I wanted to discuss werewolves again.
Coolidge’s 2006 essay on archetypes of lycanthropy lists medieval, monstrous (cursed), monstrous (diabolic), heroic and sympathetic as those relevant to contemporary fantasy fiction (fantasy lycanthropes are a miscellaneous addition). Although new fiction has come out in the intervening years, these archetypes seem to remain just as relevant and largely unchanged. All the werewolves I’ve seen in roleplaying games can be described by these archetypes, either singly or in combination.
In terms of designing the nitty gritty,
GURPS Shapeshifters is extremely helpful. I’m just going to describe some broad world building here drawing on precedents in folklore and games.
A recurring concept of lycanthropes in games like
World of Darkness,
The Everlasting,
WitchCraft,
Dresden Files or
Los Cazados is animistic. They are often the result of spiritual invocation or outright possession. This goes back to the folklore origins of lycanthropes, which generally involved invoking deities (if good) or demons (if evil) to induce transformation. An old concept, unknown in modern fiction, is that the transformation was a form of astral projection rather than physical.
Although lycanthropes in folklore are typically evil (which may be attributed to Christianization of pagan beliefs that previously depicted both good and evil lycanthropes), there are a few surviving stories of good lycanthropes like the Italian “hounds of God” or the Slavic “krsnik.” They fight demons, witches, vampires and so forth. Despite being a ready premise for a superhero, they’re bizarrely rare in modern fiction.
Pathologic lycanthropy was invented by Hollywood and, as many detractors in fantasy fiction love to point out, this would generally result in werewolf epidemics. Indeed, this was precisely the danger of folkloric vampires: if you didn’t re-kill them, then the undead would spread as a plague. However, there are plenty of pre-modern stories where lycanthropy is spread to humans from a kind of cursed reservoir. Such reservoirs include flowers, water, wolves, the Moon, cannibalism, and blasphemy. Although intentional werewolf curses like that placed by witches or saints typically left the victim’s mind intact so they could suffer through the life of a wolf, those from reservoirs seemed unpredictable. You might have control over the transformation, or you might turn into a vicious beast without your knowledge, and that’s assuming you know you cursed yourself.
In terms of character options for a specific setting (out of many potential settings), I can imagine a few examples drawing on Coolidge’s archetypes. The occult basis for this form of lycanthropy would be an animal spirit, either possessing the werewolf himself, bound into a magic token like a selkie or swarm maiden, or the token itself is symbiotic a la
Witchblade or
Guyver. Possession is broadly the result of a pact, blessing, curse, or heredity. Aside from how one becomes a lycanthrope and what benefits and drawbacks it provides; a key aspect of world building would be how lycanthropes treat their condition and how they build their secret societies.
To name a few examples from media:
- The hereditary werewolves of Lupine Ridge kept to themselves, aside from a cult run by one of their number who converted some muggles into subservient “betas.”
- The Knights of St. Christopher draw their lycanthropy from magical sentient wolfskins fused to their bodies, passed down across wearers. They hunt witches.
- The werewolves of Stonehaven make it their business to keep the existence of werewolves a secret from muggles and to put down any werewolves who make a nuisance of themselves.
- A group of werewolves in California are attracted to evil people and driven to destroy them. Because “werewolf” is apparently not cool enough, they call themselves “morphenkinder" and initiation "chrism."
- The government maintains a secret task force for investigating werewolf activity, with a few werewolves on the payroll. Less scrupulous government organizations want to weaponize werewolves.
I don't have a lot of steam right now so I'm going to leave off right here.