Timeline
- 1979 – Born to Walela Stillwater and Paul "Roadrash" Connors
- 1982 – Roadrash dies in a motorcycle accident
- 1987 – Begins shaman training. Starts dreaming of the wolf and is given tribal name: Running Wolf.
- 1993 – Walela dies of an aneurysm. Paul is taken in by godfather, Wyatt "Machine" MacClure of the IBMC.
- 1997 – Joins the army.
- 2001 – Becomes a mercenary.
- 2003 – Joins a pirate crew.
- 2004 – Returns to U.S. and becomes a wand-breaker.
- 2007 – Returns to Mythic Wood. Impregnates Bunny. Leaves to hunt the bounty on the werewolf, Lobo Delgado. Kills Delgado but is infected with lycanthropy. Imprisoned for killing Delgado.
- 2009 – Tapped by Butch to kill "Deadman" Fred in prison. Dedicates himself to Wolf.
- 2012 – MACUSA has Thorn's case overturned, freeing him. He retreats to Delgado's cabin.
- 2013-2019 – Spends six years in isolation. Becomes a true wolf shapeshifter (animagus).
- 2019 – Returns to Mythic Wood.
Walela Stillwater was raised by a very traditional American Indian family. Though they carried the blood of a variety of tribes, their bloodline was pure Indian, and they clung strongly to the old ways practiced by the northwestern indigenous peoples. Unfortunately, they also harbored some strong prejudices against non-Indians, particularly whites. Walela was different, though. She chafed against the hateful attitude of her parents, and questioned why all whites should be held accountable for the sins of their forefathers. This sympathy for "the enemy" led her to make many friends outside of her race. One of those became more than a friend. At nineteen, she became pregnant with the child of Paul "Roadrash" Connors: a white man, a wizard, and a member of the Iron Brigade.
Walela's parents were furious, and forbade her from seeing Paul. As she wanted to raise her child on the Res and couldn't afford to live on her own, she was in a difficult position. She still found ways to allow Paul to spend time with Paul Jr., but they never lived together as a proper family. Though Roadrash promised to provide for them, he was unable to make that happen, as he died in a tragic motorcycle accident when his son was three years old.
Paul Jr. grew up with few memories of his father. His only paternal figures were a godfather who he barely saw, and a grandfather that disdainfully called his mixed race grandson "Thorn", as in the thorn on the family tree, or a thorn in his side. Even young Paul's growing magical powers did not impress his grandparents, as they were seen as the result of "white devilry" rather than true medicine. Fortunately, the Tribal Council agreed that the boy needed to be taught the magic of the old ways, and he was assigned a medicine man to train him. During this time, Paul began to have vivid dreams of a wolf, running with wild abandon through the forest, sometimes chasing, sometimes being chased. When he told his mentor about these dreams, he was given his tribal name: Running Wolf.
A Wild Child
It was no great surprise that Paul was prone to rebellion. Though he loved his mother dearly, she could not protect him from her family's prejudices. Being the family whipping boy, and missing the father he never had, Paul was full of anger and resentment. He was frequently in trouble with the authorities, usually for fighting, but there was plenty of vandalism, disturbing the peace, and the occasional angry father chasing Paul out of his daughter's bedroom window.
When Paul was 13, Walela died quite suddenly due to an undetected aneurysm. Paul was heartbroken, and the ensuing backlash was more than his grandparents could handle. His godfather, Iron Brigade member Wyatt "Machine" MacClure, stepped in and offered to let Paul stay with him in his trailer in Mythic Wood. Through Machine, Paul became involved with the Iron Brigade, becoming a Prospect at age 17 and earning the road name, "Thorn". Following the advice of his comrades, when he turned 18 he enlisted in the Army to go see the world and have experiences beyond Mith-Ih-Kwuh Valley.
