Figarou wrote:Can you explain where the energy is coming from for a dead werewolf in gestalt form to change back to a human?
This comes up every now and then, and the only explanation I could think of would be if, instead of energy being needed to
shift from wolf to human, energy is instead needed to
sustain the wolf form, so when a werewolf dies or passes out and their energy levels drop, the body "deflates" back into human form.
I have this mentioned in my writing, but it's never explicitly confirmed; after two characters have killed a rogue werewolf and one of them starts worrying what they'll do with the body, the other one calms him down and assures him they can just leave it for the police to find once it deflates as described. . . But it doesn't.
The rogue werewolf in question was also a frequent drug user, which
might have explained why he didn't deflate automatically, but again, even the werewolves themselves don't have all the answers, so they really don't know why some deflate and others don't.
Anyway, my werewolves have changed a lot thanks to the Pack. I have more than one work of fiction in the works, but they both rely more or less on the same werewolf model, so here goes:
Genre
Realism, if anything. Neither the werewolves in
The Noctem or
Night Life (that's right, no more
Happy Hamster Land working title) are actually sure themselves of the nature of lycanthropy, but they both assume it can be described scientifically.
Signs of Lycanthropy in Human Form
Nothing outwardly defining. The closest things to telltale signs would be crooked teeth, male-pattern baldness or other "typical" imperfections, as the constant shifting between forms makes correcting these difficult, if not impossible.
Mass Gain from shifting
None. Werewolves
appear taller and larger, but weigh the same as they did in human form (minus that which they "sweated off" while shifting).
Height
Usually no more than three to four inches than in their human form, and some of that is attributed to the fact that they habitually stand digitigrade. Exceptions are rare.
Muscles
More well defined, but not explicitly
gained. A werewolf's increased strength is better attributed to its tolerance for pain; his ability to push himself to levels a normal human could reach but not endure.
Head
Very canine in appearance, with the exception of still having their ears on the sides of their head (as opposed to the top of their head like a natural wolf, like the werewolves in
Hyper Police, only not nearly as toony). The only differences beyond this are generally subtle and vary from one individual to another.
Fur
Generally the same color as that of the individual's human form, albeit this means only the color of the werewolf's head and
maybe the face. Anywhere the werewolf's human form is lacking in hair may offer some surprises (back, hands and feet, for example, may offer some surprises).
Hair Retention
Werewolves keep their "headfur," though this is only evident in werewolves with particularly long hair. Bald spots
may or may not grow in, but more often do than don't.
Level of Fur Coverage
The palms of their hands, soles of their feet, inside the ears, and the nose. Every other part of their body grows fur.
Claws
Not that much larger than human form, but stronger and capable of tearing.
Sounds
Werewolves can easily imitate the full wolf's vocal arrangement, albeit they do not always know the significance of such (coyote howling is not uncommon). Human
sounds can also be made, but their actual language capacity is limited to simple "baby-talk" words like 'yeah' or 'uh-uh.' Werewolves generally find it easier to learn sign language than to learn to speak with a different set of mouth parts.
Male/Female differences
Pretty much the same differences that set apart human males and females.
Speed and Strength
The average werewolf can rival the Olympic athletes in any field, but do not actually surpass human expectations. Their increased speed, strength and endurance once again stems from their regeneration / threshold for pain; their ability to push themselves harder than a normal human ever could.
Silver
Werewolves
encourage the silver myth because it makes it easier to identify werewolf hunters, but it's never actually been proven that silver is harmful to werewolves (or at least not any more harmful than it would be to anything else).
The Moon
Werewolves attribute the first-time shift at the full moon as being a result of psychological influence, though the relationship is not explicitly understood. Werewolves living in the Noctem where the moon can never be seen are immune to its influence, so its generally assumed that it has something to do with its shape or brightness (described by some as resembling the "light at the end of the tunnel").
Children
Lycanthropy remains active when passed onto another by infection, but becomes dormant at the cellular level (AKA: the egg and sperm) and can take several years to re-mature. Depending on how it mutates while maturing, a werewolf 'cub' may develop a mature form as early as six years, or in extremely rare cases, never at all.
Forms
Gestalt and full wolf. The gestalt "hybrid" is the form which naturally results from a shift, though werewolves may push further into a full wolf form and back.
Illness
Lycanthropy acts both as a cleansing agent and a regenerative. Werewolves are apparently more susceptible to fever and cold-like symptoms such as runny nose, vomiting and diarrhea on account of their immune systems expelling more toxins than normal, but beyond such, werewolves are generally disease-free. The only exception is hereditary cancer, which lycanthropy can
sometimes speed up.
Injury and Age affecting shifting
Shifting is a painful process, and if they shift before acquiring their full regenerative capacity, it can be fatal. Old, sick or handicapped humans are not infected because the combined "detoxification" and first shift does an absolute number on the individual. Once they have adjusted to the presence of lycanthropy in their systems and undergone the first shift, however, anything that doesn't kill them can eventually be recovered from.
Control
Whenever werewolves go crazy, it's usually for one of three reasons. The first is, simply put, the physical and mental strain of the first shift. If they survive that, the second is if they are confused or overwhelmed by the explosion of information from their newly acquired senses. These are common problems which werewolves are frankly not expected to be able to overcome on the first try, but which a werewolf will eventually adjust to sooner than later.
The third is what werewolves in modern-day times call "Hollywood Syndrome." This is when someone had previously had a misconception of werewolves which they adamantly believed, to the point that, when they became a werewolf themselves, they developed a psychological complex which encourages that misconception. Bloodlust or a phobia of silver, for example, are common symptoms of Hollywood Syndrome.
Life Span
Nobody knows. It's been a
very long time since a werewolf has ever died of natural causes.
Regeneration and Healing
That which is beyond a werewolf's ability to recover from naturally can be gradually corrected and restored through routine shifting. Limbs can be regrown, for example, albeit with their shifts carefully supervised and over a period of several years.
Relationship between The Three Forms
The gestalt is the halfway form. It's the natural form taken on by an involuntary and/or natural shift, although the werewolf may push themselves further into the full wolf form and back again. The gestalt form is almost always temporary and the werewolf will resume one form or the other once their adrenaline levels drop, but either the human or wolf form can serve as the primary form.
Senses
What you'd expect. Better hearing, much better sense of smell, negligible change to their sight. Their sense of touch is also dulled, not so much because they feel less, but because they become more and more tolerant of pain with every shift until they are almost completely numb to it.
Feet
They have planitgrade feet, but habitually stand digitgrade (IE: tip-toe).
Tail?
Why yes, I'd love some t. . . Oh, sorry, I mean Yes.
Dead Werewolves
Reverting to their natural form is usually done by relaxing themselves and letting their adrenaline drop. That means that, as I said with Fig right at the top, if a werewolf dies, passes out, or anything happens to them that would cause their adrenaline levels to plummet, they (normally) will gradually revert (gradually as in it takes a while; they don't just magically turn back into a human). They can revert into human or wolf form, usually that which they had shifted from. The speculation is that the "natural" gestalt form is not an even 50/50 of human and wolf, but is actually more like 51/49 in dominance of the original form, IE: only werewolves who ever push themselves to shift and push too hard ever assume the "wrong" form when they revert.
Mentality
The way a werewolf experiences the world changes (and can, as detailed above, result in insanity), but otherwise werewolves are perfectly aware and are, for better or worse, the same person they were before.
Society
Nothing instinctive. Some werewolves mimic pack structure and behavior because they
identify with real world wolves, but the nature of the werewolf is entirely human.