Volume VI: Trials and Glory – Ways of the Wolf Clan
We will purge our old ideals and ethics; those belong to the corrupt stars of the Inner Sphere, and will not serve as we begin anew. Now, while our minds are open and yearning for new insight, we must remold them and fill them with the truth of our destiny. For we are destined not only to be different from those we left behind, but also better. My father knew this, and saved us from the holocaust of the Inner Sphere. I accept it as truth, and have returned to lead you, the survivors of this most bitter trial.
--Nicholas Kerensky to his loyalists on Strana Mechty, 2802

Eight hundred loyal officers, their dependents, and thousands of civilians joined Nicholas in their new exile on the “Land of Dreams,” leaving behind their former comrades, family, and friends to two decades of bloody, vicious warfare. Nicholas reformed these loyalists, dividing them into 20 Clans, and forbade them to speak of the Inner Sphere or its failed and corrupt cultures. He then established new rules around which each Clan would then form a unique society, built around rigid precepts of honor, equality, and the rule of might.

Much have speculated as to why these followers would so easily accept such radical changes to their old lives – such as the five-caste system, which rigidly segregated warriors, scientists, merchants, technicians, and laborers into a pseudomilitary hierarchy where the warriors held sole right to govern. Perhaps they were traumatized by the compulsion to leave their lives behind not once, but twice in as many decades. Perhaps they felt for Nicholas the same almost religious reverence for his beliefs and ideals. Perhaps the horrors of warfare erupting even as they departed the Pentagon was the very last they could accept of chaos and bloodshed.
--Dr. Lorenzo Torres, Professor of History, University of Thorin

Though Nicholas Kerensky declared all castes fundamentally equal--their functions vital to Clan existence--he established the warrior caste as the most powerful of all. Held to exacting standards and enforced by a selective breeding program and a series of grueling tests that began soon after birth, every warrior must earn his or her right to lead. But only the most honored – the Bloodnamed – have a voice and a vote in their Clan’s council. But where the concept of a vote among warriors may seem unusually democratic for a strictly regimented society, Nicholas Kerensky added special rules for the ways of the Clans, an ultimate expression of “might makes right” that ritualized combat to decide any matter. Essentially recognizing warfare as mankind’s natural state, Kerensky sought to control and focus that aspect of humankind, both to minimize waste and to clearly define the goals for combat.

All growth, advancement, and judgments within and among the Clans are governed by six primary Trials – ritualized battles that Nicholas Kerensky established when he formed the Clans. To outsiders, a Trial is merely an excuse to do battle, but those who know the Clans understand that every battle has meaning and serves to strengthen the whole. When applicable, a Trial is often preceded by a formal bidding, in which the terms of combat are established by the competing parties. In such cases, the right to do battle falls to whoever bids the fewest resources to accomplish the goals of the Trial. Moreover, the right to choose the means and terms of combat – if any – is often declared by the party who issues the challenge, while the venue for the Trial is often declared by the challenged.

The Trial of Grievance is one of the most commonly invoked Trials; it is a legally available resource for civilian and warrior castes alike. Conflicting individuals declare the terms and field of a fair battle between them alone in this Trial. Civilians often settle such disputes by declaring a test of comparable skills over a given amount of time, though intercaste disputes often force the Clan council to get involved. Warriors, however, prefer to resolve such matters by combat, and do physical battle in a Circle of Equals over which one is right and which is wrong. The Circle may not be violated by any outside parties during such a Trial, and the Trial continues until one combatant is killed, disabled, or is forced out of the Circle.

In all such cases, the one left standing in the Circle is declared the winner and the matter is formally considered resolved. Though this Trial may theoretically be fought even using BattleMechs, among the Wolves, such resolutions are considered frivolous – even wasteful – as is a Trial fought to the death, which costs the Clan an otherwise valuable contributor to the society. Thus, most Wolf Clan Trials of Grievance are resolved using hand-to-hand combat.

