Mythos of the Werewolf

[Susano]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

I was thinking what would happen if you had a daylight Werewolf attack. Sometimes the moon comes up before the sun goes down, or is still up in the morning.

 

Add in busy mall, public square, crowded milieu of choice.

 

Give him a menu to Lee Ho Fuks and a big dish of beef chow mein?

[Intrope]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

Give him a menu to Lee Ho Fuks and a big dish of beef chow mein?

Only if it's raining!

 

So what if a werewolf in human form is slain, the moon comes up, and it's still daytime? does he become a vampire and instantly explode in the sunlight?

[Steve]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

Now there's a dramatic scene description.

[Edsel]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

Only if it's raining!

Now I have this image of cloud seeding using blessed silver iodide crystals...

A Holy Water rain storm ought to make life difficult for the vampires. And would the silver in the silver iodide make it just as bad for the werewolves?

[i3ullseye]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

I used to love running Chill.

 

Some notes on all this. Vampires, by description, aren't normally destroyed by sunlight in original legend, just weakend. Dracula comes out during the day in Stokers novel even.

 

I like the idea of the Moon forcing a werewolf into his beast form, but that not being the only time it can be assumed. Of course, this should be the mark of a very old, and very strong willed lycanthrope. In my games I have always assumed werewolves to have regeneration at all times. It is accelerated while in beast form, but they always heal faster than normal.

 

Further, they are damaged as normal while in human form, but are more likely to heal it back. They will slip into a coma rather than die when possible, but can certainly die. They can even die while in beast form from massive damage. Often I base them on good stats to start, then add 75% rPD and 50% rED Damage Reduction, neither applies to Silver.

 

I would avoid the holy relic damage myself, but thats just my call.

 

If you use the Loup Garou, who change by putting on a wolf skin, then salt can also kill them. If you put salt on the inside of their wolf skin, when they strip down and put it on to change, the salt is then put inside their flesh and the amount of pain is said to kill them outright.

 

I really like the take on hunger, and eating a large meal ahead of time to try to curb the lust to kill. Certainly a great berserk disad in that one.

 

But as for spreading the disease, I woudl treat it as a bloodborne pathogen and an STD combined. Basically picture AIDs. Antyhing that is an exchange of bodily fluids has a chance to transmit the disease, but not every contact is a gurantee of transfer. I would say it might be a Con roll to resist it, at a -1 to the roll for every BODY of damage taken. The worse the attack the more likely the infection, but a grazing blow would not likely cost most to change unless they were unlucky.

[gewing]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

What I am going for is a version of the werewolf that could make a good villian for street level characters. That is why I decided that experienced werewolves should be able to tranform at will. Otherwise clever characters (with lots of investigative skills) will track them down once the moon is no longer in the sky. I am sacrificing a little bit of the classic movie culture mythos to make them a more flexible opponent. If I decided that they must have some moonlight in order to transform they'd be in a world of hurt during overcast weather, when the moon was down and during new moons.

 

I have always liked the classic monsters; Ghosts, Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies. I guess Frankenstien fits in there as well but I always considered him to be low threat (he lumbers slowly after you and you can shoot him and be done with it).

 

You can throw lots of variety in there to make these creatures more appealing. The old game Chill was an excellent source of information. The article that Susano mentioned in Digital Hero looks really good too (I just need to make time to read it). For instance the three different versions of Werewolf I am contemplating and the ability for them to improve with EPs.

 

For Vampires I have about 5 or 6 varities. At least a couple of different versions of Zombies, and lots of different Ghosts.

 

I would quibble about the silver filled blackjack. JMHO, but unless the silver actually comes in contact with the Were, it should have no effect.

 

Now a syringe or tranquilizer dart full of a solution of silver ions or a slurry of fine silver particles... been 2 decades since chemistry what is it AgNO3?

 

Maybe even in a "mace" style spray.

I forget what exactly they used in "shifter" I think was the title...

[gewing]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

Sounds like I need to review the whole DH collection to see what I have forgotten about.

 

Some good ideas massey. Repped.

 

As far as werewolf inflicted injuries causing lycanthrope... I am thinking about the transform being dependent upon the victim failing a CON roll. Perhaps with penalities applied for each one or two points of BODY damage that was caused by the werewolf.

 

The hunger thing was caused by the last Bureau 13 novel I read "Damned Nation". When one of the minor characters is infected and transforms he is in terrible pain from his ravenous hunger. Another werewolf brings him a slain victim to eat. It is explained to him that if he does not eat shortly before or after the transformation he could literally starve to death. However, in retrospect an unsated blood-lust is probably more in keeping with the genre.