Out in the World
A natural warrior, Paul excelled in the armed forces. After his first tour of duty, he joined up with a mercenary company for a few years, during which he began going primarily by Thorn. He later had a strange encounter with some modern-day pirates, who he sailed with for a while. When he returned to the States, Thorn became friendly with Ichabod Durant, a wand-breaker — a magical bounty hunter. Thorn learned the trade and turned his skills toward tracking and capturing magical fugitives. Like many wand-breakers, he acquired his bounty hunter license as well, to help cover his activities.
A New Beginning?
In 2007, Thorn's bounty hunting escapades brought him back to Oregon, and he decided it was time to reconnect with the Iron Brigade and look in on his godfather. Sadly, like so many people in Thorn's life, Machine died some years earlier due to complications in surgery. Still, the Iron Brigade takes care of its own, and Raff Hopki offered up his couch. Soon after, Raff needed to leave town for a few months, and asked Thorn to look after his old lady, Bunny, and made it abundantly clear that Thorn would likely benefit from Bunny's gratitude. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
Those months with Bunny certainly helped Thorn to forget his troubles for a while. It wasn't just the sex, but also the way Bunny would cook for him and take care of his domestic needs. For the first time in as long as he could remember, Thorn felt like he could just settle down and enjoy some peace. That blessed quiet was rattled when Bunny came to him one day, a positive pregnancy test in hand. Thorn was going to be a father.
Beginning the transformation
Running Wolf
When Raff returned, Thorn was quick to depart. He wasn't afraid of reprisals, but rather he was in pursuit of a beauty of a bounty that would help him create a life in which he could support his child. The reason the bounty paid so well is that the fugitive was none other than Lobo Delgado, a notorious rogue werewolf. He'd been sighted in Oregon, so Thorn jumped on the case. He tracked Delgado down to a remote cabin where the werewolf had been living for some time. But Lobo was a crafty opponent, and ambushed Thorn, taking him prisoner.
Lobo was the kind of werewolf that embraced his condition, and reveled in the hunt. So he made Thorn his prisoner and tortured him, but kept him alive, until the full moon. Only when Lobo began to transform did he set his prey free to flee into the woods. No fool, Thorn fled, but he knew he'd never escape the transformed werewolf. So it was his turn to wait in ambush. Being trained as a medicine man, Thorn had no need of a wand, and had considerable military training as well. When the hunt ended, the battle was fierce and bloody. In the end, Thorn defeated Lobo, ending his life. But Thorn was badly hurt, and bitten multiple times. He fell unconscious due to blood loss, only to be discovered in the morning by park rangers, still laying next to the dead body of Lobo Delgado.
Caged Wolf
Thorn was arrested by the muggle authorities and tended by their doctors. He knew that he could reach out to MACUSA for help, but he also knew what was in store for him: death, or the curse of lycanthropy. If the latter happened, he would be a danger to everyone around him…including his child. Prison sounded like just what he needed to get away from the world. In the prison were he was held to await trial, he discovered that one of the guards, Leo Phelps, was wizard-born. He explained the situation, and the two devised a plan to manage his lycanthropy. So, Thorn took a plea bargain, pleading guilty in exchange for a sentence reduced to voluntary manslaughter.
During his first couple of years as an inmate, Thorn mainly kept to himself. He wasn't bothered often. Early attempts to establish dominance over him did not end well for the aggressors. He quickly earned a reputation as a dangerous man not to be trifled with. He never used his magic, but his physical prowess was more than enough to handle the other prisoners. Every month before the full moon, Leo would escort him to the infirmary, where he would be given his Wolfsbane Potion. To cover the actual day of transformation, they would stage an incident to get Thorn thrown into solitary confinement, where he could transform safely, without hurting anyone. Though there were questions at times, Leo was high enough in the pecking order to keep things quiet, and occasionally called in a favor from a wizard friend to obliviate those that got too nosy.
Two years into his sentence, Thorn received a visitor: Butch Young, President of the Iron Brigade. Butch told him that the prison was about to receive a new inmate, a former club member known as "Deadman" Fred. Deadman was Bunny's ex-lover — though he was never good to her — and father to her eldest, Shelly. When Fred returned to Mythic Wood and found her with Raff, he flew into a jealous rage, beat Raff near to death, and raped Bunny. Thorn would have followed orders regardless, but now it was personal. A few days later, Deadman entered the prison population. A few days after that, the guards found his body in the showers with many broken bones, his eyes gouged, his throat crushed.