The Trial of Refusal, used to overturn Clan council decisions either during voting or judgment of warriors accused of some crime, allows individuals or groups on the losing end of a formal decision to challenge the result on the field of battle. In this case, however, the challenger may face overwhelming odds, as the challenged party is allowed to involve the same ratio of forces as the outcome of the vote. The ever-present possibility that a political decision may be challenged in such a fashion has helped keep Clan laws lean over the centuries.

“Attention, Falcon swine! This is Star Colonel Renult Ward of Clan Wolf! I declare a Trial for the Possession of the Blood heritage of Star Colonel Vanessa Pryde! What forces dare oppose the iron fangs of the Wolves this day?”

Words like these signal the beginning of a Trial of Possession, the single-most common inter-Clan Trial, and one that is even fought between individual warriors in the same Clan. Subject to the standard bidding and challenge rules, this Trial may be fought over any item the warrior or his Clan deems worthy of possessing, from a rival Clan warrior’s genetic legacy to an entire planet, and can be waged using any tools of warfare available to both sides. With this Trial and the use of bidding on both sides, would-be wars of conquest have been transform into quick skirmishes, minimizing waste and settling – however briefly – the ownership of a given resource.

Trials of Position are a frequent occurrence for the warrior caste, and one of the most important. Unlike many Inner Sphere militaries, advancement through the ranks of a Clan is not simply a matter of seniority and politics, but one of martial skill and battle training. In this Trial, warriors must defeat at least one enemy to obtain (or retain in the case of established warriors) a rank in the Clan’s fighting arm. The aspirant warrior typically faces up to three warriors at a time, but usually fights each in turn, according to the standard Clan battle rules known as zellbrigen. With each victory, the warrior may ascend another rank, having demonstrated the skills necessary to lead and win.

The Trial of Bloodright is the ultimate Trial for a Clan warrior born of the eugenics program. Centered on the names of the original eight hundred warriors who followed Nicholas Kerensky in his creation of the Clans, each Clan was granted a starting allotment of Bloodnames based on these loyal officers. In honor of their loyalty, only these names have been allowed to continue over the years. Via this breeding program, the genes of an honored, Bloodnamed warrior are used to create another generation of warriors. Some of these names have been lost through Trials of Annihilation and other Clan rites, but of those that remain, only a maximum of 25 warriors in a Clan may lay claim to any given name at any one time. Upon the death of any Bloodnamed warrior (whose legacy will usually go on to the next generation), his or her Bloodname again becomes available, and a new Trial of Bloodright begins.

Fought more like a tournament than a standard Trial, but with the same sense of balance and rules of engagement as a Trial of Grievance, a Bloodright determines the next holder of a Bloodname purely on the basis of the last person standing. These Trials can take days to resolve, and can vary from unarmed combat to BattleMech duels in the course of their resolution. Because the holder of a Bloodname is guaranteed immortality--by contributing to the eugenics program upon his or her death--these Trial are often among the bloodiest fought, even among Clan Wolf.

The last of the known Trials is also the most final of punishments handed down by Clan law: the Trial of Annihilation. Invoked only on the most grievous of offenses to Clan traditions, the Trial of Annihilation suspends even the Clan rules of engagement. Bidding does not exist, as the goal for those invoking such a Trial is the elimination of the offending party and all genetic links to him (or her). Trials of Annihilation are rare, and have been declared on individuals, units, and even entire Clans, though the focus of Annihilation is often limited to warriors only. In the case of civilians who must be Annihilated in such a fashion, sterilization will do.

Nicholas Kerensky himself presided over the most famous Trial of Annihilation of all when he ordered Clan Wolverine’s Annihilation shortly after the reclamation of the Pentagon Cluster. Though rumors persist to this day that some Wolverines might have survived the bloody war (which they brought upon themselves through the use of nuclear weapons), there are no known survivors of the so-called Not-Named Clan anywhere in human-occupied space.

In part three of our four-part series on Clan Wolf, we’ll discuss the Invasion years: how the chosen of Kerensky led the charge that would change the Inner Sphere forever. Please join us as we continue our tour of the stars! I’m Bertram Habeas.