THE PACK Message Boards

Here's a new topic:

I work for my local library system, and among my tasks is processing new books. We had a shipment of Urban Fantasy books in.

Now, here's the thing.

I went through at least 70 books and by far, the universes went, "Werewolf, vampire, werewolf, fae, vampire, werewolf, vampire, weretiger, vampire, werewolf..."

Whenever someone's a shapeshifter, they're a werewolf, or a were-big-cat or a selkie. Maybe a witch.

Whenever someone's undead, they're a vampire.

If they're not a werewolf or a vampire, they might be a dragon, but they're more likely to be of the Fair Folk.

We talk about the Ultimate Werewolf a lot, and it's understandable, since wolves are incredibly popular creatures. But we have many among The Pack whose animal-- of whatever connection you fathom-- is not a wolf, nor any of the standard fantasy fare.

So... Should the ideal werewolf be... not be a wolf? Shouldn't our fantasy universes have a little bit more imagination than that?

Shouldn't our fantasy creatures be more creative? We're bound only by our own sense of aesthetics here. No reason to stop at werewolves and vampires.

My werewolves are already a part of the zoanthrope kingdom in my established lore, meaning even wereinsects exist. I think that says a lot there.

I think people stick to Wolves mostly for identification purposes.
Almost everybody knows what a Werewolf looks like (mostly thanks to the movies). Werecats were tried and didn't work all that well.
Then, too; unless you are doing a totally magic Werewhatever, there is size to consider. Wolves and humans share roughly the same weight range, as do some of the smaller big cats (that sounds like a contradiction, doesn't it?).\
The Animal form needs to be "desirable" or "exciting" to work, too. A Were-Chimpanzee or Were-Pig just isn't gonna make it, and would be the source of a lot of off-color jokes as well.
Possibly, the Sasquach could be used as a Were-person with a twist: One shift, and the mind is lost as well as the ability to revert until some sort of accident causes an unintended reversion, with the person having no idea as to what happened to him/her.
I suspect that at the end of the day, the identification factor is what does it.
Not that many people could identify with being a were-kangaroo, for example.

Well, my concept of just about everything undergoes changes every so often. I mean, I started designing an iconic werewolf character of mine, and over the course of the design project he wound up being a sort of were-cat-thing. And lately my werewolves have been leaning more towards werecanines. Both groups are again changing, probably to a more general shapeshifter template that uses elements from many different creatures.

The thing about undeath generally equaling vampirism is that most of the other undead creatures are uncool as well, such as zombies, ghouls, mummies(though Ptolemy the mummy kicked some serious a** in Monster Planet). After reading the Monster series by David Wellington, my undead have gradually started changing as well, until there's not really going to be a separation between zombies and vampires and liches, as they're all going to be different stages of the same creature template.
I suspect most of my other creature-classes will head that direction as well, probably until I meld them all into one unified whole that can cover anything from blood-sucking, sun-fearing ghouls to tree-dwelling, technology-hating nature spirits, to solar-powered spellcasting crocodile totem-animals. I guess it really depends on the mechanical differentiations each will have from the other. As is I can build just about anything, though they all have the same mechanics. I'm working on it.

At one point I did try to build an archetype template to cover both vampires and shapeshifters, though no one really felt it was necessary, as they both already exist separately. It holds a special place in my heart.

The Ultimate Werewolf is sorta contractually obligated to be a wolf, or at least have strong thematic ties to a wolf. If your ultimate werewolf is a lion-dragon hybrid thing, then it's not really a werewolf anymore.

One of the great things about learning about Japanese culture and folklore is that they have their own completely different set of mythos. Rather than werewolves and vampire, they have kitunes and various nature spirits with names that are hard for me to remember.

Anyone's imagination can create their own werewolf mythology.

Come to think of it, we've been kind of doing just that.