Lore/headcanon dump on werewolves for the Wereslayer AU! Will be updated when I come up with new ideas. Thank you to @butchwrecker for listening to me ramble.
Under cut for length.
So there are three different ways to become a werewolf: viral transmission (biting), hereditary (having at least one werewolf parent), and magic (salve, magic wolf skin, sleeping outside during a full moon, drinking water from a wolf or werewolf's pawprint, etc.)
If transmitted by biting, the werewolf virus has an incubation period lasting from around 28-30 days...or until the next full moon, whichever happens first.
Werewolves typically transform once a month during the full moon, but can also transform during times of intense emotion (fear, anger, happy stimming). A werewolf can actually learn to transform at will, but it takes a lot of patience, willpower, and practice. Another method is using a salve or creating a magic pelt by skinning yourself in wolf form (most werewolves get help and a LOT of painkillers for this) and preserving the hide (transformation is induced by wearing the hide). Since werewolves have a healing factor, even an injury like being partially or fully flayed is survivable, but accidents and infections do happen.
The modern werewolf community has a medium sized furry presence, and quite a bit of metalheads and witches too.
A magic pelt doesn't necessarily need to be from yourself-some werewolves use enchanted wolf or coyote pelts, and at least one werewolf uses a partial fursuit to transform.
Werewolfism/lycanthropy dates at least back to the time humans were first domesticating dogs.
Werewolves have lived with wild wolf packs, but this is extremely difficult and dangerous because wolves are highly territorial and rarely accept strange wolves or werewolves into their packs.
Werewolves have a depressingly high homelessness rate as a community. Homeless werewolves, especially those that can’t hunt, sometimes resort to scrounging for scraps or even eating livestock, pets, and people.
A wifwolf is a lady werewolf. Nonbinary werewolves typically refer to themselved with their preferred pronoun + "wolf". Ex: She-wolf, He-wolf, Xe-wolf, They-wolf.
Fur color in wolf form typically matches hair color in human form. Werewolves with dyed hair often have a colored streak down the back of their neck. Werewolves with long hair in human form can have a “curtain” or “mane” of fur coming off their neck and shoulders that is long enough to be styled.
Werewolves younger than 12 have brown or black fur like wolf pups when in wolf form. Around age 13, their adult fur color starts coming in.
A werewolf’s eye color in wolf form usually matches their eye color in human form, but werewolves with brown eyes may have orange, brown, reddish, or gold eyes in wolf form.
Werewolves retain their personalities, skills, and memories in wolf form. However, they do tend to be more impulsive, instinctive, and skittish.
It is very easy to distract or startle werewolves with loud noises if they aren’t habituated to them.
Werewolves are weak to fire and instinctively fear it, as it prevents them from healing injuries. For this reason, most werewolves who cook prefer to use hot plates, though many have habituated themselves to fire with effort and patience.
Werewolves in human form can be identified by nictitating membranes, tapetum lucidum (their eyes glow in the dark), and their ability to hear dog whistles.
There is an entire cottage industry of products, from clothes to keyboards, designed to be used by werewolves in wolf form.
Werewolves struggle to use touch screens in wolf form. However, that doesn’t mean they can’t.
Werewolves can open doors in wolf form, and some with small paws and lots of practice can pick locks.
Werewolves have online forums dedicated to their community and sharing tips on how to manage their condition. The drama there is a petty brew of kin drama, spoonie drama, furry drama, and leftist infighting.
Because of the variety of ways werewolves can be turned, and the variety of lived experiences werewolves have, there are bitter fights in online werewolf communities over what constitutes “good representation” in werewolf fiction. However, one piece of media universally reviled is Twilight-do not bring it up unless you want a massive online dogfight on your paws.
Some werewolves, especially werewolves living in isolated areas or werewolves who work from home, spend most of their lives in wolf form.
Werewolves often keep dogs for companionship. Most prey species typically distrust them, and it is considered unsafe to handle small prey animals in wolf form because of the possibility of transmitting gram-negative bacteria.
Unlike wolves, many werewolves actually bark! They do this because many of them have spent most of their lives around dogs and assume that’s also how wolves communicate.
Werewolves typically get along great with Home Depot and Lowes lesbians and dads (they all like flannel).
Many werewolves are avid conservationists and/or hunters. They sometimes volunteer their services in wolf form to biologists who need help culling invasive or overpopulated species like white-tailed deer and feral hogs.
Werewolves will howl because it’s fun or they feel like it, in addition to communicating with other werewolves and canines.
