Children of the Moon

"*The true Children of the Moon rarely move in packs, and they are never much in control of themselves.*"
—**Edward on werewolves.**

**Children of the Moon**, more commonly known as werewolves or lycanthropes, are creatures similar to the traditional werewolves of myth, and are not to be confused with shape-shifters. They are a near -extinct supernatural species of individuals who unwillingly transform into a fearsome, and extremely hostile wolf during full moons. Even in their human form, all werewolves possess superhuman physical powers, though only during a full moon are they at their strongest and most lethal.

Children of the Moon are the most dangerous enemies of vampires, because they are the only thing strong enough (aside from another vampire) to kill a vampire. Children of the Moon originally hunted humans, though over the centuries they have been hard-wired to kill vampires on sight in their wolf form. They still hunt human prey when there are no vampires to kill.

## HISTORY

Not much is known about the Children of the Moon. It is known that Caius, one of the Volturi leaders, is terrified of them after he was nearly killed in a fight with one two thousand years ago. Aro and Marcus knew about Caius's encounter, and since werewolves posed a threat to vampires everywhere, they initiated a war against them, resulting in the near extinction of the werewolves in Europe and Asia. Ever since Caius ordered them to be hunted, these seemingly nomadic creatures were forced to form packs. This was new to them, being extremely close to so many rivals. Fights would occasionally break out.

The Volturi refuse to tolerate any truces or alliances between werewolves and vampires, under likely punishment of death. This was something that Caius tried to stress when the Volturi put the Cullen family on trail for creating an immortal child and for creating an alliance with a werewolf, Vivienne Blackwell. But the werewolf he believed to be Vivienne was actually her doppelganger and descendant, Gabriella Cullen, a human. Also, the werewolves aiding the Cullens were actually shape shifters in wolf forms, and so therefore, the law didn't apply.

## DESCRIPTION

Children of the Moon are creatures similar to the traditional werewolves of myth. They phase, or change form, in response to the cycles of the moon. To become a werewolf, one must be bitten by a werewolf (in werewolf form), though some older werewolves (Vivienne Blackwell) have been able to pass on their curse by biting in human form. The infection can also be passed on through scratches, though for a higher chance of passing on the curse one must be bitten. The process is extremely predictable and a victim of a werewolf attack will always survive as long as the transformed Children of the Moon draws blood from the victim with an infectious bite or scratch. Children of the Moon cannot breed in animal form; they can spread their species only by infecting humans through a bite. Infected humans who have children do pass their abilities to their offspring.

In their changed form, they do not entirely resemble actual wolves; their forelegs are more powerful than their hind legs, and they still have usable hands with opposable thumbs. In addition, their stance is more upright, making their movement somewhat apelike, rather than entirely canine. They change form only at night, and only during the fullest phase of the moon. Their eyes change to a bright golden colour during their transformation, though in their human form, their eyes can change to a flash of gold when angered or provoked.While in their wolf form, Children of the Moon are not aware of their human selves; they are feral rather than rational. They become much stronger in wolf form, and are much more savage and blood thirsty. Or the correct term would be, "flesh hungry. If a werewolf finds prey, whether it's an animal, human or a vampire, it will be mauled, ripped apart and devoured. Originally, Children of the Moon only hunted humans and other animals, however after years of rivalry with the vampires, the Children of the Moons have "hard-wired" themselves to hunt not only humans and animals, but vampires as well.

As they grow older and more disciplined, Children of the Moon can learn to channel their lupine nature to discover the differences between the scents of various human's blood, as well as scents of other things like fabrics (the unique scent of denim). The range of their senses can be increased through concentration. They can hear sounds coming from several miles away and even as they are asleep, they can be sure that there are multiple people in a room thanks to their varied breathing patterns. They can hear the sound of a heartbeat, a pulse thudding in a vein, and words spoken too quietly, or too fast for a human to detect. Their enhanced vision allows them to see the smallest details. They are undetectable to other supernatural creatures. It is because they appear human 29 days of the month, and their saliva (venom) is most active (and most poisonous) 1 day, and at night. The scent of Children of the Moon saliva is extremely unpleasant, not only to humans but to vampires and shape-shifters as well.Children of the Moon do not age, show flowing blood and a beating heart like humans, however, they smell unappetizing to vampires. Although they are immortal, their body's smaller natural changes will occur. They cannot age or grow in size, nor do their gain or loose any weight, but the small things like fingernails, toenails and hair will be able to grow - if they are cut, they will grow back soon. They show no physical and mental illnesses and defects, but their voice becomes different and almost rugged.

