Oh-Oh! The Newly Bitten

[Silverclaw]

Sounds good ABrownrigg

[Scott Gardener]

First, a quick clarification on my own version: it's contageous enough that a bite can easily spread the infection without active licking. Licking the wound simply kills any chance of not getting infected.

And, Vuldari, you are correct that my werewolves aren't literally affected by the full moon, though a spiritual link is generated later on when lycanthropy becomes public knowledge, by virtue of cultural association on several levels. (A spiritual movement known as the "Awakening" happens in the 2020s, intermixing lycanthropy with Paganism, cultural and sexual orientation tolerance, and political reaction against what happens between now and 2020. This of course happens after my novel, which runs from 1995-2013.) In the mean time, to confuse matters, my lead female werewolf infects my lead male on a night that coincidentally happens to have a full moon, so he recalls seeing a werewolf looming over him with a full moon in the background.

I don't mind the full moon being an influence in the movie's werewolves. (Though their regular timing does make me ask what happens to people bitten right on the end of the full moon, with the next full moon 29 days away, versus those bitten on the first night of the full moon, with the next one tomorrow night.) In fact, in my early drafts of my own novel, back when it was a daydream, the full moon did affect shapeshifting. It just got phased out over time (pun not intended) as I couldn't keep it in line with my own internal hypothetical biology. In the early versions, it was a gravitational phenomenon, that I have since learned scientifically made no sense. Rather than reinventing a way to make it work, when it was not an actual old legend, I chose to discard it.

But, I have had in mind at some point one of the werewolves in my setting, newly converted and still coming to terms with lycanthropy, walking outside, seeing the full moon, and worrying.

[Raina The Werewolf Queen]

When a human is bitten there first transformation will be on the following full moon. This does not mean that the moon controls werewolves. It takes time for a werewolf to get used to there new bodie and it will take practace.

[Scott Gardener]

I have wondered, for the werewolves whose first shift comes about on the full moon, assuming that a full moon runs three consecutive nights:

If they're bitten on the first night of a full moon, do they shift the second or third night, or do they wait until the following full moon?

If someone is bitten on a waning gibbous moon, does he or she feel ancy, nervous, hot, and that restless feeling for the entire three and a half weeks before the full moon, or only in the last week or so? If they have to feel that way the full three and a half weeks, wouldn't it be nicer to get bitten on, say, a waxing half-moon, when you only have to put up with that jittery, restless feeling for about five or six days?

[Raina The Werewolf Queen]

No they must wait for the next full moon. That means they will have a month to figure out things.

[Figarou]

If they're bitten on the first night of a full moon, do they shift the second or third night, or do they wait until the following full moon?

How about instantly shift when bitten during the full moon?

[Raina The Werewolf Queen]

No it doesnt work that way. it must have time to spread out in the body

[Figarou]

No it doesnt work that way. it must have time to spread out in the body

really? hmmmmm....

[Baphnedia]

I'm inclined to agree with Raina, to an extent.

Exactly what I agreed with was notes on the infection, the week or so long fevers and all the other symptoms we either came up with or gathered from legends and lore, and more or less agreed upon. It doesn't mean that we have to stick to our guns, but that's one gun I'm sticking by.

[Searif]

i would say they would feel aching, dizzy somewhat

more then likely the wound would feel like its beating and would hurt alot, but i doubt it would be so bad that they would have to stay in bed

[ABrownrigg]

hmmm...

[outwarddoodles]

I would think the body's new DNA and coding would have in figure it's self out and and form so they then become a werewolf. I'd doubt it would figure its self out in 2 seconds or even minutes. Especially if the body attacks the new stuff as an 'alien' posibly slowing it down. So around the full moon time they may be very ancy but the new information may make its self out quicker and form with the human under the moon, and may be very ancy untill the moon wans, and then back again as it waxes.

So I'd sappose it would take awhile and they may not change if bitten on the full moon, I don't know how long it may take (escpecially with a moon speeding it up.) or if say they are bitten a day before the full moon. If bitten on the full moon I would say it could happen but defeintly not instantly.

Maybe a werewolf may be more choosing of who they bite. Injecting just anyone with 'werewolfism' could prove a problem, if they need to it may be planned out untill a comfortable day.

Who and Why do werewolves bite anyway? You can't just bite someone an beleive them to be okay. (Sometimes I sappose it could be n accident, or maybe an evil or sad werewolf looking for sufferage of another.)

