Van Richten's Monster Hunter's.pdf - Askadesign.com

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Infe+d Lycanfhrop-
When a person contracts pathologic
lycanthropy, his or her natural life span
is unchanged. Thus, a human blighted
with lycanthropy will rarely live past 75
or 80, while an elf with the similar
affliction might have to suffer it for half
a millennium or more.
To the best of my knowledge,
regardless of the age and maturity of
the victim, the animal aspect is always
that of a mature creature in the prime
of its life. (This quite obviously puts
the lie to that oft-quoted folktale that
an infected werewolf must only put up
with the affliction for 15 or so years,
after which time the wolf within will
have died of old age.) Whether the
victim is a youth or a centenarian, the
animal aspect is always powerful and
vigorous.
Does this mean, then, that an
infant-perhaps infected with the blight
while in the womb-may undergo the
transfiguration the first time it
experiences its trigger? Could a baby,
on the occasion of its first full moon,
become a ravening werewolf? Such is
not the case. In my experience,
infected lycanthropes will not undergo
the transfiguration until they have
reached puberty (at whatever age that
occurs for the species in question). Up
until this time, they do not react to the
trigger stimulus.
Why is this? I believe that the
infective agent insinuated into the
bloodstream requires its own trigger-
something to make it active.
Presumably, the vast physiological
changes of puberty provide such a
trigger.
According to many tales, infected
children do respond to their trigger
conditions in subtle ways. Rather than
transfiguring into the beast, they
exhibit a strong or inappropriate
emotional reaction to the trigger. Thus,
a child who will one day become a
wolf when the moon is full may
respond to a full moon with rather
Statistics measuring the Strength
md Dexterity of common were-
Jeasts in hybi?d form are listed on
>age 138. These figures, and the
iccompanying notes on aging,
3pply to any creature in man-beast
'orrn, pathologic or infected.
II
beastly behavior. In short, the child
may exhibit a monthly lunacy. As of
yet, I have found no direct evidence to
support this notion, however.
Other aspects of the life cycle-
sexual maturity, senility, and the end of
fertility-are all unaffected by the
blight of lycanthropy. Victims of this
dread affliction reach all these
signposts of life at the same ages as
others of their race.
It should be pointed out, however,
that the animal aspects never reach
such signposts. No matter how old the
human aspect, the beast form will
never grow senile, nor will it suffer
other visible or physiological effects of
aging.
Of course, some infected lycan-
thropes have a hybrid as their
secondary aspect. (They take the form
of a man-beast.) In that case, the
hybrid form shows the same outward
signs of aging as the werebeast's
primary form.
Tme Lycar-thrapes
The overall life span of a true
lycanthrope seems to be
approximately that of the race which
its primary aspect resembles. Thus a
werebeast that can appear human will
have a life span of about 70 years,
while a creature that seems to be an
elf can live for over half a millennium.
I have beer] led to understand that,
in certain distant lands which I have
never had the chance to visit, the
offspring of true lycanthropes mature
quite differently from normal children.
(For example, wererat offspring reach
maturity in about two years.) This does