by Jean Baptise
Everyone asks Were the wolf, everyone asks Why wolf. You know what no one ever says? How are you wolf? You ever notice that. I for one think this says a lot about the way our society works.
The were wolf is a very interesting example because its NOT an example… though that could be confusing to some of you, so let me rephrase.
The Werewolf as we know it isn’t a Thing, its THINGS. There are more than one type of… how do you call it, it’s certainly not Breed, Pack is a whole other topic…. Heritage sounds safest.
It's hard talking about the biology of groups that read newspapers, I gotta be careful, its a dog eat dog world and I am just as vulnerable to ironic punishment as the next pile of meat.
The point I was getting at, is that werewolves are actually a product of Convergent Evolution, much like our magic system is itself (I can write on that later). This means that, unlike goblins who have developed from one single culture into several different groups, there are many ways to skin a pup, place it on your face, and bond its soul into your own and its flesh into your flesh.
First way… is the one I just said, but there are ways that you can do in public without getting arrested.
For some lycanthropy is a curse, for others it's an affliction, for many its a blessing. You may think this is just the way of the world right? How one’s trash is JB’s dinner. BUT NO! It’s literally true.
The CURSE of Lycanthropy is entirely different from the Blessing of Luna, it’s simply that bonding the wit and wisdom of humanity (and others) to the pack loyalty and instinct of a wolf happens to be an optimal arrangement.
There are several variants, and I am going to go over a few.
Luna’s greatest soldiers. For some, lycanthropy is as much a call to duty as armor, the bushy hide is as clear a uniform as the Red Knight’s crimson colors. They are usually fully lucid, tend to a honor system (Albeit one that CAN tend to honor those inside the pack far more then those outside it, after all wolves do not care about sheep) and their bite is noninfectious, and not just because a werewolf often finishes the job if they start one. I say usually because Luna also has madness in her pantheon, and sometimes moods are fickle. But hey, we’ve all lost ourselves in the blinding glory of a greater god’s thoughts, I can not judge if someone has a Moon Induced Gamer Moment and goes berserk. I didn’t have nearly as good an excuse as the moon when I lost it.
Curse, if you have not noticed, transformation is a pretty good spell! It’s got it all, you have claws, regeneration, sometimes the claws are longer, all that good stuff. Some people have worked on rituals that bond that spell permanently to someone. The term Curse here refers just to that, a spell specifically bond to someone that does not go away with time. Some curses are helpful, but either through malice, spite or sheer ineptitude many of these curses are NOT helpful at all! This often is the origin of many other variants like wererats. Because “fusing two spells” is a idea literally anyone with 2 spells has thought at least once, there are many many many many variants, and one cant TRULY expect to catalogue all of them, by the time you finish 151 different types of werewolves they will develop 100 more! And some of them are just the same one but smaller and you are like, what the hell? Some of these aren’t even good! But that’s what happens with magic isn’t it?
Affliction. Sometimes if someone does the thing I just said, and has disease claws, that spell has a bad habit of tying the very spell to the disease. So now you have a biologically induced curse. This has introduced some homogeneity, typically they all hate silver, have disease, and go berserk when the curse triggers on the moon.
Necromancy! Believe it or not, there are in fact undead werewolves, and not just because I found a werewolf and made it undead. Often the cause of death can majorly impact how a undead is formed. Or other sins. Murderers create wights, paladins create death knights…. If a wolf has consumed human flesh, flesh that they took from a living human, that wolf can become their victim. It is not the undead human who takes on the wolfs power, but rather the dead wolf takes the memories and shape of the human to ambush predators. Often these wolflords can lead packs of normal wolves, binding them to service with the offer of easy prey, prey that is often the surviving family of the first slain. These Werewolves are far less unique and special than the others, even if they can be less numerous. The wolf was without pity when they ate the throat of a living soul, and when they die, whether from cold or hunger or hunter, they don’t suddenly learn the skill. They are a menace, an entity entirely of lupine instinct with human memories, but no human spite or compassion. They don't see you as anything but threat, food or servant. Or, if you happen to be the bigger werewolf, master. So one COULD bind one, as a necromancer binds other thralls. I do not recommend.
Fortunately they all taste the same letting me wrap this all up simply. You've ever had a sausage, and how a pork sausage tastes nothing like a pork chop because they mixed all this stuff in it?
All Lycanthrope meat tastes like that… if harvested during the transformation at least. Otherwise you know, you're just eating a human or an elf or a dragon. And they taste like that. Shockingly Werewolves do not have the gamey stringiness of dogmeat, they just taste… weird, like they were preseasoned. Oddly like juniper.
One of life’s greatest mysteries.
This article…… has a sponsor! The Feast…. of the Leviathan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Specifically number 24! That’s right! Cecil lost count of the yule party but Aeston NEVER forgets a number!
It’s got it all! Murder! Games! Long winded speeches! Long winded award ceremonies! A giant cheese table! Pizza probably I saw pizza a few times its probably still there!
AND A BAR!!!! The greatest Neden institution! (Neden didn't invent the bar but we sure do claim the bar! We tip enough for it) With drinks! Hot drinks! Cold Drinks! Warm drinks that were either hot or cold but you know you tried to get it HOURS after it came out, the ice melted so you just drink it outside and its a cold drink again!
And best of all… MINIATURE GOLF!
You saw golf, and we heard the complaints, it was too big! You couldn’t see where your ball was, so we SHRUNK it down! You thought it needed more quirky obstacles, we got those. You want to stomp around and act like the champion god of Norlund, well you can do that! The golf is miniature so you can act like the golf is normal and your just a maximized person, that’s called Roleplaying.
We just invented that, and we invented that for you Alpacasaurus.
We were gonna make a disc golf course but everyone kept mistaking their plates as frisbees in the focus group testing, and we had to scrap it. Sorry half the oldbies!
WE got board games! You like Carcassonne! WE got giant Carcassonne! You like Stratego? Why do you like that game? BUT WE GOT IT ANYWAY!
Come for the food, pay extra so someone else can come for the food, stay to see who wins the View Awards… do we have those still? We don’t! I wrote like 12 different articles and I cant even get a nomination?
IM GONNA LOOK LIKE A FOOL!
Why I wanna go to Feast of Leviathan 24? Because I missed 23! Why YOU want to go? Because even though its the START of the year, its really the closest thing we have to a END of the year event! The big wrap up! The feast to send off all good deeds and youthful miscreations of 2022! And then you can wait MONTHS to start the year off!
The Feast of the Leviathan! Just because the Leviathan never shows up to his own feast doesn’t mean YOU should!
Is this a WIWG or an article on werewolves, I forgot!
