Clan Wolf

Clan Wolf of the fictional universe of BattleTech is one of the most important Clans.

History
Clan Wolf was founded by Jerome Winson, brother-in-law of the Founder of all clans, Nicholas Kerensky in 2810, who also became a member of this clan. The chosen Clan of Kerensky, the Wolves had been a dominant force in the Clans since their beginning. Kerensky named the clan after the Strana Mechty wolf, the creature he saw as the ultimate warrior. This was not the last of the blessings the Founder gave to this clan - he became their leader, and gave the Kerensky bloodname and genetic lineage to them. This greatly shocked the Clan Jade Falcon, and ever since that day there's been tension, rivalry and even occasional wars between the two clans.

Clan Wolf have proved themselves expert warriors: they annihilated the Clan Wolverine and absorbed the Clan Widowmaker, long before their successes in the invasion of the Inner Sphere. They also perfected the Elemental body armor. They led the Wardens in the Grand Council and were the only Invading Clan to oppose the Clan Invasion in 3050. Clan Wolf proposed sending a reconnaissance force to gather intelligence before the Invasion, a force that eventually became known as the Wolf's Dragoons, arguably the best mercenary unit in the Inner Sphere, and crucial in stopping the Clan's invasion.

Operation Klondike
During Operation Klondike Clan Wolf was assigned in retaking Eden alongside the Clans of Hell's Horses, Jade Falcon and Smoke Jaguar. There clan wolf prooved the mettle and reliability of its warriors. Only clan Jade Falcon prooved to be as realiable. However Clan Burrock, Goliath Scorpion, Fire Mandril and Widowmaker faced significant setbacks in the planet Dagda. Imediatelly Nicholas kerensky Shifted Clan Wolf and Clan Jade Falcon to Dagda. This move prooved fruitfull and the planets defences were overcome as planned. The root of the animosity between the Jade Falcons and Clan Wolf lies in the aftermath of operation Klondike. Nicholas Kerensky chose Clan Wolf to be the bearers of his Genetic Legacy due to their performance. This infuriated many Jade Falcon Warriors who (rightly) though they performed just as good as Clan Wolf. Eventually this led to another significant event in clan History known as "the Great Culling".

Chosen of Kerensky
Being the clan that was chosen to carry the genetic legacy of Nicholas the Wolves also acted as the Ilkhans right arm. They were actually the force that Nicholas imposed his will upon the rest of the clans. There are two Such events that highlight this: The annihilation of clan Wolverine and the absorbtion of clan Widowmaker.

Annihilation of clan Wolverine
The years after the pacification of the babylon worlds tensions had started to run high among the clans. Many of them were not happy with Nicholas rule. First and foremost among them was clan Widowmaker and their Khan Sarah McEvedy. In 2823 she enetered into a heated debate with Nicholas about a disputed Brian Cache. Kerensky attempted to censor McEvedy before the rest of the council. This infuriated her and in turn she announced that from that point forward clan Widowmaker became an indipendant power, that no longer recognised Kerensky's authority. In turn Kerensky announced a trial of annihilation against clan Wolverine. According to clan rules and rituals the remaining 19 clans bidded in order to win teh honour of annihilating the wolverines. The two clans that made it to the final stages of the bidding were Clan Wolf and Clan Widowmaker. The Wolves did win at the end but they were forced to reduce the number of forces they were going to use greatly. Clan Wolf forces landed on the Wolverine holdings of planet Circe on January 22nd 2824. After beating an innitial wolverine counterattack on their landing zone the Wolves fought and defeated them in land air and space within two days. When the wolverines attepted to leave clan space a large running space battle began which lasted for another 19 days and was again victorious for the Wolves. During the next two months Clan Wolf destroyed all of the volverines holdings, demolished their buildings and forcibly steralised their civilian castes. All sibkos that contained wolverine Genes were terminated. Nevertheless McEvedy managed to escape Clan space with a warship and a few second line warriors and some battlemechs. She made a few stops in the Inner sphere grabbing what supplies she needed and dissapeared again in the deep peripery. These remnants of the Wolverines became known as the mysterious " Minnesota tribe"

Absorbtion of clan Widowmaker
In the year 2834 clan widowmaker faced an internal problem: Their merchant caste blamed the military orm of their clan for the loss of several metal ore mines to clan wolf. The response of the widowmaker Khan was brutal. He ordered mass arrests and executions of many of the merchant caste members. This shocked the rest of the clans to their core to such an extend that the Khan Jerome Winson of the Wolves proposed that the widowmakers were unfit to govern. He passed a motion, that was unanimously accepted from the rest of the khans, for the absorbtion of clan widowmaker. Clan wolf won the right to absorb clan widowmaker.

