Prolog
500 years ago, a war raged between witches and werewolves. This war was merciless and it raged for centuries among these two races.
The werewolves and the witches fought each other bitterly and to the last blood, no one was spared, neither old nor children. Both sides counted only their dead and pitied the survivors, since death was only postponed for them.
Despite the overwhelming number of werewolves, they could not defeat the witches.
But when the number of witches began to dwindle, because the werewolves turned the humans against them, the witches had no choice but to make a pact with the werewolves and the humans.
The witches and the werewolves agreed on a pact and decided to work together. Since the witches had some powers that were useful to the werewolves, they offered their services to the werewolves in return for their protection against aggressive lone wolves.
To protect this pact, the Protectors were created. This group of fighters and diplomats consisted of half witches and half werewolves.
The witch Aurinia and the werewolf leader Silvanus were the founders of the Praesidium and they formed the very first group of Protectors from these two races. The humans always sent the most capable diplomat to the Praesidium, this one was trained with the others and represented the human race at the sentencing ceremonies.
Since werewolves have a fated mate, only the lone wolves or those whose mate met an early death were admitted to the Protectors.
The witches who had the power to see if a werewolf had a mate were invited on each werewolf’s 5th birthday (the time when a werewolf first shifts into its wolf form) to determine if a werewolf was a lone wolf or one with a fated mate.
Once it was a lone wolf, the parents decided when the child and if the child became a Protector.
Since it was an honor to be a Protector, children were usually given to Protectors at the age of 10. The children were then trained in the Praesidium.
The training of Protectors includes martial arts, languages, diplomatic procedures, the werewolves are also trained separately in combat in their wolf form, while witches are trained in spellcraft and the martial arts with their magic powers.
The Praesidium keeps the peace between witches, humans and werewolves. If a human, witch, or werewolf commits a crime against one of the other races, the Praesidium obtains permission from the human government or approval from the leaders of the other two races to punish the criminal(s) according to their laws.
The punishment is determined according to the severity of the crime. These punishments apply equally to all races.
In this way, the balance is preserved and there are no blood wars.
The peacefully coexisting humans, witches and werewolves could thus live 500 years without war.
But a new enemy lurks in the shadows.