[Scott Gardener]

I'd have a hard time believing someone getting bitten and then instantly transforming. It would certainly be implausible if one is opting for a non-magical virus explanation. I figured a virus would take at least a week, possibly closer to ten days, and that's one that works very quickly. (In case your wondering what medical text I referenced, it's GURPS Biotech, but I used similar figures in my own stories before reading the thing. Steve Jackson Games tends to do a good job of basing their realistic sci-fi stuff on plausible science.)

Besides, someone bitten who shifts immediately loses all the fun of the slow realization. Who wouldn't miss a full month of:

"What's happening to me?"
"I can sense things..."
"Why am I so thirsty!?! Why does the sight of raw meat and blood have to be so appetizing?"
"You were bitten by a lycanthrope--a werewolf."
"No! That's impossible!" / "Search your feelings; you know it to be true." / "That's crazy!"
"You will change, next full moon. Nothing can stop it." / "Go away, you crazy !@#$@!"
"I've got pointed teeth... and fur..."
"Aghh! AAAAHHH!!! Awrooohhhh..."

[Kzinistzerg]

people who like

"hmmm, me hand hurts.. oh, i just scratched it, never miiiii---GAAAAAAA!"

[Scott Gardener]

I suppose I could learn to live with instant lycanthropy, but it couldn't be purely biological if it happened in seconds or minutes, no matter what two or three badly written Star Trek spin-off episodes had to say. (The TNG episode where the crew de-evolved, the Voyager episode where Tom Paris evolved into a reptile, and the Enterprise episode where two of the crew were transformed into an otherwise extinct race by way of a virus--all involved DNA and dramatic morphologic changes in matters of hours to minutes. Nerd-dom isn't limited to lycanthropy.)

Enter the old phrase "quantum genetics," something that Anthony Brownrigg proposed back in a more innocent time, when "Devoured" was a working title. If you're adding in the randomness of quantum mechanics, you open up still unexplored realms of science, though tying them into genetics may be a bit of a stretch.

Yes, I can see the fun of "ouch, I think I got bit. Uh oh... Awrooohhh!!!" I just worry that if I can learn to live with it, then the next technical nit-picker, who hasn't studied "quantum genetics," or for that matter my very own lycanthrope astral virus (to be featured in my next novel, also due out next year--an even greater stretch, since it involves a new and totally hypothetical branch of physics), might make a fuss.

[bluephoenix]

this may have been said, i'm not sure, i haven't read them all. but here's what i think:

when the person is first bitten, it is most likely on a full moon (duh) meaning they have a whole moon cycle for the virus to spread through them. so i think that at first, it just hurt like a...well, female dog... and after the intial shock of about an hour or two, it would begin to be sort of a mixture between numbing, like it's asleep, and a dull pain. this would start at the bite, then slowly work it's way around the body until you were completley engulfed by the virus.

to give an example:
your walking in the woods one night (full moon) and a werewolf jumps at you and bites you about halfway between your knee and your foot. you fall to the ground as the werewolf runs away. the pain is so intense that you can think of nothing else. you wake up the next morning in the middle of the woods, and seeing the sunrise, you realize you've been knocked out by the pain. you look at the wound, which looks like it might be infected. it doesn't hurt anymore, but the wound is numb and a little painful. since you live in the farmhouse nearby, you can stumble your way home. you feel a little exhausted from the bite, so you get in your bed and go to sleep. you wake up later that day, arond 5 or 6. the bite doesn't seem better or worse, but now the numbing has spread about and inch or two up and down. you can still move it, but you can't really feel it. over the course of the next few days, the numbing spreads to your ankle and a little above your knee. now it is not so numb, but a little painful. just...different. within the next week, the weird feeling spreads up your leg to your waist and is now starting to work its way down your other leg. another week passes and it is now down both of your legs and up your chest. in does not feel numb or painful anymore, but stronger. now three weeks have passed by, and the feeling now covers your whole body. you feel...different. stronger than you used to be. then, as the fourth week passes, the full moon rises again and you instinctively go out into the woods. that is when you begin to change. you start grown fur, and your face starts to protrude and you are able to see your nose. but it is not your nose, but a dog's nose. you begin to lose your awareness as you slip into the realization that...you are a werewolf!

