Uniform Two Six wrote:Now I tend to still think of werewolves in the "traditional" role of the hollywood monster antagonist, so I might be drifting off topic a bit, but... The werewolf as the bad guy is a signature character that is frightening for (among other things) the twin abilities of great power (speed, physical strength, etc.) and near invulnerability. The werewolf just doesn't represent much of a threat to a protagonist without regeneration. The lead character simply pulls out:
A. A gun.
B. A knife.
C. A crowbar.
D. A wooden board with a nail sticking out of it.
Or:
E. Other.
... and then proceeds to undertake conflict resolution (AKA: beating the ever-living-sh** out the bad guy).
That's assuming the bad guy actually puts him in a position to be beaten the ever-living-sh** out of.
I'm personally more partial to werewolves with the human element: the capacity to fill either the hero or monster role, but when antagonists, I think of them as more rational, cunning antagonists; something that would know better than to charge a guy with a gun head on, that could effectively spar one on one against a guy with a knife/crowbar, or could just avoid a head-on conflict altogether by sneaking up on him or setting up a trap or an ambush (like the werewolf in
Dog Soldiers that waited in the back seat of the car for one of the soldiers to try and hotwire it).
A werewolf doesn't need to regenerate a bullet wound if it can avoid being shot altogether.
Something else you might want to consider: just because something may not
regenerate from a wound does not mean it cannot tolerate it. Remember the or chief from
LotR: Fellowship of the Ring (
click here), or that monster-guy that fought with the Immortals in
300 (
click here)? In spite of everything that was done to those two, and of the fact that all of their wounds were 100% permanent, they pressed the attack right up until Aragon and Leonidas finally sent their heads rolling. If your only aim is to make a werewolf that's absolutely scary as hell, it doesn't need to regenerate. Just being relentless is scary enough.
Me personally, however, I do buy into the regeneration thing, including the regrowing of missing limbs. . . Within reason. A shift from man to wolf would require some restructuring of the bones just like the rest of the body, so I figure there would be some room for regeneration. I agree with Outward's evaluation that a paw can't shift out of a hand that isn't there, so I think an
instantaneous regrowing of a severed limb (like the kind Quinn in
Blade demonstrates) would be too big of a stretch. What I think would heal, however, is the breaking point; everything in the body is connected to something else, so just because it's been severed doesn't mean it's gone and forgotten. If a werewolf were severed at, say, the elbow, first the elbow would repair itself which would leave the werewolf with an incomplete lower arm, then the lower arm would repair and leave the werewolf with an incomplete wrist, and so on and so forth until everything patches itself back up.
This is, of course, a long process. Like five to ten years probably; much longer than a crippled werewolf under normal circumstances would be expected to last for. That's how it is in my writing anyway; the werewolves
think lost limbs will regenerate because they've observed some progress, but since crippled werewolves are typically either hunted down or outed shortly after being injured so, nobody's ever survived long enough to see if it really will fully heal or not.
As for cuts and bleeding, I usually assume those would heal naturally as a result of the lycanthropic regeneration in either form, but that depending on where they were cut, a werewolf may not be able to shift in or out until it heals. What I figure is that shifting would involve the stretching and condensing of certain body parts, so if a werewolf is cut in a certain place, it may either tear further or close shut during shifting. ABrownrigg mentioned that his werewolves typically have bloody cuticles on account of their nails growing, for example, so if a werewolf had cut his finger in human form right before shifting, it might bleed even more than usual. However, if he were shifting into full wolf form, the wound may close altogether as his fingers shrink and condense into a paw.
Not really a major concern for a werewolf. Just something it should keep in mind.
If it’s gone then it’s gone.
The adventures of trying to prove he/she is real and not in costume, or makeup; that he/she is real; at a Werewolf Con! (if there are any)
