S V A J O N E
“life is something
that we have yet
to understand.”
P L O T
It is said that Svajone does not exist, that it is merely a figment of any adventurer’s imagination when they hear about the legends that surround the island. That is what they are - legends; there’s nothing more to them. Old wives’ tales that were used to persuade sailors and captains not to set off in search of it, little myths to explain the unexplainable; just silly little stories that someone made up in their spare time.

Ten years ago, Svajone - the Dreaming Island - was discovered by Søren Svajone, hence it being named ‘Svajone’. Having stumbled across the uninhabited island with a crew of twenty men on his ship Old Time Street, Søren did not hesitate to settle down on the island and send word back to England that there was - indeed - another island that surrounded Britain, one that he had just discovered. There was great excitement all around the country and no-one could wait for Svajone’s return, in order to see and hear what he’d discovered.

Unfortunately for both England and Søren, he never made it back to London.

Out of his crew of twenty, only fourteen survived, each of them refusing to talk about what had happened on Svajone. According to the press, Søren and the six other crew members had loved the island so much that they had decided to stay there - but it was quite clear that from the way the surviving crew members were acting, something had gone quite terribly wrong. Eventually, one member of the crew - James Gold - came forward with a single statement in response to the whispers that were circulating about the whole event. “It was the wolves, sir. The wolves!”

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Two nights later, James Gold was found dead. Strange symbols had been drawn onto his body in ink - and some drawn in blood, the victim’s blood, no doubt. Both private detectives working for their own firms and the metropolitan police were assigned to the case, nicknamed ‘Gold Digger’ - perhaps a cruel joke on the murdered man. It was declared suicide by the officials, simply because they couldn’t decipher the symbols that had been drawn onto his remains.

Soon, ten years had passed and the case had been deemed a cold case, ‘solved’ due to the ‘discovery’ that it was suicide. A new officer on the force - Hadrian Ward - decided to re-open the investigation and enlisted the help of London’s best physics and mediums that would possibly know anything about the markings on James’s body by looking at the black and white photos that had been taken at the time. None of them knew anything about it, and it was only by chance that an old gypsy woman turned up at Hadrian’s doorstep and revealed the history to the markings on Gold’s body.

According to her, the markings on James’s body were related to an ancient ritual that used to take place on Svajone before it was called Svajone. Remaining undiscovered for centuries, the island had formerly been called Álmos - meaning ‘Island of Sleep’. There were about one-hundred people populating the island, yet most of its inhabitants were wildlife, mainly wolves and deer - things like that - with the odd bear often sighted. The humans that populated the island had formed their own religion, naming it Álmos, for lack of a better name. It was heavily linked to the spiritual world, involving human sacrifices to appease the spirits, who were - according to the people - living on the island in the form of wolves.

They believed that - unless given human sacrifices - the wolves would go restless and aggressive due to their hunger for two-legged blood. Sacrificing humans was a way of showing their respect for the wolves so that bad things wouldn’t happen to them, for example, the crops failing and such. After about one-hundred years of living on Álmos without anyone knowing of its existence, the population of humans began to die out - and so Álmos slowly became uninhabited by humans again. Instead, the island’s wildlife moved up on the food chain - wolves becoming the dominant ones on the ladder.

The gypsy then told him about how some of the wolves on Svajone had grown used to the taste of human blood and that - when Svajone himself had landed - they had taken the captain and six members of his crew and proceeded to sacrifice them for their needs. Unknown to the wolves, before the humans had completely died out on the island, two of them had fled to England for survival.

They claimed that they were English and told stories about how they had been in Scotland through recent years and such. One of them died from old age and the other got married and had a son, raising the son in the ways of the Ritual of Álmos - the religion of Álmos, and that it was the son that had killed James Gold because Gold had hinted at the ‘sacred’ ritual.

The tale of Svajone took several days for the woman to tell, and on the final day that she returned to Ward’s house to tell it, she contradicted herself about what the wolves had supposedly done to Svajone and the six members of his crew that had been taken on the island. Now, she revealed to Hadrian that Svajone had found out about the Ritual and had become a believer of it. In practising the religion, he had charted his ship towards Álmos/Svajone to find out if it was all true - the rumours behind the Ritual of Álmos and such.

Once finding out that it was, Svajone left himself and his ship at the mercy of the wolves. For him, the gypsy said, it was the ultimate goal. In sacrificing himself and his crew to the wolves, he believed that he would be resurrected and become immortal in his next life because he gave his body and soul to the wolves that the Álmosians believed were spirits. The tale over and done with, the gypsy left Hadrian’s house and the officer closed the case for the second time in a decade, finding it much simpler to rule out Gold’s death as suicide rather than include spiritualisms and religion in the file - which no-one would believe anyway.

