Special Conversion Thread: Lycanthropes and their ilk

[freyar]

Like I said, do as you prefer, just give me something later.

 

[Cleon]

Like I said, do as you prefer, just give me something later.

But you might not like what I give you...

Updating the Wererat Lord Working Draft.

 

[freyar]

All done with this one?

 

[Cleon]

All done with this one?

Yes!

And that means we've finally finished one of our batches to come so we can update the Creature Catalog!

We've still got enough obscure lycanthropes for another batch of werecreatures - including yet another jaguar variant.

Incidentally, I've discovered there are a few Lycanthropes from the Ravenloft supplement Children of the Night: Werebeasts that aren't in Echohawk's list, together with some other lycanthropes that don't appear to have official conversions, namely:

Catwere, Weredog, Werecobra, Weredolphin, Weredragon, Weregorilla, Weremole, Wereowl, Werepanther, Werespider.

The Bold Ones are from Children of the Night and aren't in Echohawk's Index, the remainder are in the Index and mainly originate from "New Lycanthropes in the Realms" in FR7 Hall of Heroes. Most of those have some 3.0 stats in the fan supplement Bestiary of the Realms but as far as I've been able to find they don't have any official 3E stats.

For clarification, the "Weredragon" above is not the same as the Song Dragon "Weredragon" of the Realms - it's a genuine lycanthrope, not a shapechanging true dragon.

Yeah, I'd happily leave the Bestiary of the Realms ones for last. The main reason I'd fancy eventually doing our own conversion of them is that the Bestiary doesn't include any sample creatures, so it's not that "DM ready". Plus, it's D&D 3.0 of course, which uses a substantially different Lycanthrope template to 3.5.

The Bestiary doesn't have the FR7 "Weredragon", so we could consider that on the assumption that it's different from the Song Dragon. If we add the Catwere, Werecobra and Weregorilla from Children of the Night that's still only four monsters, not a "full batch". I suppose there are a few more Mystaran/BECMI "lycanthropes", like the Devil Swine.

 

[freyar]

Wow, a batch to post! Shall we do that this weekend? We should work that out in the thread of batches, I guess.

Anyway, I vote to rest this thread while we work on other existing batches.

 

[Cleon]

Wow, a batch to post! Shall we do that this weekend? We should work that out in the thread of batches, I guess.

As you like. I'll add a post to it.

You might be being optimistic about adding them this weekend because The Creature Catalog isn't working at the moment - I've been getting "Connection has timed out" errors from it for at least a week.

Anyway, I vote to rest this thread while we work on other existing batches.

I'd rather press on by adding a new Batches To Come - maybe "Skinchangers 2, Son of the Werebeast"?

As for the other batches, we should really finish the Wolf Lord. Then we'd only have one more Epic Creature to close off another batch.

We should be able to work through the Sea Monsters pretty quickly if we put out mind to it, since most of them are relatively straightforward creatures.

 

[freyar]

Well, you can start up more lycanthropes here is you like, but it will slow down the other current batches.

I forgot all about the wolf lord! Where is that thread, anyway?

 

[Cleon]

Well, you can start up more lycanthropes here is you like, but it will slow down the other current batches.

It shouldn't slow things down that much (especially if a certain someone posts a bit more often here ).

Most lycanthropes are pretty straightforward to stat up once you decide on the base animal, although the triple stat block is a bit tedious to write up.

I guess we might as well go through them in order - which puts the "Catwere" next.

I forgot all about the wolf lord! Where is that thread, anyway?

He's in Creature Catalogue Overhaul Project Revisited, see the the the Wolf Lord Working Draft.

 

[Cleon]

Okay, I've looked through my notes and found the following possibilities:

Catwere from Children of the Night - Werebeasts (1998).
Werecobra from Children of the Night - Werebeasts (1998).
Weredog from FR7 - Hall of Heroes (1989).
Weredolphin from FR7 - Hall of Heroes (1989).
Weredragon from FR7 - Hall of Heroes (1989).
Weregorilla from Children of the Night - Werebeasts (1998).
Weremole from Demihuman Deities (1998).
Wereowl from FR7 - Hall of Heroes (1989).
Werepanther from MCA2 (1992) plus
Panther Lord from MCA2 (1992).
Werepanther #2 from FR7 - Hall of Heroes (1989).
Werepanther #3 from from Dungeon #50 (1994) plus
Urik von Kharkov the "Nosferatu Panther Lord" from RR1 - Darklords (1994).
Wereseal from Masters D&D and PC4 - Night Howlers (1992).
Wereshark from Companion D&D and PC4 - Night Howlers (1992).
Werespider from FR7 - Hall of Heroes (1989) and MCA3 (1996).
Wereswine (aka Devil Swine) from Expert D&D, PC4 - Night Howlers (1992), and Mystara Compendium (1994).