 

 

In "Werewolf by Night" killing another werewolf would cure lycanthropy.

[Gangrel44]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

Realize that there is also a vampire article' date=' a ghost one, and one on constructs, that includes Frankenstein's monster -- the novel version, which is far faster and smarter then the movie version.[/quote']

 

Which Issues of digital hero would have said articles? I would be very interested in reading them.....

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

I would like to recommend that a weapon's being purely of silver or silver-plated should not be an issue. A pure silver blade is not only heavy, but silver is a soft metal and liable to bend if made into a sword. I've worked with the stuff before and it's about as bendy as copper (more-or-less).

 

I always postulated that if a supernatural explanation was required, something along the lines of "Silver represents purity, and evil can't withstand exposure to purity."

 

If a more scientific explanation is preferred, "Silver is a known toxin to bacteria. Direct contact with silver leaves behind traces that can sicken the werewolf. Injuring him with a weapon that creates contact with the silver contained therein effectively halts the werewolf's ability to regenerate."*

 

Or some other way I hadn't thought of. It really depends on what flavor of werewolf you're going for.

 

*Or perhaps just for that wound?

[ghost-angel]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

It's worth a note that the addition of silver harming werewolves doesn't appear until the 20th century, and occurs first in a retelling of Beast of Gévaudan in a 1936 novel.

 

Traditionally, silver had no part in the older legends - especially in the French legends - and one merely needed to do lots of physical harm.

[Susano]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

Which Issues of digital hero would have said articles? I would be very interested in reading them.....

 

Digital Hero Issues 11 ("It's Alive"), 15 ("Ghost Stories"), 18 ("The Beast Within"), 28 ("Blood Brothers")

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

It's worth a note that the addition of silver harming werewolves doesn't appear until the 20th century, and occurs first in a retelling of Beast of Gévaudan in a 1936 novel.

 

Traditionally, silver had no part in the older legends - especially in the French legends - and one merely needed to do lots of physical harm.

 

True, but it's been incorporated into the modern folklore. If silvered weapons aren't used, perhaps they have damage negation for the first DC or so of incoming unless certain substances are used (wolfs-bane anyone?)

[Gangrel44]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

Digital Hero Issues 11 ("It's Alive")' date=' 15 ("Ghost Stories"), 18 ("The Beast Within"), 28 ("Blood Brothers")[/quote']

 

Thanks

[Clonus]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

I always postulated that if a supernatural explanation was required, something along the lines of "Silver represents purity, and evil can't withstand exposure to purity."

 

It came along at the same time as the connection to the moon.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

As an aside, I believe there was a more recent movie in which Robert DeNiro played Frankenstein's monster which, as depicted, was scary dangerous (fast, strong, near impossible to kill).

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

It's worth a note that the addition of silver harming werewolves doesn't appear until the 20th century, and occurs first in a retelling of Beast of Gévaudan in a 1936 novel.

 

Traditionally, silver had no part in the older legends - especially in the French legends - and one merely needed to do lots of physical harm.

 

Perhaps not werewolves specifically, but the story about marksmen loading silver bullets so that they could kill famous people like Blue Max goes back to the seventeenth century at least

[ghost-angel]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

Perhaps not werewolves specifically' date=' but the story about marksmen loading silver bullets so that they could kill famous people like Blue Max goes back to the seventeenth century at least

 

I have never run into a reference for that, nor any reference that Maximillian II (linked there) was killed at all - he died at age 63, with nothing notable made about his death at all that I'm aware of.

 

Got some links or books I could chase down?

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

Max wasn't killed at all. But Tyrolean marksmen were said to carry silver bullets in case they got a shot at him. I don't recall the precise source, but my best guess is either Henderson or McKay's lives of Prince Eugene, with the anecdote coming from the Prince de Ligne's scurrilous supposed 1810 memoirs of the same.

 

I've seen the anecdote cited for at least one of the big names of the old Scottish wars, but I recall it even less well. Montrose? Dundee? A Border reaver? Anyway, the symbolism of shooting someone who had supposedly sold the Reich for Spanish silver with a silver bullet is hardly difficult to parse. Also.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

Any citation of the beast of Beast of Gévaudan being killed by a silver bullet is poorly researched as - again - that was introduced in the 1936 novelization, and previous oral and written references do not mention it, on top of that the bullet was blessed as well, not just silver.