Children of the Moon sometimes describe themselves like vampires do: they are unchanged, "living stone" beings frozen at exactly when they were transformed (though their skin feels smooth, soft and blazing hot). Children of the Moon have the body temperature of about 110°F. This high temperature allows werewolves to bare cold weather and makes it difficult for them to become overheated. It also makes it very difficult for vampires to harm them in combat, due to a vampire's temperature being lower than a humans and therefore making a vampire's skin extremely sensitive to high temperature. When a vampire touches a Children of the Moons skin, it can be described as "touching fires" and "unbearable to touch".

In their animal form, Children of the Moon have heightened strength and speed that makes them both deadly and difficult to kill; contrary to the legend, these werewolves cannot be killed with a silver bullet, nor does silver repel them. Their amplified abilities makes them capable of destroying a lone vampire. One advantage the Children of the Moon has in both his/her human and animal form is immunity to vampire venom, both the transformation properties and the pain-producing properties.

Children of the Moon, though essentially immortal and indestructible, can be killed. However, vampires are unable to compete with Children of the Moon in strength and speed under the full moon, so therefore they are highly unlikely to fight and win with a transformed Children of the Moon, even in a group. Because of this, it is necessary to kill a Children of the Moon when it's in human form, as they are only at their most lethal and most deadliest when the moon is full. In order to kill a werewolf (in human form), a vampire must rip out its heart, cut off their heads or tear it into pieces. These are the only known ways to kill a Children of the Moon.

## TRANSFORMATION

"*She should be dead within 30 seconds. The Children of the Moon heart is about two-thirds the size of a human’s. But in order to shrink, first it has to stop. In other words, she has a heart attack. All the internal organs are smaller. So while she's having her heart attack, she's having liver and kidney failure too. And if she stops screaming, it's not because the pain has dulled—her throat, gullet and vocal chords are tearing and reforming. She literally can't make a sound. By now the pituitary gland should be working overtime, flooding her body with endorphins to ease some of the pain. But that too is shut down. Anyone else would have died of shock long ago, but it won't let her*"

—**Vivienne's transformation.**

On every full moon, a Child of the Moon will experience extreme pain whilst transforming from human into a savage and hungry monster, incapable of any form of empathy or thought. A werewolf's first transformation is always extremely painful and slow - lasting over five hours, it is almost like torture. After the first change, the transformations become faster overtime, but are always intensily painful.

During the transformations, the body of the person is twisted in an unnatural manner as bones reshape and shift to form a wolf-humaniod skeleton , causing the person immense pain. Later, the person grows excessive body hair and huge eyes that glow yellow and fangs, then in minutes the werewolf will become a hulking wolf-like monster. Child of the Moon stays in their werewolf phases from ***Dusk til Dawn***.

Upon completion the Child of the Moon has lost their human mind and has fully transformed into their wolf form, the wolf usually lets out a long howl. It is possible for a Child of the Moon to trick his/her body into believing there is a full moon when there isn't and therefore, causing them to transform early into almost a half wolf (not full Child of the Moon form). This can only occur when a Child of the Moon has successfully fed during the previous month.

