What if?

[Terastas]

Well I think if there were real werewolves..and did reveal themselves normal people would ban together grab guns, stones, pitchforks, knives ect. and hunt it down and beat it to death. Even if it was innocent of any crimes. Sad to say the Frankenstein movies were correct in that respect.


it would be cool to see a were tiger or were lion

Exactly. This is why the nature of lycanthropy would be unknown to humans and werekin alike -- since people have jumped to the worst of conclusions and hunted them down like monsters for a long time throughout history, it's unlikely there are any werewolves out there that have devoted enough of their time and effort to studying the syndrome and lived to tell anyone about it.

For werekin to gather in those numbers, there'd definitely have to be some major event -- one that would either lead to werewolf recognition among the masses, or werewolf supremacy within a small community (IE: one of those "careful of outsiders" towns out in the boonies). It's possible that it could occur within a small pack like the one in Freeborn, but not likely, and if it did happen, nobody would know what to make of it.

[Wolveblade]

blaa to human nature

[Ronkonkoma]

In my storyline, polytherianthropy occasionally happens, but it's rare. Usually the first infection prevents other infections.

A polytherianthrope has several viruses occupying each cell. Most of the time, this doesn't happen, as explained above. When it does, the person is infectious with both or all virus types, but anyone bitten is at higher risk for sudden death than with a single infection. The polytherianthrope can shift into a variety of hybrid forms--look at some of Goldenwolf's more exotic paintings, and you can get some ideas.

The idea of having hybrid were-creatures is interesting, i think that if you are a born werewolf, getting bit by a different were-critter isn't going to make you a hybrid.

now if you are a bitten werewolf, and are still 'new' to the whole complexities of being a were (like a year or two of being a were) you get bit or encounter a were of a different species, there is a greater possibility of becoming a were-hybrid.

another way of producing a were-hybrid is say a weretiger and a werewolf get together and have a kid, who grows to beable to shift into a hybrid of the two, and maybe when they are older and have more control, shift into either a wolf or tiger. The catch to this is I don't think a were hybrid could make a whole new race of were-critters, a werehybrid bites a regular human, said human either changes to either one side or the other
otherwise there be more strange and weird sorts of weres than you could wave a stick at

WW: "So....what exactly are you?"
Hybrid: "Long story but you see...Well, my mother was a werelion, myfather a werewolf, but a weregator bit my mother a month before i was born, and when i was eight i got bit by a wereraven, then I had this uncle......."

[Grayheart]

another way of producing a were-hybrid is say a weretiger and a werewolf get together and have a kid, who grows to beable to shift into a hybrid of the two, and maybe when they are older and have more control, shift into either a wolf or tiger. The catch to this is I don't think a were hybrid could make a whole new race of were-critters, a werehybrid bites a regular human, said human either changes to either one side or the other otherwise there be more strange and weird sorts of weres than you could wave a stick at

WW: "So....what exactly are you?"
Hybrid: "Long story but you see...Well, my mother was a werelion, myfather a werewolf, but a weregator bit my mother a month before i was born, and when i was eight i got bit by a wereraven, then I had this uncle......."

I doubt that a hybrid would be able to become children. I mean, look at hybrids between tigers and lions - they are sterile. And they are both part of the panthera-family.

Maybe there could be a hybrid between a werewolf and let's say a werecoyote as well as there could be a hybrid between a werelion and a weretiger, cause the genetic structure is similar enough. (This hybrid would only have ONE Gestaltform and ONE 'Bastardform') But a hybrid between a werewolf and a werelion? No, don't think that this would even come to birth. Of course, both parents are partly human, but if there would be a living child as a result of such a mating it wouldn't be able to shift at all.

And this is all for the case we're talking about passing on the were-genes through naturally mating. If a werelion bites a werewolf there are two possibilities: 1. The werewolf dies 2. The immune-system of the werewolf fights of the foreign 'virus', preventing any mixing

[Jamie]

Here's an scenario...

What if there's only one Were virus? What you become would depend on your own genetics. Thus one person infected might become a weretiger, another might be a werewolf, another a wereemu. Situations like the one you mention would be impossible - it'd be like contracting AIDS twice. Sorry, old bean, already got it! Of course, this would lead to weirdness like being bitten by a werewolf and turning into a werehorse, but it would certainly be an interesting twist.

