Half-werewolves

This is the place for discussion and voting on various aspects of werewolf life, social ideas, physical appearance, etc. Also a place to vote on how a werewolf should look.
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Half-werewolves

Post by Jamie »

With all the half-vampires that are so popular in fiction these days, I was wondering if people here had specific ideas about half-werewolves. Would you like to see such creatures in a movie or novel, and what would you imagine them to be like?
To take the half-vampires as an example, there are several different ways this can be presented:

1) Like in the movie "The Lost Boys", half-vampires are people who have been partway converted into vampires and, unless cured or killed, will eventually become full-fledged vampires. If we used this example, the only half-werewolves would be people in the process of becoming werewolves (almost certainly before their first shift) who are manifesting some non-human characteristics, and perhaps having teeny-weeny partial shifts. There could also be a possibility (like in the "Blade" movies) that, in very rare cases or under very special circumstances, a person might be trapped forever in a half-werewolf state.

2) Like in various movies about the "dhampir" of folklore. In folklore (and in various novel versions based more or less on the folklore) a dhampir is a human that was born from a human mother (since females vampires are dead and thus can't get pregnant) and a male vampire. The dhampir is reputed to have psychic powers and to be able to see invisible vampires, to control vampires, or to have special powers to kill vampires more effectively. If we transfer this example to werewolves, it would probably be in a scenario where werewolves were hereditary, and being only half-werewolf would lead to lesser powers in some ways (but perhaps less vulnerability to silver or other werewolf problems). This type of half-werewolf would probably be permanent, or at least long-term. L. J. Smith had a half-werewolf like this in one of her novels. The half-werewolf had the transformation powers of a real werewolf, but was only half as strong and healed more slowly, so it was a pretty unappealing state.

There are also other possible ways a half-werewolf could be created, especially in a magical universe. For example, Mercedes Lackey had a novel called "The Fire Rose" in which a magician managed to mess up the spell for becoming a werewolf, trapping him in a form that was essentially an anthropomorphic wolf. He was halfway to becoming a werewolf, and if he could just figure out what went wrong and fix it, he could become a real werewolf, whereupon he would be regularly changing from human to a 100% wolf with ease.
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Post by Apokryltaros »

Wouldn't a "half-werewolf" be only one quarter wolf, or one quarter human?
(depending what you started with...)
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Post by Terastas »

It's debatable, but I think so far the definition we've gone with implies that lycanthropy can be transmitted via bodily fluids, therefore nobody could be born half werewolf and half human because the human would become a werewolf durring the coupling.

The only type of "half werewolf" I could picture would be if, for one reason or another, someone had a natural resistance to the symptoms of lycanthropy, but not to the virus itself, in effect being a carrier of lycanthropy, but not a werewolf.
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Post by Lupin »

Terastas wrote: The only type of "half werewolf" I could picture would be if, for one reason or another, someone had a natural resistance to the symptoms of lycanthropy, but not to the virus itself, in effect being a carrier of lycanthropy, but not a werewolf.

Yeah, this is the only thing I can think of, but I don't see how someone could get bit, and not either purge the agent from it's system comptely, and be a normal human, or have the agent turn him into a werewolf.
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Post by Shadow Wulf »

Mabey if a werewolf were to mate with a human, then that human has babies, but they still dont look much different, but then that werewolf keeps mating humans in generations after generation, then it will soon look like this http://serendipityartsales.com/wolfman.jpg
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Post by Anubis »

i agree with terastas. you are either a werewolf or not, no betweens
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Post by Veruth »

If werewolves are the work of a virus, then I can't really see partial infections happening unless it's some wierd strain or mutation.
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Post by 10thManDown »

Shaun wrote:If werewolves are the work of a virus, then I can't really see partial infections happening unless it's some wierd strain or mutation.
If that were to happen, then wouldn't it be more likely to create an entirely new species of creature?
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Post by Shadow Wulf »

If it was a virus then we can easily create an antivirus. But anyway wouldnt the virus stran get weaker if the werewolf species keep mating with humans?
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Post by Apokryltaros »

Shadow Wulf wrote:If it was a virus then we can easily create an antivirus. But anyway wouldnt the virus stran get weaker if the werewolf species keep mating with humans?
No.
We make antibodies, not antivirus.
And it depends on the kind of virus, some strains develop less virulent symptoms, some don't, some develop less virulent symptoms, then the strain reverts back into the wild state.
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Post by Lupin »

Shadow Wulf wrote:If it was a virus then we can easily create an antivirus. But anyway wouldnt the virus stran get weaker if the werewolf species keep mating with humans?
No. Why would that happen?
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Post by Figarou »

Apokryltaros wrote:Wouldn't a "half-werewolf" be only one quarter wolf, or one quarter human?
(depending what you started with...)
Thats how I see it.

