A Night to Howl

Lycanthropes and You

As we continue to delve into the best holiday of the year – Halloween – we’re going to take a look at one a classic monster. This is one of my favorite monsters, the werewolf. We’re actually going to take a look at all lycanthropes but the wolf is obviously the most iconic. Although in this instance we’ll be talking about the creature in Pathfinder, one of my favorite incarnations of the beast is from White Wolf’s Werewolf the Apocalypse.

For those of you who don’t use lycanthropes in your games often, Pathfinder takes from the old D&D rules and has two differing forms of these emblematic shapechangers. There are those who much like in the movies – One of my favorites being The Howling –  get bitten and are overcome by the curse of lycanthropy, and we call these the afflicted. There are also those with the inborn ability to shift form inherited from a parent, and these are known as natural lycanthropes. These two types will become important as we look at how to use these creatures in our games.

Part of using werewolves, and other were-creatures, in our games is the primal terror created by the beasts. Things like zombies are unthinking, vampires tend to be romanticized, but werewolves are pure rage and brutality. This is contrasted by the fact that for most of their lives they have human form and can blend in among the normal populace if they so choose. The fact that there could be a beast among the villagers or even the party and the group just doesn’t know, even the lycanthrope may not know, can instill just the right amount of terror and paranoia.

We learn in the very well written “Ecology of the Lycanthrope” in the third book of the Carrion Crown adventure path called Broken Moon, that for the most part afflicted lycnathropes may not even know they carry the curse. They often have no memory of the nights the change. When an afflicted werecreature learns of his curse, much like thewererats in book one of the Shattered Star Adventure Path, they can try and change form outside of the full moon. Where the afflicted will never try and change back to their human form during the forced changes, natural lycanthropes can attempt to revert back with some difficulty.

Once we understand that the afflicted may not know about their change we get a great means of throwing off our players. When the cursed being is not under the throes of the beast within she retains the alignment she had before the change. So a lawful good town sheriff will detect as being good to magic even though a few nights a month he turns into a chaotic evil mass of fur and claws. When confronted by the fact that the villain is actually a nice honest man most of the time, how do our players work toward solving this issue? This can lead to some great role play opportunities, especially if one of the characters is Ulfen, because their people see lycanthropy as a gift not a curse.

Although a common method of curing the afflicted lycanthrope – such as our fictitious sheriff – is with the remove curse spell, this may not always be available. If the party meets a werewolf before level six they won’t have access to the spell at all. At level six they have about a fifty-fifty chance of dispelling the afflicted’s curse. But the biggest issue is going to be that to remove a curse you have to touch the creature, and in the case of lycanthropes you can only cure them when they are in hybrid form. In the case of an afflicted werecreature this means they are most likely trying to kill you.

If they don’t have access to remove curse, a party can always try and find another way to cure the poor soul. There are a lot of folk remedies for curing a werewolf of this curse; which ones work in your game are up to you. Crazy mystical cures might include blood of a unicorn or a cup of moonlight. A common one from the movies is to kill the creature that turned them afflicted in the first place. An interesting possible cure from Classic Horrors Revisited is to skin the werewolf in its hybrid or wolf form.

One of the other questions we have to ask ourselves is: are all werewolves evil? Obviously there are other evil werecreatures as well, like the werebat and wererat. But there are also good lycanthropes like the bear. It is my understanding that being a werecreature does not actually change your alignment at all. You just become that monster’s alignment when you lose control on the full moon. Since natural lycanthropes can attempt to control their change during the full moon, there is a chance they will never be tempted by their own beast. Gods like Ashava use half-celestial werewolves as minions so there is precedence even of goodness in these creatures.

In our games finding a werewolf – or other generally evil werecreature – that is trying to stay the beast is another interesting story to tell. How does a party of good characters try and reconcile these normally ravening beasts being good? Does the party help the creature try and maintain is goodly nature? Or do they kill it for the threat it might become? If the killing starts will he get blamed? As a GM you could use that as the perfect time for another killer to set up the werecreature holding on to its morality as a patsy.

Werewolves can play a part in your game as barbaric monster, unfortunate victim, or tragic outcast. How do you use werecreatures in your games? What are some of your favorite folk cures for lycanthropy? How do you handle good aligned werecreatures in your game? What happens to werewolves on a planet with more than one moon?

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