Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
why do we lack a canine race?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9174322" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Werewolves only got the "spread via biting" thing very recently. As in, within the last two hundred years.</p><p></p><p>For the preceding two to three <em>thousand</em> years, being a werewolf was either:</p><p>A curse (or, rarely, blessing) placed by a divine being (originally Zeus, later the Christian God; e.g. Demaenetus, )</p><p>An innate characteristic that some specific tribe happens to have (e.g. the werewoves of Ossory, the Neuroi, etc.)</p><p>Something that particular people could do with or without any specific tribal affiliation (e.g. the Benandanti)</p><p>A fully-voluntary transformation via some ritual or potion/herb/etc. (the athlete Moeris, the Satyricon werewolf)</p><p></p><p>You only get <em>infectious</em> 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 <em>at best</em> 200 years old and probably only dates back less than a century to the silent film era.</p><p></p><p>Werewolves have been many things to many people over <em>many</em> 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.</p><p></p><p></p><p>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 <em>not dinosaurs</em>, but we call them "dinosaurs" out of convenience (in part because the evolutionary history there is clear as mud.)</p><p></p><p>Yes, I recognize that true, proper <em>hengeyoukai</em> are more complicated. The actual Japanese is 変化妖怪, literally "(abnormal-)changing <em>youkai</em>," where "<em>youkai</em>" 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 <em>already</em> 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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9174322, member: 6790260"] Werewolves only got the "spread via biting" thing very recently. As in, within the last two hundred years. For the preceding two to three [I]thousand[/I] 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 [I]infectious[/I] 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 [I]at best[/I] 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 [I]many[/I] 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 [I]not dinosaurs[/I], 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 [I]hengeyoukai[/I] are more complicated. The actual Japanese is 変化妖怪, literally "(abnormal-)changing [I]youkai[/I]," where "[I]youkai[/I]" 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 [I]already[/I] 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. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
why do we lack a canine race?
Top