A caern
Caern is a sacred place to the werewolves where they can meet and assume contact with either the spirits of their ancestors or those that dwell in their blades.
Overview[]
A caern is a natural upwelling of Gnosis, the spiritual energies of the Earth, used by the lycans to power their gifts. Caerns are mostly reserved for the holy members of a tribe and each caern differs from tribe to tribe especially depending on the type of tribe that rules over pack families and singular wolves.
Caerns are very holy sites to the lycans, and they will work to their utmost to claim them and protect them. Occasionally, this will mean claiming it from another group who is not looking after it responsibly. The lycan social unit of the Sept tends to be centered around a caern. A caern will also bear the personal tribal markings of a specific tribe that owns the caern, and sometimes those markings will have an additional layer pertaining to another tribe that symbolizes the alliance between the tribe which owns a caern and another.
The first appearance of a caern was during Miguel's flashback involving his past where he undertook the rigorous and brutal trials to achieve the worthiness of taking the seat of elder. He entered the caern of his tribe where he engaged in a long and brutal spiritual battle with Fenrir within his Bloodline Blade which is said to have lasted around half a year.
Description[]
A caern has few uses for a werewolf but among the most prevailing is that it serves as the final task in the Garou Gauntlet when a particular wolf who is descended from an elder is fighting through the ranks to become worthy of achieving the status of an elder. When entering the caern, the elder nominee submerges themselves within the Pool of the Ancients, though not before praying to the totemic avatar of the spirit, alongside the blade they would inherit should the task be done and communicate with the spirit of the blade, taming it in a way where they become insync with one another.
Another use for the caern is communicating with the spiritual ancestors of either the alpha, the beta, or elder. They do this by kneeling and praying before the personal belongings of those who had long since passed and their mantles being inherited by either their next of kin or those whom they most trust should they bare no children or other familial members. This method could also be used to contact the Supreme Elders of the lycanthrope tribes across the globe as shown when Miguel used his caern to contact them in seeking their aid for the coming war against Lucifer.