I had an idea like this, when trying to devise scenarios for transformation novels. I eventually gave it up, but here is the basic idea:

There is only one shapeshifter "virus" (I actually envisioned something more like renegade alien nanotechnology, but for all practical purposes it operated as a virus). However, it is designed so that it periodically changes the host into an animal. Which animal species is selected would depend on various factors, but reasonably close ones on the evolutionary chain (i.e. mammals) would be preferred and so would animals who lived near you. In other words, the virus would be a kind of blank transformation program just waiting for a species.
Where would this input come from? Simple. Every animal loses just insane numbers of skin cells every day. Most of these are lightweight enough to be carried in the atmosphere for a long time. Humans breathe in and out large quantities of air every day. The skin cells contain DNA for that animal. Thus, you've probably had the DNA of literally thousands of different species of mammal inside you at one point or another. You just didn't have a nanotechnology virus capable of copying that code and using it to produce transformations. In this scenario, I would, of course, need some reason why certain DNA was more attractive to the virus than other DNA. The only thing I could think of was that, if it really was nanotechnology created by aliens, then it would be designed to turn you into something useful and likely to survive. So, the DNA would be analyzed for these qualities and an animal with reasonable physical abilities would be chosen. If the virus was exposed to both wolf DNA and dog DNA, it would favor the wolf because wolves have vastly better physical abilities than dogs. Likewise, it would favor deer over cows, and wild animals in general.

Of course, if the virus was programmed to sit in your body for a while and decide which species of lycanthropy it was going to be, then it would likely be at least a few weeks from infection to first transformation.

[MuDD]

I'd Think that the original infection would make you "proof" against the others.

Though Laurell K. Hamilton has an interesting character in one of her Novels, the man started as a lycanthrope hunter who survived an attack by a werewolf. Once he figured out for sure that he was indeed infected he went on a sort of rampage attacking any shapeshifters he could in the hopes that they would kill him, never happened, apparently he was too good for them. Meh, either way because he was "assaulted" by other breeds of shapeshifters before his first full moon when he changed for the first time he went from wolf to leopard to snake to bear and then finally lion. Mrs. Hamilton called him a "panwere" he could take any of the animal forms and any of the hybrid forms-to a certain extent. Like, he could become a wolf or a lion or a werewolf or a werelion but not a werewolf/werelion hybrid. Thought this was a pretty cool idea, but he also had split personalities, one for each animal, and wound up being the alpha snake, lion, bear etc etc of various other groups outside of St. Louis

[bloodwolf_345]

Each of the wereviruses is like a different strain of the flu. If bitten by a werewolf or any kind of otherkin, you will gain the ability to transform into each one of them. However this can become fatal if one form is favored over the others. An internal battle will ensue to weed out the strongest survivor. This battle is one the host rarely lives through because in essence the human form is always the first to go. Once the battle has ended, the host, if alive will permanantly assume the form of the winner. The animal instincts will take over as needed, but the human mind is still intact. The full moon no longer will dictate anything if it ever did at all.

[Scott Gardener]

I underscore that in my storyline, polytherianthropy is extremely rare. In an overwhelming majority of cases, having one form creates resistance to getting the others. Getting bitten by a weretiger and a werewolf at the same time might make you a dual therianthrope, but your odds of dying instead are pretty high.

But, mosaic werewolves are fairly common--people with a mix of several different viri. (I know, not really a virus, blah blah, and I know those of you who hate the virus explanation will abhor this explanation, but you're perfectly welcome to skip this post and move on to "a question about werewolf heads.") The first generation of mosaics are created when more than one werewolf bites the same individual. Several slightly different viri infect the person simultaneously. Because they're all similar and cause one to assume the same animal form, they agree with each other in terms of biochemistry changes, hormone receptor sites, and the like. But, they're different viruses, so the majority of cells around one bite site will be based on that attacker, while another site will have a different set, and the rest of the body will have a mix. A mosaic's appearance is only noticable if the two or more different donor wolves have major differences, especially since a "recombinant factor" already exists to cause the viri to derive elements of the newly infected human and to rewrite itself accordingly, so that the new lycanthrope's wolf form isn't too much like the donor wolf. The mosaic werewolf viri homogenize to some degree, because they mistake each other's signals for that of a recombinant factor effect. Still, some first generation mosaic werewolves might have odd-eyes or different patches of fur color.

People bitten by mosaic werewolves also become mosaic, but the mix is so smooth and even that the significance of the mosaicism is only meaningful in matters such as heritage tracking, the lycanthropic equivalent of paternity testing.

[Ultraken]

Since I tend to go for hereditary and non-infectious werebeasts that are "mostly" compatible with humans and each other, combinations are possible if a bit of a crapshoot and strongly discouraged. First generation hybrids tend to have random mixtures of characteristics from their parents, some beneficial, some not, though over time the mixture settles down into a relatively consistent "new" breed. Some are more successful ("gryphons", "manticores") than others ("wuzzles")...