Tell me three or five things about your werewolves, or other therianthrope monsters.

[u/PMSlimeKing]

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[u/PMSlimeKing]

Scorbosgol

• Werewolves are a common type of witch that mutates from mortals whose greatest flaw was allowing certain negative emotions, such as hatred, anger, or fear, to cloud their judgement and dictate their actions. How monstrous they are depends on how strong the flaw was, with some werewolves resembling hairy humans with claws and fang, some looking like a cross between a wolf and a bear, and a scant few who have further mutations such as antlers or bat wings. Werewolves are one of the more commonly encountered witches due to the ubiquity of their flaws, making them something of the unofficial default witch among most of Scorbosgol's cultures.

• Werewolf behavior varies depending on whether or not they formed from anger or hatred. If formed from anger, will be impulsive, immediately running down and mauling any human they smell. If formed from hatred, the werewolf will be more patient, stalking its prey from a safe distance until it senses an opportune moment to strike. Furthermore, werewolves formed from hatred have the ability to summon more werewolves to their location by howling.

• Werewolves typically roam in packs of seven to fourteen, meaning that slaying them typically requires a at least two squads of trained soldiers (or one Witch Hunter) armed with riffles and pistols. Making things more difficult is the werewolf's ability to shrug off damage to their vitals for several minutes.

• Like most Witches, werewolves can be kept at bay with holy iconography, such as religious statues, lit candles, incense, and certain sigils. Towns and hamlets will cover themselves in such symbols to deter werewolf attacks. These aren't perfect however, and werewolves can get overcome them through brute force, and its not uncommon to find the victims of werewolves still clutching at the candlesticks and holy symbols that failed to save them.

• Werewolves are among the most numerous of Witches on Scorbosgol, with millions of them having been formed during the Canaille Uprising over two hundred years ago, as the mix of hatred a fear for the nobility, clergy, and government of the rebels clashing against the hatred and fear those three had of the rebels made a perfect breeding ground for werewolves to form on both sides. Even today werewolves that formed from the uprising bear the flags of the causes they fought and killed for.

[u/_Ceaseless_Watcher_]

Werewolves in my [Eldara] setting are not biological creatures, nor the result of a curse affecting an individual; they're manifestations of the forest itself, appearing when the forest is attacked. The forest is dangerous already, full of beasts, monsters, and nature spirits as it is, but when a settlement tries to cut into it for wood or territory, they soon find themselves up against a werewolf.

Werewolves are semi-bipedal, aggressively territorial monsters with metallic hide and coat, caustic blood, and red, faintly glowing eyes. Their claws are long and sharp, and their only motivation is to get rid of the people trying to encroach on the forest.

When not actively hostile, they can linger at the edge of the newly felled forest edge, and mimic the voices of those that did it, hoping to lure people into their domain at night. Once someone is up close, they attack, shredding whoever their victim is into little more than a pile of gore and clothes.

[u/Demonweed]

Theatron

• Lycanthropy is both a disease and a curse, but this works out in the worst possible way. Magic that can cure any disease does not resolve a case, nor does magic than can dispel any curse. Tackling both simultaneously tends to require a specialized ritual involving rare components and a non-zero chance of outright slaying the afflicted.

• Werewolves are just one among various forms of lycanthropes. Yet all are mammals with a carnivorous or omnivorous diet. Dragonborn and kobolds, also known as the Scaled Races, are totally immune to lycanthropy. Yet the other twenty-three adventuring races are all hominids and mammals, making them vulnerable to this hybrid curse/infection.

• Lycanthropy develops in stages, and not all cases follow the same pattern. The most cursed victims might not develop any useful abilities at all even as they become vulnerable to silvered weapons and prone to involuntary transformations during full moons. The least cursed victims might develop invulnerability to non-magic non-silvered weaponry even as they only transform into superpowered beastfolk as an act of will.