 

In tracking down there other bit, which is interesting but has nothing to do with werewolves - I ran across this: http://www.tyrol.tl/en/tyrols-holiday-areas/innsbruck-and-surroundings/polling-in-tirol.html

 

Which is a neat little bit of folklore. Anyway, I don't want to give the impression I doubt you, I'm mostly just curious. Especially because we (and the US is particularly bad) tend to lump history as "happening all at once" sometimes and anything before our time must have always existed as so... I always find it fascinating to know when certain chunks of "common" folklore were introduced.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

Exactly. The whole "silver bullet for Max Emmanuel" knocked my socks off when I read it for just that reason. (Unfortunately, not enough to actually take a note on where I saw it, but it was a little tangential to my thesis). It opens the door into this richer, deeper world of the past than you'd ever imagine without immersing yourself in the immensity of an actual moment of the past.

 

With the silver bullets and werewolves thing, I think it's important to remember that these were both pretty plastic ideas. Werewolves didn't have a horror movie canon of rules. They were this amorphous idea of a merger of man and beast that could be a metaphor for a whole range of things, from ravenous greed (silver bullet for greed for silver!) to licentious sexuality (the moon summons the werewolf, and silver is the moon's metal) to a wide range of other tropes.

 

The most difficult thing about doing either fantasy or horror as a genre of roleplaying or as "domesticated" movie monsters is that you get away from monsters as polyvalent symbols and reduce them to lists of stats, to the point where in some cases you can look at a table, see that a werewolf is an appropriate fight for an x level character, and also that said character will discover a silver-steel sword on the way to fight the werewolf if the bloody thing has to jump him from the bushes and shove itself down his belt.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

The other thing about that - because you make an excellent point with the "reduced to stats" comment - that it takes away the inherent Uniqueness of a regional monster. Just because you fought the last villages 'werewolf' with a silver weapon, doesn't mean this villages 'werewolf' is even the same thing, the legend comes up from a generally fearful, superstitious lot, and just dumping a consistent mythos into the world often ruins a lot of the local color and ambiance.

 

My sentence also got a away from me...

[Susano]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

Any citation of the beast of Beast of Gévaudan being killed by a silver bullet is poorly researched as - again - that was introduced in the 1936 novelization' date=' and previous oral and written references do not mention it, on top of that the bullet was blessed as well, not just silver.[/quote']

 

In my Hero System character sheet for the Beast, I've decided to state: "Many thought the Beast of La Gévaudan to be a werewolf. This accusation seemed to be true, as the creature survived many attempts to kill it, and didn’t finally die until a hunter shot it with an alleged silver bullet."

 

While I'm going for some semblance of historical accuracy, the character sheet is for something akin to the Beast in Brotherhood of the Wolf, and I'm stating artistic license as to why it has a Vulnerability to silver.

 

I hope you don't mind.

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

Of course, because we have a tradition of "Vampires and Werewolves are Different Things", any attempt to go outside those boundaries will be declared "Not a Werewolf" by most of your potential players. If you want werewolves, you should probably have "traditional" ways of dealing with them that resemble those in current folklore OR have good explanations handy for when your players say "But I thought Wolfs-bane/Holy Water/Silver Bullets would do the trick!" AND you must have alternative means for dealing with them that do not require the players to be exceptionally brilliant.*

 

If your plan is to introduce a creature that is more like the notion of a vampire/loup garou as it was imagined to be three or four hundred years ago, you're going to have to give your players some information and run it well, so they don't think they've been cheated out of meeting the "genuine article".

 

ETA: Since there was no distinction between the two (vampires and werewolves) perhaps there were those two (and more) types of supernatural creature that just got lumped into the same category because although their methods may differ, they are evil creatures that prey on humans and did not feel it necessary to denote whether said predator ate human flesh or drank human blood.

 

* Ignore that bit of advice if your players are exceptionally brilliant.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

Eh, mostly I'd go into the campaign with this: "common knowledge" is probably wrong, part of the adventures will be finding out the mystery behind the creature, cookie-cutter monsters from modern fiction aren't here. Please enjoy the ride.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf

 

I have always liked the classic monsters; Ghosts' date=' Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies. I guess Frankenstien fits in there as well but I always considered him to be low threat (he lumbers slowly after you and you can shoot him and be done with it).[/quote']

 

That's the James Whale/Boris Karloff take on Frankenstein's monster. Shelley's original was intelligent, resourceful and cunning. He could speak German (and could presumably be taught other languages) and quoted Milton. Combine that with his superhuman strength and durability (he could survive in the deep Arctic with very little protection) and you have a truly terrifying adversary.