One of my MCs gained powers from having the wolf spirit within him. Even though his ancestors were First Nation natives from Canada and had worshipped many animal deities including the wolf, rather than inheriting this wolf spirit from family bloodline, he got the wolf spirit in him by chance. He got it randomly in him that is now part of his gene pool like a mutation he now carries and he never knew about it which is why he was chosen for this military project experiment. Is this plausible enough? Can this make sense?
Does it make sense to you? So basically a wolf spirit used him as a host or vessel which changed his DNA to be a werewolf like creature? Interesting idea. Unless I got it all wrong?
What is 'the wolf spirit'? If it's from Native American Mythology I didn't think it possessed any magical powers but was more a symbol and a guide. So without a bit more information for me it doesn't make sense. Plus I'm not so keen on the 'randomly' part. I would want a little more meaning to it than that.
Very close. Pretty much the same idea, only when the military discovers his abilities he gained from the wolf spirit being apart of his DNA they want to use him and genetically modify him to their needs. And he pretty much got it by chance. Not Native American. Its First Nations which is Canadian. It's based on the animal spirits that were guided which indigenous people from Canada believed in like the bear, wolf, beaver, elk and so on. This guy got the wolf spirit into his DNA by chance. Meaning it was not passed down from any relative. And he now has it on his DNA like a mutation in his gene pool. Now the military and government want a hold of him using their genetically altering capabilities. Think of weapon X from X men.
What would be a better choice? Have it that he got the wolf spirit inherited passed down from an ancestor? Or like some kind of host that entered him some point point in his life?
Either hereditary or have a being use him as a host to give him the abilities. A host is not the right term you were looking for. He would become a host to that entity but a host generally does not take another being as a host. That would be a being that is both host and Take another being as a host at the same time. Interesting but complex.
Well what powers does this person inherit? If the animal is only a guide how does it pass anything to him?
I'm a little confused sorry So the host would be the being taken over by the spirit and then inherited the abilities? It would give him powerful reflexes, stamina, some form of communication with nature like animal telepathy, think like a dog whisperer. And stronger 10 times than a normal human.
So kinda like Bravestar with a Native Spiritual element, but not so far as to move into animagus territory. Interesting. All the animal specific traits, and no transformation, okie dokie it is workable, though a simplistic explanation by design. Fair enough, good luck and have fun with this.
Thanks! I think I will end up having a few main MC's with the spirit wolf within them and have different settings for each and cultures of different ancestry tribes, for example one would descend from ancestors from Canada which will include First Nation natives and European ancestors, another character would descend from ancestors of the US which would include Native American ancestors, european ancestors and a few more mix of other ancestors, etc. Thank you I might consider having there be a mention of this wolf spirit to have been some form of a transformation or and been temped to try with spells many centuries ago but it has evolved into having the characteristics of the specific traits of a wolves abilities. Maybe svn mixing other cultures that wolves have been based on too.
It sounds as plausible as anything does when you start involving wolf spirits, I'd say. Though I think it would make sense for him to at least consider that maybe this is somehow related to his ancestors' religion, until he found out that no, that part's just a coincidence.
Ok, first: First Nations and Native Americans are both overarching terms for people indigenous to the continent before the arrival of Europeans. I'm no expert on which tribes lived exactly where, but the border between the US and Canada wasn't totally litigated, treatified, and solid until something like 1925. I'm certain that before the arrival of Europeans there were groups of indigenous people who inhabited lands that straddled a border no one had invented yet. Secondly, to have something just "randomly pop up" in someone's DNA is possible, that's what we call a mutation. However, most congenital conditions are a result of something other than a brand-new gene willing itself into existence. Check out Wikipedia's article on "birth defects" (note that not all congenital conditions have an adverse effect on the individual) to give yourself some ideas on what mechanism you'd like to use to put this "wolf spirit" into your character. Final thought: In Darwin's Radio Greg Bear hypothesized that so-called "Junk DNA" wasn't unused or useless coding, but coding for conditions that hadn't obtained yet. You could use a similar theory to give your character wolf-like powers, and it would also account for other characters getting other animal spirit connections. Something in our modern lives triggered the DNA sequences that were waiting to allow our animal spirits to manifest again. My 2 yen.