[Kzinistzerg]

sounds good to me...

[bluephoenix]

thank you

[Ronkonkoma]

I definately like the ideas Vuldari & Scott Gardener wrote.

my thoughts on the process:
people are very rarely bitten by werewolves unless they can be incorperated into the pack & be trusted keep the secret. I know i didn't like the idea of Underworld where Michael was bitten, and it was later mentioned that he "had no where else to go" except to that pack.
The problem with that rational is that a bitten person could very well go to the -wrong- people.

Bitten humans would have to be monitored and observed very closely (and possibly even kidnapped/hidden away) from after being bitten till after their first change.

A bitten human's first change wouldn't happen until after completing one full cycle of the moon, so if someone is bit 1/4 the way though the moon cycle, when the full moon comes up may have some partial changes (like face pushing out to form a half-muzzle, or legs/arms/ hands might get wolfish, or grow some fur, or a tail, but no superdramic full body changes till that true first full moon.

[Hearth]

Yet, I can't imagine many werewolves just take a bite at someone, and then leave him/her be. I'd imagine that (s)he would take care of him/her until (s)he is fully aware of the what is going on with him/her.

Else there would be plenty of just bitten werewolves noticed at hospitals, clinics and etc., right?

What do you think?

[Grayheart]

I think that werewolves would always try to avoid biting people and if they bite them they would rather kill them instead of letting them run away. People would say 'Oh, okay, here's a human killed by a wolf', cause a dead bitten human can't develope werewolfism. There would be a search for the wolf, but the werewolf could hide till the 'grass grew high enough' or leave the region entirely.

If there's a pack or a solitary werewolf trying to get new members or a mate/companion, they would of course observe the bitten one - or, like Ronkonkoma said, even kidnap the bitten one.

I also dislike the thought of an 'instant change' after the first bite, cause I like to see/ read the slowly change of the bitten one. I also think that it would be very unlogical, if not any kind of magic is involved in that. I always try to figure out a realistic setting for the 'how does it work' (I already mentioned my thoughts on this on this thread)

Because of this it takes at least one month after the initial bite to change the DNA-structure of the bitten one entirely. Again I agree with Ronkonkoma that there would be partial changes in the first time, maybe it would take more than one moon-cycle for the 'virus' to rewrite the genetical structure entirely. Maybe the speed of this change would depend on the age of the bitten one and the strength of its immunesystem?

[Aki]

Yet, I can't imagine many werewolves just take a bite at someone, and then leave him/her be. I'd imagine that (s)he would take care of him/her until (s)he is fully aware of the what is going on with him/her.

Else there would be plenty of just bitten werewolves noticed at hospitals, clinics and etc., right?

What do you think?

Well, if the Werewolf was attempting to kill someone, and the person managed to survive and elude the Werewolf's attempts to hunt them down, it could happen.

OR, same scenario (WW trying to kill human), only the Human is severly wounded and/or is dealt one of those "Unsure" deaths (Ex: Falling off something) the WW might presume his target to have been terminated and meander off...

.....Only to run into the human again some time later. Only this time, he had Lycanthopic tendancies.

[MuDD]

I would think that there would be pain at the sight of the wound, maybe extreme maybe not. Also the closer it got to full moon the more aggressive/moody they would be. Also like in American Werewolf in Paris the heightened senses would start to come into play, maybe be a little stronger and/or faster.

[bloodwolf_345]

Like any kind of bite, it would hurt like hell and heal up in about a week. No pain after the first two days, nerves would just stop responding to them. No fever, no infection, strange feelings, strange cravings, insomnia would develope. Physically the person would feel stronger, healthier, more in tune with their surroundings. The person would probably be able to hear animals thoughts. Animals would be the first to notice the change. A change in scent would alert them. Dogs would shy away or act subordinate, and cats would just curl up with you. (read somewhere that cats and werewolves get along great) Certain aversions and adherences may develope.

[Scott Gardener]

One of the major problems I had early on with my story was explaining why my character, being generally of sound mind and intelligence, didn't go to the ER when he started running a fever and having a strange vascular rash around an animal bite. It was especially a problem given that he was just accepted to medical school. I couldn't just say that he was a do-it-yourselfer.

If there are a reasonable number of werewolves in the world, at least a few would need to have ties with hospital emergency rooms.

Oops, I've said too much.