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The tales of humans worshipping wolves had been ingrained into normal lupine hierarchy for as long as Man and wolves had inhabited Svajone. It was common knowledge to the creatures that they were seen as immortals - gods and goddesses that should be given sacrifices of the strongest blood: human sacrifices. Thus, from your typical ‘Alpha, Beta’ hierarchy, the island’s own one evolved from the influences of Man and lupine life had been changed forever.

Prey that was hunted was regarded as nothing more than Man regards dirt, only hunted down when food was scarce in the winter. The society of wolves on Álmos were all part of one main pack that was set up in different territories, but all the same, nonetheless. Their independence had been stripped away by this offering of human carcasses - which, all of them could not deny, were better than other food that they had previously hunted.

The ‘Alpha’ at the time when two-legged bodies were always available was called Osirus by the humans, and to the wolves, he was the messenger that communicated between the two-legs and the wolves themselves. To both the humans and the wolves, he was seen as a deity; a divine being in his own right, and it was towards the steady decline of the two-legs that Osirus passed away and left his position in the hands of his daughter, Hecate.

Under her reign, the human population decreased, and with it, a new era was beginning. Because of the sudden decline in sacrifices from Man, the wolves were forced to grow more independent again - and disputes began over whether they should depend on the last of the sacrifices and find new sources, or go entirely independent and return to the ancient ways that they had lived by before the sacrifices had started. Wolves were ‘split down the middle’ as the saying goes, and a complete decision could not be reached by the time Hecate died too - with no mate or offspring - leaving her position empty and ready to be filled.

Quite suddenly, the sacrifices stopped coming and humans appeared to have vanished from Álmos forever. Chaos struck the pack and without a leader, there was nothing to stop a mutiny rising and a sway of opinions. The pack split - one half having a firm belief in the sacrifices and the other half being quite disgusted in the idea and ever-eager to return to what was now regarded as the “Ancients’ Way”.

Svajone’s arrival sparked the rise of a new leader - an egotistical, cocky and merciless female by the name of Malaysia - who set about enforcing her rule and winning over the wolves who had enjoyed feasting on human offerings before Man mysteriously vanished from Álmos. Seeing Svajone’s eagerness to sacrifice himself, the female established her reign by killing him herself and offering him - and six of his crew members - to the pack that she now led.

As for the wolves that had broken away from the original pack after their mutiny, the news of another seven sacrifices displeased them. They had no ‘religion’ to rely on and nothing to take away their independency. With this and the way that they lived off the wildlife on the island, Malaysia’s pack came to call them ‘Tündes’ - Tünde meaning ‘fairy’. In retaliation to this insult, the Tündes referred to Malaysia’s pack as ‘Kols’ - Kol meaning ‘dark’, so it linked in with their lust for human blood.

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This collision of beliefs sparks anger between the two packs. Whilst the Kols are generally one large pack, the Tündes are much more diverse, scattering between small packs of around four to ten wolves in all. In recent times, the smallest Tünde packs have been getting ambushed by ’hunting’ Kol parties - which has caused a stir amongst the Tünde. The Kols take great glee in this, tormenting ‘the other side’ as they call the Tündes, is all a game to them.

Tempers are at breaking point and the tension in the air is almost unbearable. The Tündes speak of a creature - a wolf - that will deliver them; their own version of a messiah, despite their strict laws about no religion, whilst the Kols simply snicker at this new-born legend and jeer at the tale. They call it a lie and say that the Tündes will have to give into their ‘instincts’ and join the search for humans to feast upon sooner or later, which angers the Tündes even more.

An even older legend has been unveiled and passed around the island by both Kols and Tündes alike, speaking of the remains of a human. They are not just remains - they are bones, the former Álmosians symbol of resurrection and life. Upon hearing of this legend, Malaysia’s mind has started scheming and she’s already started plans to use the bones in order to reincarnate the bodies of the Álmosians that perished on the island. And, of course, like cliché stories, the Tündes are dedicated to stopping her.

It’s a race against time - and the prize is old life renewed. How much will it be worth and who will get there first?

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The contents of this plot are © to Andre/Sirius, 2006-2007, all rights reserved. Most of the ideas in the plot are © to Kindred Blue/Malaysia, 2006-2007. Stealing is a criminal offence and will be dealt with accordingly. Thank you.