## FEATURES

### FOOD

Children of the Moon are flesh eating creatures instead of blood drinking creatures. When feeding, it is absorbed throughout the body, satisfying their lupine urges, and gives the werewolf a slight amount of control during it's lunar transformations, but it's not necessary for life (unlike vampires who will go weaker if they don't consume blood after a considerable amount of time). The absence of devouring victims will result  in Children of the Moon lacking all control mentally in werewolf form, inhibiting their ability to have that tiny once of control in which they achieve in when they feed, and ultimately resulting in them loosing all sense of humanity and rationality in their transformed state. Despite lacking no bit of control in their werewolf form if they do not feed, a werewolf will 90% of the time devour their prey.

Some newborn werewolves attempt to lock themselves up during their transformations in order to not harm anyone, but either that night or shortly after they will attempt to break out. Children of the Moon have and will attack humans, but instinct and centuries of rivalry have hard-wired them to hunt their prey of choice: vampires. This especially began after the Volturi drove Children of the Moon into almost extinction. If a werewolf finds prey, whether it's human, a vampire or shape-shifter, it will be mauled, ripped apart and devoured. To werewolves, the taste of a vampire varies on a massive basis. A transformed werewolf will most likely attack a vampire who has feed off humans instead of animals.

### **NATURE**

Children of the Moon are a supernatural species in the Twilight Universe (other known species are vampires, shape shifters and hybrids). It is known that humans can be turned into Children of the Moon, and that werewolf venom is nothing more than a deadly poison to animals. Shape shifters and vampires can't be turned, however much like animals, the venom acts as a deadly poison giving them a slow and very painful death if severe injuries are added.

Children of the Moon are feral, predatory creatures, far more savage and beast-like than their vampire rivals. They growl, snarl, roar and curl their lips back baring their teeth as signs as aggression. Even older "civilized" werewolves (ex. Vivienne Blackwell) can break their human façade and show their animal instincts. When they sense danger, they go almost immediately looking for the presence, after which they bare their teeth and instantly attack with a feral roar and brutal attack.

When fighting transformed, Children of the Moon go in for the kill and often times succeeding in doing so. Their bites can sever the limbs of their opponent (their teeth have been known to be able to severe vampires in half), as well as kill (biting their head off like a toothpick). Their grips can also snap limbs and is common for some werewolves to play with their prey. Despite their nature, they are also capable of human feelings, such as love, beauty, protection, compassion, caring, respect, self-control, empathy and remorse.

## Physiology

After their first transformation, werewolves' physical appearance and muscle mass still remains normal like it was when they were human but still enhanced. Their eye color changes though. As they grow older and more disciplined, werewolves can learn to channel their lupine nature to discover the differences between the scents of various humans' blood, as well as scents of other things (like fabrics - the unique scent of denim). The range of their senses can be increased (thought only fractionally) through concentration. They can hear sounds coming from several miles away, and even as they are asleep, they can be sure that there are multiple people in a room thanks to their varied breathing patterns.

They can hear the sound of a heartbeat, a pulse thudding in a vein, and words spoken too quietly or too fast for humans to detect. Their enhanced vision allows them to see the smallest details, and often see things in Black, White, and Red. Unlike vampires, werewolves do not find it uncomfortable or irritating to wear glasses or contact lenses. They are undetectable to other supernatural creatures. It is because they appear human 29 days of the month and their saliva (venom) can only operate for 1 day, and at night. During the night of the full moon, their venom becomes active when in their werewolf form. The scent of the werewolf saliva is extremely unpleasant, not only to humans, but to vampires and Shape-shifters as well. Though immortal, their body's smaller natural changes still occur.

They cannot age but can grow in size, the small things like fingernails, toenails, and hair will be able to grow if they are cut they will grow back soon. Werewolves cannot gain or but can loss weight. They show no physical and mental illnesses and defects, but their voice becomes different and almost rugged. Their hearts still beat. Werewolves sometimes describe themselves like vampires do, they are unchanging, "living stone" beings frozen exactly as they were when they were transformed. (Though the skin feels smooth, soft, and blazzing hot). Children of the Moon have the body temperature of about 110°F. Vampires' temperature are lower than humans'. This high temperature allows werewolves to bear cold weather and makes it difficult for them to become overheated. It also makes it very difficult for vampires to harm them in combat, due to vampires being extremely sensitive to high temperature.