The battle for the trial of absorption took place in a neutral world that of Ironhold that belonged to clan Jade Falcon. The forces that took part in the battle were 10 Widowmaker stars against 11 Clan Wolf starts. Because this was the second major incident in clan history Nicholas Kerensky and the rest of the clan Khans acted as umpires. The battle started savagely but eventually every combatant was reduced to a spectator to the dual that was taking place between Khan Jorgensson and Khan Winson. However at the moment that Khan Winson was about to defeat his opponent five widomaker Mechs breached the duel, protecting their khan and attacking Khan Winson. With clan rules of engagement so clearly violated Kerensky and the rest of the khans defended Winson. At that moment Khan Jorgensson was dazed from the ferocity of winsons attacks. As soon as he regained some clarity and realised what was going on he fired at the mech he percieved to be the greatest threat. In this case it was an atlas Battlemech. Nicholas Kerensky's Battlemech. The mechs cokpit was destroyed almost instantly. The founder and Ilkhan of the clans was dead before his mech hit the ground.

Nicholas death sent clan wolf warriors to a frenzy. They virtually annihilated clan Widomaker. Only a handfull of widowmaker warriors survived to be absorbed to clan wolf, along with widowmaker genetic legacies and civilian castes. Ironically though the death of Nicholas Kerensky marked the beggining of the Clan Golden Age.

Invasion
Although they lost a Trial of Refusal against the motion to invade the Inner Sphere and were selected for the invasion force as punishment for voting against the pro-invasion majority, the Wolves decided to beat the Crusaders at their own game. They participated in it nonetheless and soon outdid all other Clans in seizing more worlds and at a faster pace than any other Clan. Their holdings were mostly taken from the Free Rasalhague Republic and the Lyran half of the Federated Commonwealth. Their capture of Rasalhague cemented their leadership in the Invasion and the Wolf Khan, Ulric Kerensky, became the leader of the Clans, an ilKhan, after their successes (and the death in battle of the previous ilKhan, Leo Showers). Ulric negotiated with ComStar and some of the Inner Sphere leaders, negotiations which resulted in the proxy battle for Terra (Clan's goal) on Tukayyid in 3052. During the battle of Tukayyid the Clan Wolf was one of only two Clans to prevail against the defending ComStar forces, the other victor being Clan Ghost Bear who were awarded a "marginal" victory. Nevertheless, the Wolves were the ones who helped convince the other clans to adhere to the terms when the Trial was lost, leading to the treaty that halted the invasion with a 15-year truce.

Post-Tukayyid
In 3057, the Clan Jade Falcon sought to remove Ulric and continue the invasion. When the Council tried Ulric for treason and voted him out of office Clan Wolf all but destroyed itself in preventing the Jade Falcons from breaking the truce by instigating a Trial of Refusal on a scale never before seen outside of a Trial of Annihilation against an entire Clan. This particular Trial of Refusal would be forever referred to as the "Refusal War" against the Jade Falcons.

To ensure the Clan's survival, Ulric ordered Wolf saKhan Phelan Ward (also known as Phelan Kell) to take a contingent of warriors and a cross-section of the other castes to the Inner Sphere while he and Natasha Kerensky sought to break the Falcons (knowing that if Clan Wolf lost the Trial of Refusal, Phelan would be stripped of rank and bloodname). Ulric thus used his power as ilKhan to create the bloodname of Kell and bestowed it onto Phelan before his exodus from Clan space. Eventually the Falcon were victorious, but they could not touch the part of the clan that left Clan controlled space and went into self-imposed exile to the Inner Shere. Phelan's Warden Wolves settled on planet Arc-Royal in the Lyran Alliance and created the Arc-Royal Defense Cordon to defend against any Clan incursions, mainly the Jade Falcons.

