How rare are 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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Terastas
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Post by Terastas »

Arania wrote:I personally agree with Vuldari as far as frequency goes - werewolves would be RARE, much less than one in a million. Only because wolves are social animals and would probably seek eachother out would you have packs at all, and the numbers would probably be few overall. I think it grounds the storyies in reality more, and suspension of disbelief. Once someone becomes a werewolf it would't be like Oh! Look at this big secret underworld society I've been missing out on! It would be something special and unheard/unbelieved of. A few others out there close enough to share your secret with.
I'm going out on a limb with this one, but do you think werewolves by this definiton might be reminiscent in numbers and in behavior of the Pack forum?

Bear with me on this comparrison I'm trying to make. First of all, we've got 300 visitors to this forum that are registered -- Bwana only knows how many lurkers this site attracts. Going back on the no-longer-functioning characters page, the Freeborn pack had seven members, so if you figure that's the average size, there'd be enough werewolves to have a pack in every state just on this website alone.

But while there's a lot of us, are numbers are spread out. Of the top fifty posters, only five of them are in the state of Texas (didn't count anyone that didn't specify on the list, so sorry if there's more than that). Then apart from those, you've got one in Pennsylvania, one in Minnesota, one in Massachusetts, a couple in Ohio, a few more in California, etc., and who knows where Apok, Silverclaw, Silverpaw and many of the others are from. So while there's enough registered users for there to be a noteworthy demographic in any city, our numbers are spread out further than just this country. Every now and then we may run into each other and make friends (A-kon), but though there are plenty of us, the distance apart makes us feel more like loners.

So anyway, if you're still reading this: A) I'm impressed, and B) That's sort of what I figure real werewolves would be like; plenty of them out there, but between the need for secrecy, isolation and their personal demons, most werewolves would stay reclusive from each other. After all, it's not like they could just ask anyone if they know what it's like to be a werewolf. Werewolf or not, if you were asked such a question, you'd first question the person's intent. Then if you were a werewolf, you might suspect that he's on to you, deny the alligations and possibly attempt to silence him, and if you weren't, you'd wonder why he would ask such a completely random question, in which case the werewolf that asked the question in the first place will have just accidently exposed himself and wonder if he'll suddenly need to silence you.

So anyway, that's my consensus. It's widespread enough in lore and common enough in modern legend that there could be quite a few of them, but realistically, the majority of werewolf lifestyles would be lonely ones.
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Post by Figarou »

There is one factor you forgot to put in. Not all of us has internet. Those with internet can find other werewolves and information on thier whereabouts. If I didn't have internet, you wouldn't know I exsisted unless you bumped into me in the street.
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Post by Kzinistzerg »

same.
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Post by Terastas »

Figarou wrote:There is one factor you forgot to put in. Not all of us has internet. Those with internet can find other werewolves and information on thier whereabouts. If I didn't have internet, you wouldn't know I exsisted unless you bumped into me in the street.
Er... Actually, I hadn't forgotten that; I just forgot to make mention of it. :P Although you could note how I kept saying "among the Pack forum alone," IE: there's plenty more than just the 300 we know about. Lord only knows how many lurkers have come to this website, and chances are there are countless others that don't even know about it. In other words, more than enough for one pack per state.

On the whole though, I didn't think the net would be worth mentioning because, realistically, there's no way a werewolf could ever in good faith hook up with another because, for every one true werewolf out there, there are ten therians and fifty p-shifters out there as well. On the Internet, it's almost impossible to distinguish the genuine article from a poetic therian, a p-shifting troller, or worst possible case scenario: a werewolf hunter.

The flip side, of course, would be that every werewolf would have to know of at least one other werewolf in the area, that being the one that infected him. A werewolf might be able to form a small pack by infecting the closest of his friends and family, but as has already been discussed countless other times, whenever you tell someone or infect someone, you run the risk of exposure, so while there could be plenty of werewolves out there, I doubt there are that many that live in packs.
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Post by Wereman13 »

I certainly hope there's more than just a couple of packs here on this sites. And speaking of packs and groups around the world there are many packs in the northern part of Canada. My last count was over 50 packs but there very scattered.
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Post by Vuldari »

Wereman13 wrote:... And speaking of packs and groups around the world there are many packs in the northern part of Canada. My last count was over 50 packs but there very scattered.
Packs?...of what?

Werewolves?...Werewolf fans?... Other Wolf/TF/Therian/Furry, etc. based groups?

Please eloaborate. Image
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Post by Silverclaw »

and who knows where Apok, Silverclaw, Silverpaw and many of the others are from.
Hey, my state is clearly typed under the location thingy :D Just gotta put it toghter 8)
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Post by Wereman13 »

Sry about that I ment packs of werewolves.
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Post by Terastas »

Silverclaw wrote:
and who knows where Apok, Silverclaw, Silverpaw and many of the others are from.
Hey, my state is clearly typed under the location thingy :D Just gotta put it toghter 8)
*Leans in and squints at it*
Merry land... Merry land... Merry land... Merry... Oh! I get it now! Dang, I didn't know there was a werewolf in Amsterdam. :P :wink:
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Post by Silverclaw »