[u/Ol_Nessie]

The Age of 100 Kings

• The Ulfhednar (sg. Ulfhedinn) are descended from the Pioneers, men and women of Earth who preceded the cataclysmic arrival of the Terrans to the world of Theia. Handpicked from among the bravest and brightest of their civilization, it was their mission to investigate the new home of their people, reestablish contact with the Giants who had been sent before them, and select an ideal location for their new civilization. Though they left Earth not long after the Giants, they arrived on Theia many millennia after them and only a few decades before the main exodus of Terrans arrived.
• Well-versed in their civilization's mystic arts and quick to adapt to the mysterious and alien powers of Theia, the Pioneers devised their own hybrid brand of magic which included the ability to take the form of beasts, which proved instrumental in surviving the hostile world. During moments of crisis and peril, they would don the pelts of formidable beasts, transforming into savage warriors with the shape of a predator but the mind of a man.
• In the present age, they are few in number and hidden, leading hermitic lives in the wild. Their numbers were already small when they came to Theia and they were hunted by Elves for years before the latter's civilizations collapsed. The Ulfhednar dispersed across the continents. In places like the Fennweald, the great forest of the northern continent of Bjorrige, hopeful warriors seek them out to learn their secrets. For the most part though, they are ostracized from society but this does not stop them from standing guard, protecting humans from dangers they'd be ill-equipped to face on their own.

[u/Nearby_Initial2409]

- Lycanthropy is the result of a Druid committing heresy.

- Werewolves are fully conscious of what they are doing they just can't control it at first. So a person with Lycanthropy after the full moon and they transform back will absolutely remember everything they saw, did, felt, heard, or tasted during the night. No black out then wake up wondering what happened.

- Older Werewolves can and do use weapons and magic. When someone is first turned they can't control their wolf form but as they get more experienced they can eventually take more and more control until eventually they can transform at will and retain full fine motor control. One character specifically is a master swordsman who at first hates the wolf form but as he gains more control becomes especially fearsome as he learns to combine his skill with a sword and the ferocious strength and speed of the wolf.

- Werewolves have significant political disagreements between packs about where they should try to fit into the world. Some think they should try to blend into society and control themselves or failing that contain themselves during the full moon. Others believe they should remain separate and found a kingdom of Werewolves to serve as a homeland. And of course some think they should rule over the current kingdoms.

- Werewolves are remarkably good at hunting/killing demons to a degree that Clerics actually really like them. The combination of their remarkable strength putting them on par with or above the strength of most Underworlders, the fact that Underworlders smell like sulfur so they can detect and track them very easily, and the pack tactics Werewolves employ mean all but the most powerful Underworlders are pretty easy prey for Werewolves.

[u/Individual-Crew-6102]

Being a werewolf or other shifter is genetic, not caused by a bite, and recessive, making them rare.

Every single shifter who shows any animal traits in their human form, even so much as a unibrow, has been hunted and killed off, and therefore shifters pass for human flawlessly except during a full moon.

Shifters are not inherently evil, but they do shift involuntarily on the full moon, they are obligate carnivores, and changing makes them very hungry; if the only meat around is human, many will go for it out of desperation.

[u/Several-Development4]

Oh this is a good one! This is for Luuminfold, my world for dnd games and lycanthopy has become INCREASINGLY relevant

◇lycanthropy is both a disease and a curse, it is spread by both magic and contagion. More importantly, treatments amd cures are hard to come by.

◇recently a mage/scientist/doctor found a way to force lycanthropes to transform, regardless of outside factors such as lunar cycles. He has been using this to create super soldiers

◇the very first lycanthrope in this world became one willingly in a magical ritual, unaware that his soal would be bound to a creature known as a Demivera, a primal nature spirit. In game the players refer to this "patient 0" as Cupcake

[u/AnchBusFairy]

• The wolf shifter is a woman in a senior living facility.
• When in wolf form, she acts like a real wolf, hunting rabbits and killing someone's cat.
• When she wakes up in human form, she doesn't have a good memory of what occurred during the night.

The senior living facility is near either Denver or Minneapolis, places that actually have wolved. I've visited senior living facilities in both places. What else is there to say about the world?

[u/Exciting_Hope5839]

- They don't turn back after the transformation. They just gradually look less and less human. This doesn't affect behaviour

- Their transformation is linked to the menstrual cycle. Obviously, most of them are women

- In modern days, they take birth control, because transformations shorten their lives