[UA] Lycanthropes

[John C]

>What I'm getting at is the use of the word "lycanthrope".  It posseses a
>mythic meaning, which should be turned on it's head in the UnAverse,
>just like everything else.  Except the mythic meaning is wasted, since
>no one *could* use the term to discribe the effect.

I like the idea of some lunatic trying to become a wolf.  He'd dress up in a 
wolfskin, run around killing and eating people (something that a real wolf 
would rarely, if ever do), howl at the moon...you know the type.  An actual 
lycanthrope, in the psychological sense.  Much to his amazement, one fine 
night he ascends as "the Wolf".  Still not a real wolf, but fitting 
precisely into people's idea of a how a wolf *should* behave.

His godwalkers would be able to assume the physical and mental 
characteristics of a wolf, so long as they continue to act like the 
Hollywood ideal of the Big Bad Wolf.  Knowledge of how a real wolf lives and 
behaves would do them more harm than good.

This doesn't fit too well with the other shapeshifters -- ravens, bears, 
what have you -- but those could just as easily be stories about adepts from 
now-dead schools.  Plus, my Dipsomancers can turn men into dolphins...but 
that's another story.

John Crimmins                     john1x at hotmail.com
     http://www.voicenet.com/~johncrim/index.html

   "We're not at home to Mr. Reasonable, sergeant."
   "I do not hear him knockin', sir."
    --Terry Pratchett, _The Fifth Elephant_

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