Their skin is like "touching fires" and, "unbearable to the touch". Werewolves, though essentially immortal and indestructible, can be killed. However, vampires are unable to compete with werewolves in strength and speed under the full moons, so therefore they are highly unlikely to win a fight if a transformed werewolf. Even in a group. This reason is why it is necessary to kill a werewolf when it's in human form. So the vampire must rip out its heart, cut off their heads, or tear it into pecies. These are the only known ways to kill a werewolf.

## Psychological Characteristics

When a human becomes a werewolf, all of his or her natural behavior, needs and characteristics are heightened at the same time as the develop fully. From the moment a werewolf is made, his/her interests,personality is all permanently greater. For instance, if one with a loving character becomes a werewolf, his or her passion is magnified, allowing him or her to love others even more intensely.

Another example is if a human was ambitious and cunning, those characteristics become magnified as a werewolf, thus making him or her ruthless killers Over time all of these emotions are calmed down, and then the werewolf can return to life where they do keep control of their emotions in human form. Aside from their personalities, they also have terrifyingly ferocious instincts and a compelling drive for protecting others and destorying challengers. Werewolves have to feed inorder to hang onto their original personalities, and keep themselves under a moment's self-control as beats.

Rare but possible, newborn Children of the Moon often try to lock themselves up, restrain themselves, until they (in werewolf form) break out, the longer they try and keep resisting that urge to feed, it becomes hard for them to resist it, and they will give into the hunger that starts to force itself on the werewolf sooner or later. Once a werewolf falls in love or makes a successful bond of loyality with someone, that feeling never does fade. As a general rule, only the bond between love can prevent werewolves from killing their love as Werewolves.

Larger Packs are more stable, but usually end because they draw way to many kinds of attenetion to themselves and unintentally calling forth the wrath of the Volturi. It's possible for a werewolf to fall in love after he'd been turned, and that love will be just as permanent as any other.

Another prevalent werewolf trait is that of a vengeful nature. The most common example of vampire vengeance is the aftermath of the loss of a mate. When a werewolf loses its mate, it may take centuries to recover. They will not rest until the party(ies) responsible is eradicated. Centuries can pass without lessening the ferocity of need for vengeance. However, it is possible to suppress that desire.

## Lifestyles

Though there are a range of werewolf lifestyles, the most common, are packs. After their near-extinction, all of the remaining werewolves found it safer to stay closer to each other in packs, moving frequently and never stay in a place for more than a week. This pattern is part of a attempt to hide from the notice of both the humans and vampires.

If the vampires become aware that werewolves are area, suspicions might be aroused, and the Volturi might take notice to wipe them out again. Also, if a werewolf interacts regularly with humans, eventually humans will notice that the werewolf isn't aging or dissapers once a month. A few werewolf packs are exceptions to this rule, and maintain semi-permanent or permanent homes. Doing this requires a great deal of pack loyality if the pack wants to avoid detection and keep the Volturi from becoming aware of their existence.

## Pack behavior

In their werewolf forms, Children of the Moon show the general behavior of their titular animals, though they don't have their human intelligence, memories and character. Unlike the Shape-shifters, werewolf packs are not linked to each other telepathically, greatly increasing their coordination during hunts and fights but allowing them all of their privacy.

Alphas can control other werewolves (in human form). The dominant male or female, the Alpha one, cannot force the other members to obey orders against their will. Alpha status is related to dominance, and by having fights to the death, they can select a new alphas to lead the pack. Though entirely possible, it's clear that a lower-ranking pack member can challenge the Alpha for the status.

Like the Shifters, someone like Bella Swan is able to mentally shield a whole pack of werewolves by focusing on their Alphas, with the protection cascading down through the ranks. It was intitally believed that because they have no Telepathic link, Children of the Moon do not make good pack members, however this is false, and a single pack of Werewolves are considered to be strong enough to take down a sized group of Newborns.

