#lycanthopy

 November 27th, 2024

Werewolves, of the monsters I’ve covered, may pose the most obvious physical threat, but just as easily could be considered the most sympathetic.

To answer the question I’m using as the title for this series, it would be easy to say “because they’re big and have lots of sharp things to kill you with”, and this answer would get you a lot of the picture, but wolves already do that without having been a man at some point, so that part of the equation is a good place to start.

Let's get this out of the way now:  stories about people being turned into wolves are old, as old as the Epic of Gilgamesh, but also appearing in Greek and Roman mythology.This was often by gods as part of some sort of curse, whether for relatable or morally repugnant actions on the part of the mortal. 

In Universal’s “The Wolfman”, Lawrence Talbot, who is often thought of as the first modern werewolf, is far from a coldblooded killer in his human form, wishing to avoid any further bloodshed, and this relationship between human and beast forms has been echoed in other horror and fantasy. 

Also, as mentioned in previous posts, the halfway point between human and beast, as well as the painful transformation, can add an amount of Uncanny Valley grotesqueness. The pain of the transformation in particular helps stress when the human identity of the werewolf is meant to be sympathetic, but also connects back surprisingly well to uses as a divine punishment.

If I were to hazard a guess what current events around “The Wolfman”’s 1941 release were inspiring horror about battling against one’s inner capacity for violence and questioning how much we have in common with bloodthirsty beasts, I would start with the deadliest conflict in human history.

During the film’s production, America had not yet joined the second conflict, but its writer, Curt Siodmak, was a Jewish man who had been a German national during World War I, and fled to the United States not long before the outbreak of the second. It is not difficult to imagine how someone like that’s horror at the cruelty of his fellow man could mix with the ancient versions of lycanthropes to create the werewolves we know today.

However, their story does oddly have a happy ending: Of the “classic” monster types (which is of course a loose categorization), werewolves also may have the most fiction where they are able to remain perfectly peaceful, often in tune with nature. 

(Octransfur 2023) - Time

Beast talon 1d6 slashing damage, light, finesse You can use your full action to unleash the beast within the blade, fusing the blade with your arms. When fused, you have claws that do 1d4 piercing or slashing and forearms blades that do 1d8 slashing damage. When fused you can attack with both claws and blades at the same time, as an attack action you can pounce on an enemy, the must make a dc 15 strength save or be knocked prone and take attack damage