Werewolves can speak in wolf form if they want to, but their voices are extremely garbled and uncanny (and general nightmare fuel) because they’re trying to force a wolf’s throat to make human sounds. Speech in wolf form can be almost unintelligible even to other werewolves (especially if you haven’t trained your ears to hear it).
Werewolves in wolf form will often communicate using sign language, TTS software, or writing.
Werewolves have much better senses than humans, especially smell and hearing. Their night vision becomes much better, at the expense of color vision. Autistic werewolves can struggle with sensory overload, especially newer werewolves.
Newly-turned werewolves often wear clothes in wolf form at first, werewolves who have been werewolves for a while just don’t care.
However, many werewolves do like wearing accessories in wolf form.
Werewolves are much stronger than humans, wolves, and demons, but not quite as fast as a wolf. This difference is negligible at best when you have hundreds of pounds of teeth, claws, and fur barreling at you, though. Werewolves are much faster than humans and demons. Do not try to outrun a werewolf-it will win.
A werewolf can be both a werewolf and a vampire at the same time, because I think that’s funny.
In some folklore, werewolves can actually revive themselves if their corpses are left out in the moonlight, and that’s so cool I might just incorporate that into my lore.
Werewolves are weak to Monkshood/Wolfsbane and aconite poisoning in general, but only because most mammals are harmed by aconite poisoning. More than a few werewolves have died trying to “cure” themselves with wolfsbane.
There is such a thing as “wolfweres”-wolves or other canids who have been enchanted to transform into a human. They are typically created by a werewolf who wants to share the human experience with a beloved canine companion. Creating one is considered misguided at best and monstrously unethical in modern werewolf communities because a canine does not have the self-awareness to consent to a typically painful transformation or a human mind (with all the self-awareness, risk of existential crises, and knowledge of your own mortality that comes with it). The historical werewolf community often had no such ethical qualms, with disastrous results.
Werewolves sprint in wolf form on all fours. They can walk and jog on two or four legs. N00b werewolves often trip over their own paws when sprinting.
Werewolves can be infected with rabies. Due to their healing factor they can survive longer than other creatures once they start showing symptoms, but eventually succumb to the disease all the same. Rabid werewolves can travel quickly before succumbing to paralytic rabies, and often bite multiple victims in one attack.
Werewolves can contract canine distemper, mange, and other diseases from canines. There hasn’t been a jump of distemper from werewolf to human yet, but many werewolf scientists worry that it’s just a matter of time.
Werewolves can be possessed by demons or corrupted by Hell Energy, and become even stronger and more ferocious than normal. The symptoms of demonic possession in werewolves resemble furious rabies (snapping at nothing, extreme aggression, hyperactivity, hydrophobia) for one simple reason: rabies scares the crap out of me. Possessed werewolves are so aggressive they are a threat to other demons, and will sometimes attack and kill demons the size of Tyrants.
Werewolves are often much bigger in wolf form than in human form, with some gaining several feet in height and hundreds of pounds in weight after shifting . It has never been discerned, not even by werewolf scientists within the community, how they are able to flout the laws of physics like this. However, there is the rare werewolf that is smaller in wolf form than in human form.
B.J Blazkowicz III/Flynn Taggart has very distant ancestors on his mother’s side from the kingdom of Ossory who were werewolves. They used magical means to transform, rather than the “viral lycanthropy” their descendant was infected with.
Werewolves are weak to silver, with extended skin-to-skin contact with silver bringing anything from a nasty rash to anaphylaxis in the most severe cases. However, many werewolves wear silver jewelry around the full moon to resist unwanted transformations. Silver weapons are very harmful to werewolves. Pure silver bullets are rarely used due to being prohibitively expensive and difficult to make, so silver jacketed bullets are more common.
I'm trying to design a more cartoony/Doom animated series Wereslayer and it is not going well.
Most animated wolves are slinky or too doggy in the face. There's not a lot of animated wolves with thick eyebrows who are constantly grumpy who aren't also Old. And Wereslayer is a millions-of-years-old murderous spring chicken. Plus he’s a Rectangle, and that shape is hard to translate into a design that still looks sufficiently Wolfy.
The one design that I’m using for inspiration that has been a big help is Moll’s design from Wolfwalkers. The perfect mix of intimidating, majestic, and cuddly.
I love my werewolves a lot, actually. They’re mostly just here to have a good time. They eat food, hunt, play, go on nature walks with family, make things, kill demons and mess around on the internet. Marie-Jehanne could totally eat Davoth if she put her mind to it.