:lol:
Wow! Your good at this :D
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Post by Wereman13 »

lol
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Post by Kzinistzerg »

pfff, silverpaw is obviously from new guinea, DUH. :P
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Post by Jamie »

I've thought that since werewolves are so weird, the best way to determine how many of them there might be in the world would be to say that they are as rare as one in a million. That means that there would probably about seven in New York City, about 300 in the United States, about six thousand worldwide (see the population clock. At that rate, werewolves would be so rare that they would have problems finding each other unless (as is probable) they all gravitated towards rural areas, they were mainly hereditary, or they had some way of finding each other (a special sense, or you just travel around a lot and howl, any other wolf's howl that answers you is likely to be a werewolf in any area of the world where wolves have been exterminated).
In order for most novel or film plots to work smoothly, werewolves would need to be a bit more common than one in a million. And, if there was any easy way of making more werewolves, they likely would be more common even if they had started out rare, through sheer loneliness.
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Post by Marcwolf »

Err.. Well from my own personal experiences.

I'm prob a bit older than most of you here.

Now I have always seen in my own mind's eyes a werewolf form. Not the aggressive flesh rending type - but a subtle blending between man and wolf, having the best qualities of both.

A thinking being who can choose their actions either for right or wrong.

I have lived with this for most of my life but never having the chance until I got onto the internet to meet others who felt the same way.

So for more than 30 years of my life I lived in isolation with only my dreams and the belief that beings like these must exist somewhere. And that Hollywood was wrong for showing them that way.

Nowadays it is so simple to sit at a browser and type in werewolf - and not run the risk of people thinking you were possessed, demonic, mentally ill etc.

And what surprized me most was that I have met thousands of people on the net all with the same vision that I have had..

Lonliness.. Yes - I have known that to the extremes. One's instincts cry out to be part of a pack of others but you have no knowledge is such a thing exists.

But atleast now I can meet others

So I think - for every person who has a deep feeling towards werewolves that is on the net - there must be atleast 10 who have never had the chance to communicate their feeliings with others.


Just my humble views

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Post by white »

Which still, sadly, amounts to a terribly small number relative to the masses of humanity.
Sanity is relative.
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Post by MuDD »

Figarou wrote:
WolfVanZandt wrote:Well, if you don't drive, but I gotta think that you'd sooner or later want to drive somewhere and then shift. There's ways of dealing with it. There're those magnetic cases you can put your keys in and stick them under the car. Werewolves could carry pouches or use back packs.

Oh please!! I don't want to see a big male werewolf with those funny little pouches around their waist.


Ahhhhhh! Get it off me!!! :lol:
All Hail the Fanny Pack!! :lol:
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Post by 00airknight »

Wolves travel in packs from anywhere from 12-200. the same applies to a pack of wws (were wolves). there is a wolflord (alpha male) just like wolves have alpha males. there are not as many as wolves and sometimes they are human. so the pack's numbers are limited. wild wws can be in packs and sometimes not. how many depends on the pack.
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Post by Jamie »

Terastas wrote: On the whole though, I didn't think the net would be worth mentioning because, realistically, there's no way a werewolf could ever in good faith hook up with another because, for every one true werewolf out there, there are ten therians and fifty p-shifters out there as well. On the Internet, it's almost impossible to distinguish the genuine article from a poetic therian, a p-shifting troller, or worst possible case scenario: a werewolf hunter.
The only way Internet hook-ups could really work is if there were one or more specific features only found in real werewolves (and then these features must be found in most or all of them) that real werewolves could use as a secret that only another real werewolf would know. Of course, they'd still have to be extra-careful about who they told, and if the secret got out, even to someone who had no clue that there were real werewolves out there, then it might become one of those faddish things that all the hoaxers claimed as a feature, and from then on real werewolves wouldn't be able to use the Internet to hook up.

Of course, if werewolves were real, we might expect lots of little details like this to exist, such as the exact physical feelings experienced during the process of transformation. And, these details wouldn't necessarily catch on among fakers even if they slipped out to non-werewolves every so often.

So, it would be hard, painstaking work, but not necessarily as hard as it might appear at first glance. You'd have to be very careful and lurk near the edge of things, but not so near the edge that you never got a chance to slowly gain the trust of other edge-lurkers.
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Post by Selena »

Wouldn't the key to knowing the answer to this question be to ask a werewolf?
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Post by white »

Yeah, but we don't have that option, now do we?
Sanity is relative.
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Post by Lupin »

Ralith wrote:Yeah, but we don't have that option, now do we?
Plus, there are many more important things to ask them if we did. :biteshift:
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Post by white »

Exactly!
Sanity is relative.
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Post by Figarou »

Lupin wrote:
Ralith wrote:Yeah, but we don't have that option, now do we?
Plus, there are many more important things to ask them if we did. :biteshift:

Heh..I'd like to see a werewolf punch your lights out if you ask him to bite you.


(without breaking your skin to contract lycanthropy.)
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Post by Lupin »

Figarou wrote:Heh..I'd like to see a werewolf punch your lights out if you ask him to bite you.


(without breaking your skin to contract lycanthropy.)
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Post by Figarou »

Lupin wrote:
Figarou wrote:Heh..I'd like to see a werewolf punch your lights out if you ask him to bite you.


(without breaking your skin to contract lycanthropy.)
Image


Right back at ya.

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