Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
D&D used to have one. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...wqsBegQIDxAF&usg=AOvVaw1WS6zlpk9WG1dLptHC6Uy8
D&D General why do we lack a canine race?
- Thread starter Mind of tempest
- Start date
Corinnguard
Hero
Yep. The Lupin.
Peter BOSCO'S
Adventurer
Because Traveller called "dibs" on them first, they're the Vargr.
Breed groups is good, possibly with environmental factors. Breeds like huskies & malamutes would be resistant to cold; Salukis would fare better in warmer climates.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Werewolves only got the "spread via biting" thing very recently. As in, within the last two hundred years.
For the preceding two to three thousand years, being a werewolf was either:
A curse (or, rarely, blessing) placed by a divine being (originally Zeus, later the Christian God; e.g. Demaenetus, )
An innate characteristic that some specific tribe happens to have (e.g. the werewoves of Ossory, the Neuroi, etc.)
Something that particular people could do with or without any specific tribal affiliation (e.g. the Benandanti)
A fully-voluntary transformation via some ritual or potion/herb/etc. (the athlete Moeris, the Satyricon werewolf)
You only get infectious lycanthropy very, very late in the game, and many stories don't invoke it at all. The moon is often unrelated; silver only popped up around the same time as infection/transfer; and the idea of wolf-man hybrids is at best 200 years old and probably only dates back less than a century to the silent film era.
Werewolves have been many things to many people over many centuries. That's why I say they're such a presence. They're like dragons in that way; dragons, when viewed as a cross-cultural thing (since almost every culture has something dragon-like in its myths!), are an ENORMOUS variety of creatures, types, etc., etc.
I mean, don't we already do that with "fae," "yo(u)kai," "genies," "demons," and, to tap into more modern stuff, "cryptids"? Hell, even "dinosaur" is technically abused to refer to a wide variety of things that were only distantly related, e.g. plesiosaurs and pterosaurs were not dinosaurs, but we call them "dinosaurs" out of convenience (in part because the evolutionary history there is clear as mud.)
Yes, I recognize that true, proper hengeyoukai are more complicated. The actual Japanese is 変化妖怪, literally "(abnormal-)changing youkai," where "youkai" covers creatures as diverse as zombies/vampires, ghosts, animated objects, fairy-like beings, magical animals, outright monsters, monstrous humanoids e.g. oni, and sometimes even purely benevolent spirits and the like. The original, actual term it is derived from is already a lumping together of disparate things. If you want to take umbrage with lumping things together that aren't that similar, take it up with Japanese mythology--they've been doing it for a thousand years or more.
LuisCarlos17f
Legend
Licantropes are cursed monsters who kill people, the hengeyokai are trickers, and in the modern Japanese fiction they are "kemonomimi", their only animal traits are the ears (if the ear canal is horizontal then the ears should be in the sides, not in the top of the head).
Onyx Path published a setting of antropomorphic dogs, Pugumre, and also with cats, mice and others animals.
In the 2nd Ed the antropomorphic animals were designed to be monsters or antagonists, not a playable race/specie. But with the open licence in 3rd Ed then the 3PPs to sell had to create new PC races.
Dogs are domesticated animals. This means their origin is not in the wild nature. Therefore antropomorphic dogs also have to be from "artifical origin", something like the magic version of genetic engineering.
It sounds as a fool joke, but if Hasbro believes they can make money with a D&D version of Paw-Patrol you can bet they will try it.
Onyx Path published a setting of antropomorphic dogs, Pugumre, and also with cats, mice and others animals.
In the 2nd Ed the antropomorphic animals were designed to be monsters or antagonists, not a playable race/specie. But with the open licence in 3rd Ed then the 3PPs to sell had to create new PC races.
Dogs are domesticated animals. This means their origin is not in the wild nature. Therefore antropomorphic dogs also have to be from "artifical origin", something like the magic version of genetic engineering.
It sounds as a fool joke, but if Hasbro believes they can make money with a D&D version of Paw-Patrol you can bet they will try it.
I almost always think in terms of fantastical versions of Doctor Moreau or The High Evolutionary when planting anthros in my FRPG campaigns.
Corinnguard
Hero
Or divine origin. A deity transforms his two faithful hounds into the first mated pair of a new race.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
It occurs to me that there's a second reason why we might not have canine stuff like this. Wolves used to be pretty hated. Like, REALLY hated. Sometimes literally demonized. When the grey wolf was listed as an endangered species in the United States, there was a huge outcry against it. Even today, constant efforts to de-list them and then hunt them down ASAP are a serious problem.
That might be part of why canines have only manifested through werewolves. To be a wolf was to be evil until recently.
That might be part of why canines have only manifested through werewolves. To be a wolf was to be evil until recently.
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