Lycanthropy in Traveller

[alex_greene]

Another thread brought up the werewolves from the Undercity of Mega-City One, and whether or not this had been covered in the Judge Dredd game.

Apparently not.

Which brings up the point - has anyone ever houseruled werewolves in a Traveller game?

And no, I mean other than Vargr.

 

[middenface]

Not quite what your talking about, but I suddenly remember 'An Alien Werewolf in London...' Time Travelling, Combat Drug addicted Vargr ends up in London... Its 1888 and its loose in the Whitechapel area....
White Dwarf 62 Feb 1985.

 

[superc0ntra]

Sudden flashbacks just came over me!

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

You could easily use the Alien Trait section of the TMB to create what you want.

The hard part will be the transformation itself. It takes a lot of ENERGY to convert a biological entity from one form to another and that energy has to come from somewhere. Eating a lot of meat will not be nearly enough.

PERHAPS, you could make the change happen more slowly, say over the course of a week or month and at the end, they are permanently tranformed into a Lycan.

 

[rust]

The hard part will be the transformation itself. It takes a lot of ENERGY to convert a biological entity from one form to another and that energy has to come from somewhere. Eating a lot of meat will not be nearly enough.

This has something in common with the energy requirements of psionics,
especially teleportation ... perhaps one could treat the transformation as
a psionic skill to get rid of the energy requirements of a normal biology ?

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Now that's an interesting idea...

Whatever mythical place the energy for Psionics comes from also can power personal transformations.

I like that a lot.

Now to just figure out where the Psionic Energy comes from (a pocket universe???)

 

[alex_greene]

PERHAPS, you could make the change happen more slowly, say over the course of a week or month and at the end, they are permanently tranformed into a Lycanthrope.

(edit mine)
Like the movie "Ginger Snaps."

Perhaps psionics, specifically a branch of Awareness, can be used to trigger the quickening of an atavistic genetic sequence left in humanoid junk DNA to trigger a reversion to a lycanthropic form.

Or it could be a mutation brought about by a retrovirus which migrated out with humans when they came to the void. A virus not necessarily activated by the full moon, but rather by light of a certain wavelength and intensity impinging on the pineal gland in which the virus sits, mostly dormant; activated, the virus uses the pineal to activate the pituitary gland, causing the genetic reversion as described above.

Doable.

About as doable as the idea of an exotic fungal saprophyte which infects fresh cadaverous tissue and which, through using its mycelium as a faux central nervous system, both preserves the necrotic tissues and grants mobility to the cadaver to get it to its next spawning ground ...

 

[Jame Rowe]

I don't know if I want this IMTU, but then again I have no objections to someone figuring out how to do it for those who want it.

 

[kristof65]

I'd go for the Psionics answer to the energy requirement as well. Furthermore, for background on it in the OTU at least, I think I'd make Lycanthropy a side effect of the genetic tampering the Ancients did to create the Vargr.

A rather harmless virus that can trigger certain Vargr genetic traits when given enough energy. Not capable of infecting most humans, but carried throughout the generations by our best friend, the canine. When the virus is caught by humans with the right genetic disposition, the transition can be triggered by enough energy - usually psionic, but possibly other sources as well - perhaps a lethal dose of gamma radiation could trigger the virus, causing some pretty horrible deaths to the first unlucky space farers.

 

[locarno24]

Now that is a brilliant idea...... a proto-version of the vargr 'uplift' retrovirus...which infects some of the local stray dogs.

Not a werewolf, so much a werehuman.

 

[raevhen]

Wouldn't that be a Wolfwere?

 

[locarno24]

Wouldn't that be a Wolfwere?

Only if you take D&D as the source of all mythological truth. Personally I prefer Discworld. Hence Werehuman.

 

[raevhen]

Only if you take D&D as the source of all mythological truth. Personally I prefer Discworld. Hence Werehuman.

H8R much? I chose the first published instance of the myth that I am aware of:

Monster Manual: 1977
Mort: 1987

 

[alex_greene]

I chose the first published instance of the myth that I am aware of:

Monster Manual: 1977
Mort: 1987

How about sticking to Homo lycanthropus, rather than Lupus hominipus?

You can dig up so much mythology and legend concerning men who shapeshift into beasts; stories dating back thousands of years. The wolfman is an archetype, so rather than consult with Gygax and Arneson, try consulting Campbell and Jung, Freud and Grimm, the Epic of Gilgamesh the King and the Epic of Beowulf.

You'll find those sources far more enlightening.

 

[raevhen]

In deference to the OP I'll let the Wolfwere discussion drop.

 

[FentonGib]

New to this forum so only just seen this thread, but thought I'd point out that the Judge Dredd book "Bad Moon Rising" has an adventure where the judges hunt an actual werewolf, and it gives stats. It's pretty easy to nab that and use it.

 

[alex_greene]

Nice act of thread necromancy and all. I just saw the final part of a 2000AD story where werewolves featured centrally, so furry fun happens to be high in my mind at the moment.

 

[SpaceDog]

In the JTAS issue 5 for Classic Traveller there was an Amber Zone article by Andrew Blixt detailing the Werewolf Disease. not technically a lycanthrope, but still...

 

[Jacqual]

I like the Psionic angle for the power requirements, and if you include a retrovirus like effect making it so a Psionically capable person catching the virus becomes a werwolf, while a person not psionic just becomes extremly aggresive under the right circumstances. Just make it that the Psionic power is completly non controllable by the infected, kind of like a rogue psionic science. So the case looks like this

Psionic infected werwolf transforms under whatever conditions met requirments (28 day cycle, certain light frequency, etc.) and then attacks whomever he comes across.

Normal non psionic victims of attack if they survive become extremly hostile under conditions met above and attack persons they come across.

Psionic victims of attack if they survive become true werwolves and transform under conditions listed above. Retro virus activates and uses an uncontrollable new psionic ability to gain access to transformation energy.
werwolf cannot use psionic ability with any control and retro virus prevents psionic power burn off in some manner.

Or something along those lines not even going to touch where the retro virus comes from, or how it works other then rough guesses listed above.

 

[Brutorz Bill]

In the JTAS issue 5 for Classic Traveller there was an Amber Zone article by Andrew Blixt detailing the Werewolf Disease. not technically a lycanthrope, but still...

That's interesting, I must have read that article years ago and forgotten, I did a homebrew Classic Traveller adventure back in the day where a planet was Amber Zoned due to a Werewolf disease, the players barely escaped with their lives.