How to reveal Lycanthrope


Advice

Lantern Lodge

Are there any spells or techniques that would work on a natural/infected Lycanthrope that's in human form to tell if they are afflicted with Lycanthrope?

Silver Crusade

I think Detect Thoughts on an especially high roll, or possibly a Knowledge check, might work. The DM deciding on a house ruling might be in order. :)

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Stab them with a non-silver fork. If they're lycanthropes, they'll have DR/silver that you won't be able to penetrate. If they scream in pain, then they are normal humans.

Edit: My mistake! I guess they don't have DR in human form. You could keep stabbing them until they transform, or the authorities take you away.


Presumably, a Diagnose Disease would detect afflicted Lycanthropes. I dunno for natural ones. Maybe a high knowledge check to recognize features that go along with lycanthropes. Perhaps a creature with scent could identify a natural lycanthrope in human form if they'd smelled it in animal form before.

Petty Alchemy wrote:
Stab them with a non-silver fork. If they're lycanthropes, they'll have DR/silver that you won't be able to penetrate. If they scream in pain, then they are normal humans.

No good. They don't get the DR in human form.

Silver Crusade

MacGurcules wrote:
Presumably, a Diagnose Disease would detect afflicted Lycanthropes. I dunno for natural ones. Maybe a high knowledge check to recognize features that go along with lycanthropes. Perhaps a creature with scent could identify a natural lycanthrope in human form if they'd smelled it in animal form before.

Hah! Great ideas! I do personally believe, though, that clerics, paladins (maybe), and druids, being affiliated with either the natural world or goodness (and, in this case, usually some sort of Detect Evil ability as a result) should be able to figure a lycanthrope out if they spent enough time with him or her.


It's a curse so Detect Magic might be able to sense it. That's sketchy though. If you're a player, don't bet on it. If you're a DM looking for a way for the party to do it, then it's a possible option. Though, it might be too common a spell for your taste.

Alternatively, Knowledge(nature) would probably allow you to pick up on humans displaying animal mannerisms. An angry lycanthrope might growl, for example.


the 3.5 oriental adventures book had a detect shapeshifter spell which should work. If its not urgent I can look it up when I get home.


Actually guys, I think I would know. I have been in fact a werewolf in this game for some time now. I agree with some of you. My ideas are use a non silver item and see if the DR works, like someone said but they are wrong, in my human form I do have DR -5 to anything but silver and of course an elemental. Also if you get them tied(not literally) you can touch them with silver, if when you lift you see a burn(I made that mistake before I knew what happened to me) they are a lycanthrope. The opposing force to any of these options are they are human. I am in fact knowledgeable about this, like I said I am a werewolf and some other crazy things(like immortal and Lawful Evil). My only warning is this, be careful around werewolves they will kill you if they feel necessary. P.s. If you tell another lycanthrope I told you this, I will kill you myself.
-Duna


Some divinations may revel somethings, detect thoughts possibly,I don't think there are many ways to prove beyond dout that someone is a lycanthrope. Sense motive and knowledge skills might give clues but evidence I doubt it.

Lantern Lodge

Thanks for some great ideas guys!

I too thought of pricking the finger with a normal weapon to see if it draws blood but the bestiary states they only have DR when"in animal or hybrid form". So in their natural form they do not have DR.

Detect Evil would be possibly in my case and Diagnose Disease is a great suggestion and probably works with natural lycanthropes since they do "carry" the disease.


kaisc006, you're wrong. I am a werewolf myself and I have the DR in my human form. The only way what you're saying wouldn't work is if they are originals, or if that's the bestiary form, because I play a lycanthrope character.


If you take a place like Darkmoon Vale that is frought with lycanthopes I always envision a skittish crowd in a tavern on full moon nights giving a toast (forcing anyone to drink) something laced with a concoction that would hurt/kill werewolves. Refused to drink and its pitchfork time.

Lantern Lodge

Gnomezrule wrote:

skittish crowd in a tavern on full moon nights giving a toast (forcing anyone to drink) something laced with a concoction that would hurt/kill werewolves. Refused to drink and its pitchfork time.

This is exactly what I'm looking for. Something cheap a town could rely on to stop lycanthropes from hiding amongst them.


Well if your after cheap stuff the average villiage could use I'll check my books on monsters when I get home (its been years since I read the werewolf entry) and let you know what's been used in our world. There's a whole bunch of things in their like hairy palms and the like your average town could use. Whether they're actually true or not is up to you. Hmmm the party walks into town and is put through the vampire watermelon test.

Fun foot note if I remember right silver was a holywood invention the earlier werewolf stories had them killable with regular weapons.


Wolfsbane poison can be given to someone within 3 days after being bitten to allow them to reroll their save to resist contracting Lycanthropy. Actually eating it would probably kill a commoner but you might make it have an effect on lycanthropes on skin contact.


