NaosArchives-Werewolf
The werewolf legend is a common one throughout Europe, to the point of being trans-cultural. Its true origins are unknown, though stories of men with the ability to become wolves has been with recorded history since at least the Classical period (where the stories being told were even then from older periods still).
In Greek mythology, the story of Lycaon provides one of the earliest examples of a werewolf legend. According to one version, Lycaon was transformed into a wolf as a result of eating human flesh; one of those who were present at periodical sacrifice on Mount Lycæon was said to suffer a similar fate. Herodotus in his Histories tells us that the Neuri, a tribe he places to the north-east of Scythia, were annually transformed for a few days, and Virgil is familiar with transformation of human beings into wolves.
The Roman scholar Pliny the Elder, quoting Euanthes, says that a man of Anthius' family was selected by lot and brought to a lake in Arcadia, where he hung his clothing on an ash tree and swam across, resulting in his transformation into a wolf, a form in which he wandered for nine years. On the condition that he attacked no human being over the nine year period, he would be free to swim back across the lake to resume human form.
In the Latin work of prose, the Satyricon, written about 60 C.E. by Gaius Petronius Arbiter, one of the characters, Niceros, tells a story at a banquet about a friend who turned into a wolf (chs. 61-62). He describes the incident as follows, "When I look for my buddy I see he'd stripped and piled his clothes by the roadside...He pees in a circle round his clothes and then, just like that, turns into a wolf!...after he turned into a wolf he started howling and then ran off into the woods."
Some of the terms by which werewolves have been known, throughout the world:
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Contents
Therianthropy
Werewolves are perhaps the most common strain of therianthropes in the world of Legend. According to interview with several reliable sources, including what was suspected to have been the god Dionysios, therianthropy was created by a powerful Titanspawn known as Proteus, spawn of the Titan Okeanos. This disease is virulent and contagious, by the bite of the therianthrope.
Stage One
Infection
Stage One occurs just after the infection of a mortal. The disease was originally created as a means of creating potent warriors from mortal populaces - literally an effort to use the mortal creations of the gods against them. During stage one, the infected individual has no control over the transformation process, spontaneously changing when exposed to a specific stimulus. In most werewolves, this stimulus is the light of the full moon, although at least two other strains exist: one which triggers at the scent of blood, and the other which triggers when the fight-or-flight instinct is triggered in the victim.
Many infected theiranthropes during the first stage seek a cure. To date, our research has revealed only a single effective cure: the infected must consume the heart of the therianthrope that infected it. There are rumors of other methods, but none of them reliably tested or reported in multiple instances.
Ironically, the "cure" that most victims find at this point is immersion in the disease's bestial nature. The more lives the infected claims while in an uncontrolled state, the better they remember, until they eventually achieve some measure of self control (see Stage Two).
Stage Two
Immersion
It is an incontrovertible fact that most theiranthropes are intended to kill. The murder of sentient beings by these monsters when they are in uncontrolled form brings them two things: increased sentient capacity while in their animal forms and an increase in certain urges.
Generally speaking, unattended therianthropes who discover this process on their own, or who are guided to it by titanspawn, become rapacious, ravenous servants of the titans with an utter disdain for human life. However, when that rapaciousness is guided toward the purposes of the gods - often by Scions who carefully shepherd the theiranthrope into attacking titanspawn or other enemies of his pantheon - the growing awareness in the infected individual can be shaped to more noble ends.
It is known, for instance, that at least one Scion of Odin, in the 900s sometime, gathered to himself a large pack of werewolves in emulation of his father's Wild Hunt, and used them to hunt down a small clan of jotuns in the mountains of Norway. Likewise, rumors tell of the servants of Apollo Lycaen, or Apollo of the Wolf, who sent his werewolves into battle beside his children.
Stage Two therianthropy shifts into Stage Three when full sentience is retained in animal form. At this point, the therianthropy is incurable - not even consuming the heart of the one that infected him can reverse the transformation.