## Code of Loyalty

Werewolves are very similar to Shape-shifters when it comes to their own kind. Unlike the vampires, werewolves are more sworn to loyalty and often bond with other werewolves they meet. They work with each other as sort of an extended family. The bond of loyalty between werewolves is strangely long, while werewolves are entirely out of control, the only things they do not attack are other werewolves (triggered curse or not). This code does seem to extend to Eve Lydias' hybrids as well. It is possible that the only reason why Eve' hybrids show loyalty to her, is because of their werewolf sides*.*

## Eyes

A Child of the Moon's eyes are always yellow or White in either form. Newborn werewolves show bright orange eyes. Werewolves that have not killed during the full moon show glowing eyes that would only appear in their transformed state. Their eyes are liquid topaz, or honey-golden, reflecting similar to a vegetarian vampire's appearance. These eyes, however, are viewed as strange and somewhat unnatural by vampires, allowing them to sometimes pass as regular vegetarian vampires.

## Powers & Abilities

A Child of the Moon's physical and mental abilities far exceed those of a human being. They are shown to possess superhuman strength, endurance, healing, health, senses, speed, agility, dexterity, reflexes, willpower, and intelligence. These traits vary between human and Werewolf form; in human form their mental abilities are increased higher then their physical abilities, but in their werewolf form their physical powers are increased far greater then their mental ones.

* **Superhuman Strength** - Children of the Moon have super strength to a degree and grow stronger as time passes, though they are relatively weaker than vampires while in their human form; it has been compared to the strength of a vampire-human hybrid. However, once in their wolf forms, they are vastly stronger than vampires, shapeshifters and vampire-human hybrids.
* **Superhuman Speed** - Children of moon posses this ability in and out of transformation. However, the power is unknowingly faster during the night then it was during the day, but it usually works fully while they are transforming under a full moon. It has been proven that werewolves can run down vampires even in their human form.
* **Superhuman Agility** - Children of the moon possess superhuman agility. They can move, jump, climb, and run incredibly fast without difficulty or exhaustion.
* **Accelerated Healing** - Children of the Moon can snap their bones back into place after being broken and have been seen to be complete unharmed from gunshots, stab wounds, and torso impalement.
* **Super Senses -** Children of the Moon have extremely acute senses, even in human form. Many werewolves can "smell" emotions. They can hear a person's heart beat or the blood moving in the body from miles away, even in human form. Children of the Moon can quickly tell a vampire from a human, a human from a shape-shifter, and a human from another werewolf.
* **Indestructibility -** They can recover from almost any wound other than that caused. Unlike a vampire who can reattach a lost body part, werewolves can regrow lost limbs and critical parts.
* **Immunity to Vampire Bite** - Children of the Moon are 100% to the bite of a Vampire in either human or werewolf form. The bites heal instantly and in response, their bites are 100% fatal to a vampire instead. So besides their strength, Children of the Moon have the greater advantage of a vampire during the time of the full moon still.
* **Lie Detection** - Werewolves are able to sense if you're lying or not. Unlike gifted vampires, Children of the Moon possess these abilities naturally and are based purely on instinct instead of special psychic powers. Because of this, they can overlook Bella's Mental Shield.
* **Werewolf Bite** - The bite of a werewolf is extremely lethal to all vampires but only see to weaken an original vampire.Vampire-human hybirds are immune to the bites.
* **Immortality** - Like their vampiric enemies, Children of the Moon stop aging once turned. Upon their transformation, werewolves become immune to all conventional illnesses, viruses, diseases, and infections.
* **Full Moon** -Children of the moon powers and abilities are enhanced and are at their peak during a Full Moon.
* **Shapeshifting** - Children of the moon turn into huge wolf-like beasts/monsters under a full moon, but they have no control over themselves and are far worse then newborn vampires.

## Weaknesses

* **Wolfsbane** - When ingested, wolfsbane causes a werewolf to become severely weak and feverish. Although, If a werewolf's skin is exposed to wolfsbane, it can result in burning them.
* **Decapitation**- By decapitating a Child of the Moon it'll die instantly.