Theranthropy

**Theranthropy** was a curse applied to humanoids which, during the full moon, transformed them into a bloodthirsty and partially animalistic form of themselves which could scarcely be harmed by things other than magic and silver. Afflicted individuals were called theranthropes or werebeasts (usually replacing there or beast with the appropriate animal, lycanthropes or werewolves were by far the most common) and could spread this curse by biting unafflicted who had to sever the bitten area within a minute or be curse, a rare occurance since such victims were typically either killed or bitten in multiple places. The special ingredients for the Remove Curse potion were silver dust and an herb specific to the animal the individuals curse was based on, theranthropic fluchgeists were highly dangerous and although they could be poisoned for 24 hours by variscite like the individuals they afflicted most of the time people preferred to simply kill theranthropes while they weren't transformed.

Theranthropy was originally created by the bloodthirsty, animalistic god Malar in his image to spread and maul who many worshipped, but some theranthropes, frequently druidic circles of werebears, who worshipped moon goddesses like Selûn and were granted the ability to retain their mind in their animal state and the most devoted of such worshippers were also granted the ability to change at will, including to a full animal shape, the Lythari were a famous tribe of leucistic Elven lycanthropes who gained this power for the entire tribe as well as all pureblooded descendants. On a similar but opposite note those who honored Malar by killing and infecting as many as they could were sometimes blessed by Malar to become garous, being able to shift between their original body, a gigantic theranthropic form, or a dire form of the animal their curse was based on, they also mentally reached a point of no return, only appearing human to avoid the ire of those they planned to kill or turn later and the curse no longer being separable from their soul.

Theranthropes with very little control over their bestial forms often could not remember anything that happened while they were transformed but visions of what they did would come to them as nightmares. There were methods of training, typically used by organizations of wererats and wereboars, which, over the course of years or months, allowed theranthropes to retain their original mind while transformed without divine assistence. This training could also grant them the ability to transform at will but they could not attain fully animal forms without the help of Malar or a Moon deity. No matter how they fought it or leaned into it a theranthrope would always be influenced in their personality by the animal their curse was based on, of course those who fought the bestial mind or had an entity fight it for them were only very subtly influenced.

Hags and other Unseelie Fey very often cursed those who crossed them with theranthropy, frequently lycanthropy as they believed it to be a good midpoint between the less and more dangerous animal transformations.

Though most theranthropes were Humans, Giants and Giant-kin were, for whatever reason, highly susceptible to the curse, being scratched by a werebeast or even being touched by one's bodily fluids could infect them and if one was bit their fate was set, which usually meant their tribe hunting them down.

Bodily parts of theranthropes were known to have a variety of magical properties, mostly by potioneers, though different kinds of theranthrope blood were commonly known to be able to create a variety of different poisons based on race and animal.

Individuals with different theranthropic curses had children who were perfectly ordinary, but a theranthrope's child with an uncursed individual was always born cursed but theranthropes born this way or born of people born this way retained more consciousness when transformed roughly in proportion to the percentage of uncursed ancestors they had. The child of two theranthropes of the same curse was a beastwere, born in the half form who strengthened during the full moon and learned to shift to a full animal or full humanoid a little before their adolescent stage (around 10 years old for humans)