Lycanthrope

Old Stormking portraiture of a Werewolf mauling its victim

> *"It is not so romantic or noble as you picture. A man can know love, he can appreciate a sunset, or a fine painting. An animal only really wants to eat. There is an animal in every man, and the Wyrrwulf is only that in actualization. The Wyrrwulf forgets the pleasures of life, the wonders of nature and his fellow man, the touch of his lover. The beast eats the human part of him from the inside out, consumes every other facet of his being--and then, it hungers still. This curse is a fate worse than death, to be sure."*
> -extract from *On Lycans*, by the Scholar Chené
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**Lycanthropes,** sometimes called the **Wyrrwulf** or **Werewolf** in the common tongue, is a type of chimaera originally native to the Thunderlands. The condition known as "lycanthropy" is spread between host bodies from carrier to carrier under specific conditions. Expose to direct moonlight causes the carrier to skinchange into a grotesque bipedal human-wolf hybrid, possessing great physical prowess and a ravenous hunger for terrestrial flesh. Daylight, or being out of the moonlight long enough, causes a reverting back into the carrier's previous form. While in wolf form the carrier has average animal intelligence and is motivated entirely by their need to kill and eat; after reverting, the carrier retains memories of the attack, and experiences violent and obsessive cravings to consume more flesh.

The curse originates from the experiments of the Western Storm Kings, specifically the work of King Fenris of the Rook Wood and motivated by his sorceror advisor Balthazar of the Black Thorn. The proposal was to create a type of shock troop who could sneak behind enemy lines in a human body before assuming a berzerk animal form to tear enemy armies apart from the inside. After several trials, they managed to get a semi-successful trial going in a captured elven soldier by forcibly melding her with a wild wolf, under a full moon and using a stave of silver. However the experiment spun out of control when the target attacked and mauled Fenris; the next month, at the full moon, Fenris transformed into a Lycanthrope in his own bedchambers and was chased out of the Shadowwatch by his own guards, who failed to capture him as he escaped into the Shadowwood. For years, the first Lycanthrope roamed the dark coniferous forest, eating and occasionally infecting the villagers that had once been his vassals; eventually, he had a hunting wolf-pack that numbered hundreds.

The Werewolves plagued the West and eventually the mainland for centuries, cursed mindless animals with a zombie-like urge to spread their disease. Fenris' many-times great-granddaughter Anja Rookwood was killed in a Werewolf attack, and it was her son Sir Lucas Blackthorne who finally sought to put an end to them. Researching and divining that silver was their weakness, he made arrows from smelted jewellery and set out on a decade-long crusade to systematically wipe out the creatures. As of 1014AE they are considered extinct, with no known living examples of those carrying the condition as of 1086AE.

The transformation of a werewolf is traumatic and violent to witness, as the total convesion of their body into another larger form requires a tremendous physical exertion. The Lycanthrope appears to peel their own skin off as their skeleton elongates, turning it inside-out to reveal a pelt of fur beneath. The more times a Lycanthrope transforms the more this effects their normal body, with older carriers appearing hairier and displaying physical disfigurements. They have a chimaera's resistance to convetional weaponry, and are badly hurt by anti-magic, but they are uniformly violently allergic to silver metal. if it is introduced into their bloodstream, their body seizes violently, flushing its system and incapitating the Werewolf making for an easier kill.

To become a Lycanthrope, one must be attacked and have their flesh be eaten by another carrier, specifically during the full moon. if the carrier manages to survive the mauling, upon the next full moon, they will become a Wolf. The condition is irriversible, and there is no known cure.