Is there a precedent in their tribe(?) for being chosen by spirits? You could say that every now and then the spirits choose someone to inhabit or something, but then you have to give a reason in relation to the spirits and his tribe as to why he was chosen. Especially if, for you, it seems random but isn't actually random.
Thanks You mean that he believed that this wolf spirit in him was related to his ancestors religious beliefs when he was wrong the whole time? Sorry about that. I meant to say indigenous people from the US and indigenous people from Canada. I know that most of the indigenous tribes in Canada were referred to as Inuits and still are. Yes I was thinking it would act as some form of mutation in his DNA that randomly shows up in just him. Thanks I'll check more into this. I had this in mind too. Something that would trigger the wolf-like powers giving him the wolf gene and same would go for other animal spirits that are unlocked and triggered in others as I planned on having more characters similar in the story and more wolf characters which would form wolf-like packs.
That's a good question, maybe I could say that his ancestral tribe had someone with the wolf spirit in them or knew someone with the wolf spirit and it had been contained for centuries after that person had died or vanished and now had somehow risen and manifested within him making him the wolf guy? Maybe something his ancestors worshipped? It does sound kinda strange for it to just show up so randomly and somehow become apart of his DNA causing the mutation. I had another idea for doing this where the wolf guy and his entire family and ancestral tree always had this wolf spirit in them and were like wolf people but if he was adopted and orphaned and never knew his real parents or family heritage it would soon be discovered he had the wolf end spirit in him from his original inheritance. That's another idea I had. Maybe I can create two characters like this, both of these ideas for each wolf character since I planned on making some wolf-like packs being formed. The question is which one would make more sense for having indigenous ancestors from Canada and indigenous ancestors from the US? I can find easy information on Native American tribes but not so much about Canadian tribes? They don't seem to have much, mythology, worshipping or beliefs with anything to do with wolves other than beliefs of sea deities, Sasquastch, and some evil spirits like the Wendigo, but nothing to do with wolf spirits or werewolves or anything like that. I couldn't even find anything to do with indigenous warriors from Canada other than the Inuit tribes were great hunters and interacted with a few vikings and some indigenous Canadian tribes did some trading with European colonists with the fur trade and that's it. I'm able to find more about Native American culture with wolves and the different warrior tribes and how they would fight much easier to research. Is there anything about warrior tribes from Canada?
I suppose for you the Canada or American ancestors question would be based on how much research you want to be doing and how accurate you want to be to the culture of the tribe you choose. As many authors do you could take the bones of cultures and places and create your own mythology around that. I would suggest that as you have a great idea that may not reach it's full potential if it existed in our reality. The addition of a character who also has these powers would be good so long as the backgrounds differ significantly. That way you have an avenue to introduce your mythology via the characters who know what's going on. Then you'd have to connect the tribes and military wanting to do experiments on your mc. Maybe the military has been after them for some time and it's like, a long standing conflict between them. Or is it that your mc is the first time they've come across anyone like him. If the second scenario is the case then the DNA thing is pretty damning for his people if he's obviously of a certain culture. They'd have to be ready or have been keeping it a secret. Man do you have a lot of world building to do for this... You'd probably be better off looking for books on Canadian Indigenous though. If you can't find internet sources. But then you'd also have to narrow your search down to a specific tribe unless you are creating you own mythology. Then you'd only need an in-depth knowledge of a few tribes beliefs. You've chosen a topic and a half though I'll give you that. The further you go in, the more questions arise.
I think I can make it up. Having maybe two characters with the wolf spirit DNA in them, one who had ancestors from a tribe in Canada and one who had ancestors from a Native American tribe but both made up and kept secret for so long, just use inspiration based on real tribes and from authors writings? I think this works perfectly. And the military could have easily knew or found out about their tribe but not know who the latest descendants were yet until they've gotten some clues. Or because the tribes were kept secret so many centuries that it's their first time witnessing it? So secret then I'd go with my own mythology. I could say the tribe was hidden or kept secret for decades by the northwest coast or someplace like Nova Scotia. The one of Native American heritage shouldn't be so hard to find a place where their ancestors made up tribe was hidden in the US/North America/New World for centuries. As long as I use some made up fictional references I'm good right?