The Wolf Within
After killing Deadman so easily, Thorn began to realize something. Many of the savage instincts that he had been feeling since he was cursed were not entirely new. This was simply the first time he had a target deserving of the rage he'd been holding onto for his entire life. His thoughts turned to Lobo Delgado, and how he embraced his werewolfry; Thorn could plainly see how Lobo had allowed the curse to take control. But maybe there was a middle ground, a place somewhere between the agony of resistance and surrendering one's humanity. He prayed to the spirits to guide him, and in time he felt that he was answered.
Wolf was a powerful totem, and one that had always been a part of Thorn's life. He came to believe that living by Wolf's teachings would spare him becoming a monster like Lobo, and that maybe…just maybe he would one day be able to meet his child. Wolf taught him the value of keen intelligence, an appetite for freedom, and the importance of a deep connection to one's instincts. Instincts are to be trusted, and the strongest instincts are to be expressed, for to suppress them is to tie down the wolf, which will only anger it and turn it more savage and more difficult to reign in.
Thorn in wolf form
Wolf is also a pack animal, and teaches the value of trust in one's packmates. Separated from his pack, the Iron Brigade, Thorn needed to find a new pack. He had no intention of aligning himself with any of the gangs, knowing full well that once they had their hooks in him, it would haunt him even once he got out. Instead, he looked to newer inmates, particularly those in need of protection. It didn't take long before others flocked to his circle, and soon they were the largest faction in the prison. He would talk to them about his faith, and share the teachings of Wolf. He showed them that they didn't have to be the biggest and strongest, as long as they kept an iron bond of trust.
Freedom
Though Wolf teaches a yearning to be free, Thorn didn't feel that he wasn't free in the prison. He chose to be there, and it was there that he freed his spirit. He finally understood a fundamental truth that walls and bars are just illusions, and that the only person that could cage him was himself.
It took five years, but eventually MACUSA got wind that a werewolf wizard was being held in a muggle prison. Regardless of Thorn's wishes, the authorities felt that it was too great a risk to secrecy, and stepped in to arrange for his case to be overturned, securing his release. But Thorn did not return immediately to Mythic Wood. He felt that he still needed time to find a balance in himself between the man and the beast. He retreated to Lobo Delgado's old cabin, away from civilization. He refused to take Wolfsbane Potion, claiming it was "tying down the wolf", which would be counterproductive to his efforts.
Butch knew where Thorn was, and for the most part left him alone, trusting that he would return when he was ready. The single exception involved a grown man that had been romantically pursuing Butch's granddaughter, and repeatedly defied warnings to stay away. The man was brought to Thorn for some extra convincing. Loyal to his pack leader, Thorn obeyed. He kept the man prisoner for two weeks, visiting upon him many of the same torments that Lobo Delgado inflicted on Thorn. But he stopped short of Lobo's cruelty, and before the full moon he put the man on a bus to California, warning him that if he returned to Mythic Wood, he'd be killed.
Other than his "guest", Thorn spent six years alone in Delgado's cabin, hunting and gathering, and trekking to the nearest town every few months to sell firewood for money to stock up on supplies. Other than those visits, his contact with human beings was limited to the rare random encounter with hikers or forestry agents. His self-imposed exile was an attempt to reconnect with the natural world, and give the beast inside him room to flourish unrestrained. It was a deeply spiritual time for Thorn, which he would emerge from with a powerful new connection to the spirits. Wolf had gifted him with the power to assume the spirit's shape; he had become a true shapeshifter, what other wizards call an animagus.
In 2019, he decided that his achievement in shapeshifting was a sign that he had accepted the beast within and learned all he could from his self-exile. He was ready to once again learn how to be a man. It was time to go home.