than just an expanse of tangled forests, stagnant swamps and windswept plains. Humanity's morality does not always apply there. The primal wild is a realm of mysteries, especially to the unprepared. Great lumbering beasts stalk the night, as they have for thousands of years, and only lycans have the courage to face them. Rural towns exist on the fringe of civilization, filled with sullen, insular and mistrustful citizens. Humans there are filled with superstition and fear . . . and with good reason. Memories of a far more primitive world lurk deep within the human subconscious. While these fears can never be dredged up entirely, wandering into the untamed wilderness stirs up distant reminders of a lost and terrible age. Even the lycans do not understand all the secrets of the wild. Strange events take place away from watchful eyes, and nature is often cruel to those who try to steal her secrets. The Earth, Gaia, is not always loving and gentle. Some places are taboo, and fools who seek them out do not return.

 

In ancient times humans did not fear their wulf neighbors, they understood the reason for their sheppards as they moved through the world and often had a symbiotic relationship with the Lycans. Then man grew tired of wandering and started to settle and grow in numbers unnatural. The leaders desired to cull the human numbers back to keep them from being comfortable in one place as they had in the earlier days of lycan history. In the beginning days the great wulves argued and fought among themselves until they reached a compromise known as the Concord. Both wolves and men would have to live together in the same world, but clearly humanity no longer wanted to be protected by the Garou. The lycans agreed to maintain their own society separate from the world of men. The result was the Western Concordiat, a civilization thriving deep within the wilderness. The age of protection came to an end, and human history began. The lycans faded into the shadows, becoming mere legends.

Since the end of the protection, they have remained a myth, a reminder of a distant past mankind dares not remember. Under the right circumstances, the very sight of a lycan is enough to conjure primal memories of fear and bloodshed. Thus, the lycans have stayed hidden throughout human history. The demarcation between the cities and the wilderness remains, separating two very different worlds.

 

Because legends of lycans remain, men see them as through a glass darkly, never realizing what they truly are, but instead fearing what they once were. The lycans still see themselves as protectors, but to the humans, they will always be monsters. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere between.

 

Humans have their own society and their own legends. They also tell stories about the shapechangers of legend, monsters who prey on the weak. The lycans of the modern world have created a separate set of myths, epics and legends.

 

When a human sees a lycan in his true Crinos form, suppressed racial memories of the distant past rise from their subconscious. Because lycans culled human "herds" systematically for three thousand years, they have scarred the collective psyche of the human race permanently. If a human sees a lycan in his true and terrifying majesty, overwhelming fear and madness can result in weak human minds. Stronger minds may experience fear and the strongest can accept what they see with no fear at all. It is called the delirium

 

The Delirium may be seen as a sort of supernatural blessing, for it prevents the horror of the primeval world from returning. Humans never see Crinos Garou as they really are. Instead, they rationalize such sightings away instinctively, concocting elaborate and horrific stories about what they thought they saw. They may not see anything at all, simply reacting to something they will never remember. The racial memories run so deep that it's a rare and strong-willed human who can see so much as a photograph of a Crinos not subconsciously dismiss it as "some sort of hoax."

 

But despite the protection this fear affords, the Garou cannot afford to take chances. Lycans who unleash the panic of the Delirium without good cause are punished severely possibly exiled or even killed. Their survival depends on staying hidden and acting discreetly; indiscretion has its consequences. Lycans hunting in human cities are loath to force the Delirium without a very good reason. Since the Concord, they have kept their existence secret, maintaining the Veil, the illusion that the primitive supernatural world no longer exists. Even if one human in a thousand believes what he sees, that's far, far too many. Any human that discovers the true nature of the Lycans become a liability and are almost always killed.

 

Kinfolk are unaffected by the Delirium. After all, they possess lycan blood; they see their relations as they really are.