Stage Three
Ascension
Once the therianthrope has become fully immersed in either the role of a hound of the gods or a rapacious monster, and can not only remember everything that happens while he is in his animal form but has complete control over his decisions in that form, he unlocks his full potential. He is no longer dependent on the normal shapechanging trigger for his kind, but instead becomes able to evoke the change whenever he desires.
He also develops the ability to assume a hybrid form, growing in size and musculature, becoming a living killing machine. Aging slows down tremendously at this point, and it is not uncommon for a fully ascended theiranthrope to live for hundreds of years, becoming more potent in Legend the entire time. He also gains Scion-like levels of physical and sensory prowess, and is essentially the consummate hunter and killer at this point.
Physical Traits
Abilities
- Shapechanging: Werewolves are capable of transforming into the form of an animal when subject to a catalyst situation. How much sentience and memory they retain in such instances is based entirely on level of infection, from none whatsoever with newly infected creatures to near total on deeply immersed individuals that have killed frequently. Those werewolves that have ascended gain the ability to not only change at any time regardless of catalyst, but may assume a hybrid form, combinging the most potent physical traits of men and wolves.
- Regeneration: Werewolves regenerate damage at an incredible rate, and can literally go from nearly dead to completely unharmed in a matter of seconds.
Weaknesses
Werewolves are vulnerable to silver. The mere touch of silver causes welts (depending on the purity of the silver), while silver weapons inflict grievous injuries that they cannot regenerate.
Known Werewolves
The following are werewolves known to the Naos Group.
La Fraternite des Loups
This Brotherhood of Wolves is a small gathering of werewolves who were freed from their bloodlust and service to the Titans by the loa Marinette sometime in the early 1800s. Little else is known about them.
Werner Krieger & the Krieger Family
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Perhaps the most powerful group of werewolves currently in existence, the Krieger family - which owns a number of industrial businesses, including Krieger Munitions - is a clan of wolf therianthropes based out of Bavaria and Germany. Their known history goes back as far as the middle 1200s, though they claim connection to the wolves of a Scion of Odin, claiming that their ancestors made up his Wild Hunt used to hunt jotuns. They call this Scion the Huntsman, and claim that he is responsible for many of the legends of Herne the Hunter, in Britain and a number of other locations.
Their current patriarch is Werner Krieger, a werewolf who was bitten in 1843. He led his family through the difficulties of two World Wars, and is known to have cooperated with the Third Reich and its Project: Werewolf. He is a vicious predator, both in a literal sense, and in the corporate boardroom, and remains unchallenged in the ranks of his kin. The Krieger family is known to routinely infect its children with therianthropy after that child has proven itself to be worthy of the "gift" in some fashion - generally through a demonstration of fighting prowess, although more and more of the modern generation are doing so by proving their viciousness on the corporate playing-field. It is thought that the term "corporate wolves" was coined by the Krieger children, and is an apt one.
Not all Kriegers achieve ascension. All too often, they come very close to discovery - it is a difficult process to guide a werewolf to ascension, a path literally strewn with corpses. The Kriegers are notorious for their "hunting trips" to third world countries in order to help their children achieve this ascension, but all too often they lose track of their urges and come perilously close to public revelation.
Indeed, three of the Kriegers in the last fifty years have been tried as murderers, and one of those was tried as a cannibal serial killer. When public scrutiny became too much to bear, all three of them stepped forward, publicly claiming to have killed the individuals responsible. None of them ever serve prison sentences or even come to court, however; all of them make public admissions of their guilt and then suicide by attacking law enforcement or military personnel.
Rikert Drager
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Deceased
Rikert Drager was apparently a werewolf in service to the valkyrie Reginleif. He was fought to a stand-still by Riley Bannon, a Scion of Ares operating as an agent in the Special Projects Team, in the middle of the streets of Braunfels, Germany. Lora Brovik reportedly delivered the blow that killed him, however.
It is known that Reginleif maintains several einherjar in her service, and the Naos Group suspects that Rikert may very well be one of them - assuming, of course, that a werewolf can be made into einherjar. Until we have confirmation to the contrary, however, he is considered deceased.