A werewolf is half human and half wolf. But those halves are not halves at all. You have the full human form and the full wolf form. Full meaning 100% Both halves makes the gestalt form.
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Post by Vuldari »

A Partial werewolf, hunh?

...odd...

I can image a few ideas of what such a person/creature would be like, but can't seem to come up with any good ways that one could come to exist.

I think it would be something like the first example though, with only dilluted symptoms of Lycanthropy, like marginally enhanced senses and strength, and partial shifting capacity in small, difficult to controll bursts. (Imagine the first moment of a beginning transformation. Claws begin to form, teeth get sharper, ears stretch a little, whispy hair begins to appear all over, beginnings of change in shape of jaw, posture and muscle definitions...and then stop there.)

I seem to remember a really bad Monster hunting cartoon show where one of the main characters was a "half-werewolf". Because his father had been bitten and turned into a werewolf, that somehow transfered part of the magical curse to him, so he could get all pumped up and fangy, but never fully transform. I never quite understood the logic behind that, but I remember it anyway.
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Post by Aki »

I don't see how one could be a half werewolf really, if the curse is transmissable by bodily fluids or heredity. Either way - kid's a WW.

Unless, of course, you had, as Terastas said, some sort of resistance, which blocked out some aspects of the LYcanthropy. Like perhaps the Gestalt or full-wolf form, or the ability to shift.
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Post by white »

Aki's got it. Though I see the werewolf virus as being powerful to the extent that it's really not very likely that someone could resist an aspect.
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Post by Wolfhanyou »

Since we're talking about the WW virus being transmitted by body fluids.... I don't think that there could be a half-werewolf unless the person had a natural resistane towards it, as was stated above.

However in my own little world of werewolves, a half-werewolf would be born from a human and a werewolf mating. The half-werewolf has the enchanced senses and strength... but they can't shift. I mean, they can feel the effects and need to shift, but their body just can't do it. Which in turn causes angst and frustration and all that good stuff.
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Post by Jamie »

I wanted to let others post their ideas for a bit before I described my own ideas on the subject, but anyway, I've had two different concepts on the idea myself.

1) This first concept was one that I was hoping to make into a comic book sometime, but, I'm not as good or as prolific as I'd like to be at art, I got involved in writing other books, and this comic book never materialized. Essentially, this concept is set in a magical universe where lycanthropy is mainly hereditary (though some wizards can also develop the skill if they study hard enough). In this universe, myraid types of werewolves existed. Basically, every werewolf had a particular potency somewhere on a scale. Werewolves with a high potency had more powers (such as magical strength and enhanced healing) and could shift forms with ease. Werewolves with a medium potency were less strong and had only partial control over their shifting. If they tried to shift, they might, but then again they might not. Werewolves with a low potency only shifted under extreme life-or-death circumstances, though they could gain somewhat more control over their shifting by learning advanced techniques that would allow them to throw themselves into a mental frenzy that would simulate the emotional state of a life-or-death situation. And, even lower on the scale, would be people who were not werewolves, because they would never be able to shift, but who displayed some of the other characteristics and often wished to shift very much, dreaming about wolves all the time and so on. In my system, when people with lower potencies had offspring together, those offspring would have higher potencies than either parent. Therefore, high potency werewolves could be produced if the right people married, even if all the stock you started with were the non-shifting "half-werewolves". However, there were downsides to the higher potency werewolves. As potency increased, so did the liklihood of having deformed offspring, especially those born dead. At the highest levels of potency, werewolves always had wolf cubs that were pure, ordinary wolves. No children at all, human or werewolf, could be had from them. Thus, the highest potencies were rare.

2) I've also had ideas about the bitten kind of werewolves, a few of which somehow become trapped long-term in a half-werewolf state where they can't transform, but have other werewolfish characteristics. I thought it would be particularly interesting if these half-werewolves could move on to being full-fledged werewolves if they did a particular thing. There could be some secret key to completing their transformation that they might or might not stumble on by accident. If involved with a pack of actual werewolves, the pack might hide this essential knowledge from the half-werewolf until they had evaluated his or her character and loyalty. In fact, half-werewolves might be useful to actual werewolves in the same way that in some novels, half-vampires are useful to actual vampires. A mean pack might conspire to keep half-werewolves in that state for a long time in order to make good use of them, especially if being a half-werewolf gave you a heart-wrenching desire to transform and an inability to do so. For example, if there were some easy test that exposed werewolves, and half-werewolves could pass this test with ease, then half-werewolves could be trusted to infiltrate werewolf-hunting organizations. They would be loyal to the pack because 1) they were going to become real werewolves eventually, so anything that was in the interest of werewolves would also be in their personal interest and 2) they were dependant on the pack to eventually convert them into real werewolves.