Here you go signs that allow you to identify a werewolf.

1) The index fingers on each hand are extended and are equal to or longer than the middle finger.
2) The palms of their hands are covered in hair.
3) The mark of the pentagram appears somewhere on their body.

And a little something else for your superstitious villiagers to believe 12 ways that are supposed to make you have a chance to become a vampire.

1) If you commit suicide.
2) If your a witch.
3) If your the seventh son of a seventh son.
4) If you lie.
5) If you haven't been baptized.
6) If your a criminal.
7) If your mother was looked at by a vampire, presumably during pregnancy but it doesn't mention that.
8) A dead person who's coffin was jumped over by a cat, stepped over by a nun or had a mans shadow fall on it.
9) If you don't eat garlic.
10) If you at the meat of a sheep killed by a wolf.
11) If you were born on the day of one of the church's greatest festivals e.g. christmas or easter.
12) If you lived an evil life.

and a way to detect them. Have a young girl ride a horse over every grave in the cemetry if the horse refused to step over one then it contains a vampire.


If you're still looking for answers I have another one. A druid, cleric, sorcerer or wizard can use the spell "True Seeing". The exact thing it does is it gives you the ability to see what something really is. Look it up in the core, it's there.


Liam Warner wrote:

Here you go signs that allow you to identify a werewolf.

2) The palms of their hands are covered in hair.

I thought hair on your palms was caused by "something else". :P


Okay the spell I was talking about . . .

Discern Shapechanger.
Wizard 3
Components V,S,M
Casting Time 1 round
Range Personal
Tartget You
Duration 1 round per level

With a standard action spent in concentration, you can see the true form of polymorphed, disguised, or transmuted creatures within 60 feet. Each round you can examine one creature you can see and determine whether it is polymorphed, disguised, or trasnmuted, and what its true form is.

If you look at a shapechanger in its true form, you know that it is a shapechanger, but cannot determine what other forms it might be capable of assuming. For purposes of this spell, a shapechanger is any creature with the shapechanger type or a supernatural or extraordinary ability that allows it to assume an alternate form. A Wizard who knows polymorph self is not a shapechanger since a spell is not a supernatural or extraordinary ability but a spriit centipede is since it has the exceptional ability to assume alternate forms, though its type is outsider.

Material Component: A balm of honey and lotus flower smeared on your eyelids.

Too high level for your average villiage but you could possibly drop the level enough for hedge wizards by removing things like knowing its other alternate forms or increasing the casting time. That would also lead to the fun possibility of mistaken identity "I keep telling you I'm not a werewolf I'm a shapeshifter see I can make myself male, female, young or old . . . wait why are you looking even angrier and more afriad?"

ObligatoryHuman wrote:
Liam Warner wrote:

Here you go signs that allow you to identify a werewolf.

2) The palms of their hands are covered in hair.

I thought hair on your palms was caused by "something else". :P

As could this . . . "Heed my warning son doing that is fun but it could lead to you being mistaken for a werewolf like the Thompson boy down the road."


Silver is not poisions though silver salts are according to a google search. Argueably perhaps in your campaign world they could develp a good strong drink that is full of silver flecks like Golshlauger.

Also in Darkmoon Vale there is an extreme group of anti lycanthrope hunters called Silverers. They have a concoction they force lycanthropes to drink that causing excrutiating death. Silverers are not well liked though as the painful torturous death runs against their sensibilities. They figure that many lycanthropes used to be someones loved one before they became a monster. So a quick death is more pallitable.


Sorry for thread rez, but RAW there isn't anything specific that enables detection of a natural lychanthrope?

I ask because in a homebrew I think I'm just going to rule it as a Knowledge Nature check to know the signs or a detect thoughts... but from there, there's not much else to do. Unless I'm missing something.


Darth Grall wrote:

Sorry for thread rez, but RAW there isn't anything specific that enables detection of a natural lychanthrope?

I ask because in a homebrew I think I'm just going to rule it as a Knowledge Nature check to know the signs or a detect thoughts... but from there, there's not much else to do. Unless I'm missing something.

Half the challenge of a lycanthrope is figuring out who it is.

That said, if you can encounter the lycanthrope in hybrid or animal form, True Seeing should reveal the human form.


Wolf Munroe wrote:

Half the challenge of a lycanthrope is figuring out who it is.

That said, if you can encounter the lycanthrope in hybrid or animal form, True Seeing should reveal the human form.

Agreed. Which is why one of my players is going to be a Natural Were-bear. He's just being Hyper paranoid about it all, when I'm telling him mechanically there isn't a lot to worry about.

Especially since as an Inquisitor, he should know the signs of what's to be noticed, so it should be easy to hide his stigma.

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