Absorption and Rebirth
An initially successful Jade Falcon attempt to absorb the remaining Wolves that was effectively made moot with the creation of the Clan Jade Wolf by Vladimir Ward, an offshoot of Clan Jade Falcon made up of captured Wolf warriors who were "absorbed" into the Jade Falcons. The Jade Wolves later changed their name by dropping the "Jade" part and simply going by "Wolf", effectively usurping the name of the original or pre-Refusal War Clan Wolf. These Wolves (also known as Crusader Wolves) rebuilt their strength and have declared themselves the only Crusader Clan not bound by the Crusader's defeat during the Great Refusal, due to their abstaining vote to participate in the Refusal and the resulting battle against the St. Ives' Lancers, led by Kai Allard-Liao, which resulted in a draw.

Ever since then, the two halves of what was once a single Wolf Clan have lived separate lives. The Crusader Wolves sought to regain their strength, raiding the Clan Smoke Jaguar. Vlad Ward entered into a short-term alliance with Falcon Khan Marthe Pryde to ensure the survival of both Clans.

As with the original incarnation of Clan Wolf, the Crusader Wolves consider the planet Tamar as their capital. It was the scouring of Tamar that made the Clans realize that they too would come under attack by the Word of Blake fanatics and had to fight back. During the Word of Blake Jihad the Wolves leapt across Jade Falcon borders to assist worlds under attack.

Society
While Clan Wolf values the typical goals and values of the Clans, individual members of the Clan place much less value on conformance to the Clan mindset. As with other Clans, the Warrior caste is in control, a military chain of command is in place, and everyone is expected to do their part for the further good of the Clan; however, the society allows a great degree of personal freedom of opinion, religion and self-expression than it is typical with other clans. Since the founding of the Crusader Wolf clan, the Warrior caste has grown further in prominence, however.

Clan Wolf emblem is a red wolf head, on top of a red plaque with six golden stars. The five stars symbolize the clans (number five is a recurring motif in all Clan artwork and many things in Clans are in multiples of fives), and the sixth star symbolizes their founder, Kerensky.

Quotes

 * Here, with the Strana Mechty wolf, we see what may be the epitome of a warrior, cunning matched with instinct and stealth, joined with a final, terrifying attack. For this mighty creature, I name you. You are Clan Wolf. Nicholas Kerensky, 2810

Online

 * Clan Wolf official entry on ClassicBatteTech page
 * Clan Wolf Today, Wizkids Games. Accessed November 9, 2007.

Novels

 * Michael A. Stackpole, Lethal Heritage. FASA/ROC: 1989/1995.
 * Michael A. Stackpole, Blood Legacy. FASA/ROC: 1990/1995.
 * Michael A. Stackpole, Lost Destiny. FASA/ROC: 1991/1995.
 * Michael A. Stackpole, Natural Selection. ROC: 1992.
 * Michael A. Stackpole, Malicious Intent. ROC: 1996.
 * Michael A. Stackpole, ''Grave Covenant]'. ROC: 1997.
 * Michael A. Stackpole, Prince of Havoc. ROC: 1998.
 * Blaine Lee Pardoe, Roar of Honor. ROC: 1999.
 * Michael A. Stackpole, Ghost War. ROC: 2002.
 * Jason M. Hardy, The Scorpion Jar. ROC: 2004.
 * Michael A. Stackpole, Masters of War. ROC: 2007.
 * Blaine Lee Pardoe, Fire at Will. ROC: 2007.

Game sourcebooks

 * Boy F. Peterson Jr., Blaine Lee Pardoe, Sam Lewis, Wolf Clan Sourcebook. FASA: 1991 (ISBN 1-55560-136-7).
 * Various, The Falcon and The Wolf. FASA: 1995
 * Various, Field Manual: Crusader Clans. FASA: 1998.
 * Various, Mechwarrior's Guide to the Clans. FASA: 2001
 * Various, Field Manual: Update. FanPro: 2003.
 * Various, Jihad Hot Spots: 3070. FanPro: 2005.