With this #2 general concept of half-werewolves, it is easy to see that it doesn't work very well with the Freeborn concept of werewolves. The whole idea of creatures like half-werewolves and half-vampires seems to work best when there are two or more stages that convert someone into one of these creatures. For example, in the vampire movie "Lost Boys", you became a half-vampire by drinking another vampire's blood, and you only became a full-fledged vampire once you had killed a human. Also, I've read some vampire novels where three bites on separate occasions were needed in order to turn someone into a vampire. Thus, someone who had received one or two bites would be in a half-vampire state.

Of course, in the case of half-werewolves, things are much trickier than with half-vampires. There are lots of movies and novels where the werewolves had such minimal transformation powers or so few werewolfish characteristics that I WISHED they would have been defined as only being half-werewolves, but they weren't. This makes it hard for new items of fiction to introduce the idea of half-werewolves, since so many half-*ssed werewolves have already appeared under the label of actual werewolves.

Another type of half-werewolf you could define would be the kind that is only half-werewolf because it is also half a different creature. For example, the notorious half-werewolf half-vampire beings that have appeared in Underworld and many other items of cheese. In general, I tend to hate half-werewolf half-vampires wherever I see them, especially since each creator who comes up with them seems to think they are the first to do so. However, it is possible that I might like something that was half werewolf and half some other monster or creature, if it was done well. The possibilities are almost numberless, considering the sheer number of other monsters and mythical beings out there. Of course, most of them are inherently silly, so they might work only in a comedy. A werewolf/mermaid or werewolf/robot would be quite silly (a werewolf/robot/alien appeared in a novel near the end of Piers Anthony's Phaze series). However, I've seen some really cool artwork that did make me intrigued about the idea of werewolf zombies: a werewolf that became a zombie and managed to keep its werewolf characteristics (once again, Piers Anthony comes to mind, I know he had a minor character or two that were werewolf zombies somewhere in the Xanth series, but they had so little "screen time" that they hardly count).

This entire discussion is something that I consider mostly peripheral to Freeborn, since I don't expect or want to see half-werewolves in Freeborn, except for the kind who are only in a half-werewolf state for a few days at most.

Characteristics I imagine in the average half-werewolves are the following:
1) immunity to silver, if real werewolves are harmed by silver
2) immunity to other things that normally harm real werewolves
3) more strength than before they became half-werewolves, but not as much as a real werewolf
4) faster healing than a human, but probably not as much regenerative power as a real werewolf
5) In a magical/fantasy setting, the ability to talk to real wolves, or communicate telepathicly with real wolves
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Half human, half {half human, 0.5x} where x=wolf

Post by Scott Gardener »

I generally go with the viral idea that you can't be a half-werewolf any more than you can be half-pregnant. ("What do they call people who think you can't get lycanthropy from an infected partner?" "werewolves.")

But, if you go with a metaphysical lycanthropy in a classic fantasy setting, you might have a full-blooded werewolf able to shift to wolf or Gestalt form, whereas a half-werewolf would just have the Gestalt form. You could even do a quarter, who just has an asthetically revamped Lon Chaney type look. Or, considering the nature of the fantasy genre, you could throw in a wrench into the works and take out their ability to shift human.
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Post by Celestialwolf »

Anubis wrote:i agree with terastas. you are either a werewolf or not, no betweens
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Post by Morkulv »

I think it would make a furry human with pointy fingernails and a small snout.


Or something.
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Post by Lupin »

I suppose one could call a werewolf who is bitten but not shifted yet a half-werewolf.
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Post by Figarou »

Lupin wrote:I suppose one could call a werewolf who is bitten but not shifted yet a half-werewolf.

Mmmm..Hmmm...and a few days before the full moon hes a 3/4 werewolf. :roll:
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Post by Lupin »

Figarou wrote:
Lupin wrote:I suppose one could call a werewolf who is bitten but not shifted yet a half-werewolf.

Mmmm..Hmmm...and a few days before the full moon hes a 3/4 werewolf. :roll:
Well, he's more half way to becoming a werewolf, then half of a werewolf.
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Post by Figarou »

I bet the other werewolves will consider a "half werewolf" a defect.


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Post by Lupin »

Figarou wrote:I bet the other werewolves will consider a "half werewolf" a defect.


[yoda]Make fun of him, they will.[/yoda]

Well if all of them were bitten, the would have gone through this period too, so it's not really a defect.
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