Of the above, we can eliminate the #2 and #3 versions of the werepanthers because the FR7 version doesn't seem to have much to distinguish it from a normal wereleopard (apart from being Lawful Neutral) and the Ravenloft #3 version already has an official conversion in Sword & Sorcery's Ravenloft Gazetteer IV.

The wereshark poses a bit of a problem. There's already an official 3E wereshark in Lost Empires of Faerûn, but this appears to be based on the AD&D version of the monster while the BECMI version is quite different.

The BECMI wereshark is an aquatic humanoid like a merman or triton who turns into a mako shark (i.e. it's a Medium-sized 4 HD shark). The AD&D wereshark is a human or sahuagin who turns into a great white shark (i.e. it's a Large-sized 10-12 HD shark).

The Lost Empires of Faerûn wereshark takes the form of a great white shark, so it becomes a Large shark with at least 8 HD, and the sample creature uses a human as the base creature, so it's pretty clear it's more like the AD&D version than the BECMI one.

I'd like to stat up the BECMI wereshark too in 3E. We could call it a "weremako" and use the Medium Shark as the base animal.

That gives us fourteen werecreatures (or thirteen if we cut out the wereshark), so we have more than we need for a batch!

 

[Cleon]

Correction. The wereseals in Master D&D and PC4 - Night Howlers (1992) are different creatures.

The Master D&D (and Rules Cyclopedia) Wereseals are massive sea lions with 5 HD females and 8 HD males (they appear to be similar to the Northern Sea Lion, with males weighing up to 2,500 pounds), so they're likely Large size in 3E terms. I guess we can call these "Weresealions" to distinguish them from...

The PC4 - Night Howlers (1992) Wereseal is a 4 HD Medium-sized seal (up to 8 feet long). They entry technically covers two different wereseals - one based on the Fur Seal and the other the Harbour Seal (Common Seal) - but they only differ in their Hold Breath multiplier and speed on land. We should be able to cover them both with one entry.

Oh dang it, I've found another one - the BECMI Werefox. This is (yet again) different from the AD&D Werefox (aka the Foxwoman), which we can forget about because it has an official conversion in Ravenloft Gazetteer I (not that I like that version very much...but then I do already have a Cleon Special version of it).

Oh double dang it, the BECMI Werebat also has some differences from the standard AD&D Werebat, since it has a disease bearing bite. PC4 also gives a high level one stunning ultrasonic shriek special attack.

Oh, and there's also at least two more werebats, there's a "Deep Werebat" in the MC11 Forgotten Realms Monstrous Compendium who appears to be a 2E version of the "Man-Bat" Werebat in Dragon #90. They both have a bite that causes an enfeeblement effect and is extremely (80%) likely to give the victim lycanthropy, plus they have a blood drain attack too boot.

Secondly, there's a "Giant Werebat (Shadkyn)" in Dragon #266 who has a shriek attack and is, well, a Giant.

Better add those as possibilities, although I'm inclined to fold at least some of the Werebats into one entry - maybe a "Greater Werebat" that gains an additional special attack? The PC4 Werebat doesn't seem different enough from the 3E standard werebat to deserve its own entry.

So the list now has up to nineteen entries, depending on what we use:

Catwere from Children of the Night - Werebeasts (1998).
Werebat from Master Set and PC4 - Night Howlers (1992).
Werebat, Deep Werebat from Dragon #90 (1984) and MC11 (1991).
Werebat, Giant (Shadkyn) from Dragon #266 (1999).
Werecobra from Children of the Night - Werebeasts (1998).
Weredog from FR7 - Hall of Heroes (1989).
Weredolphin from FR7 - Hall of Heroes (1989).
Weredragon from FR7 - Hall of Heroes (1989).
Werefox from Master Set and PC4 - Night Howlers (1992).
Weregorilla from Children of the Night - Werebeasts (1998).
Weremole from Demihuman Deities (1998).
Wereowl from FR7 - Hall of Heroes (1989).
Werepanther from FR7 - Hall of Heroes (1989) and FRE1 Shadowdale (1989).
Werepanther from MCA2 (1992) plus
Panther Lord from MCA2 (1992).
Wereseal(ion) from Masters D&D.
Wereseal from PC4 - Night Howlers (1992).
Wereshark from Companion D&D and PC4 - Night Howlers (1992).
Werespider from FR7 - Hall of Heroes (1989) and MCA3 (1996).
Wereswine (aka Devil Swine) from Expert D&D, PC4 (1992), and Mystara Appendix (1994).

Can you think of any other shapeshifters? We've almost got enough for two batches!

EDIT: We decided to add the FR7 Werepanther to the list as a separate creature to round the number of shapeshifters up to 20.