Lycanthropes in a World Without Night

[wizardofowls]

What is the best way to deal with lycanthropes in a world without night? I am thinking that the alernate creature (wolf, rat, bear, whatever) wants out as much as the human does so there is a constant battle for control of the body. Perhaps whenever the lycnathrope is in a stressful situation, or experiences extreme emotion, he must make a will check. If he fails, the other creature comes out for a set amount of time. Each time he makes the save a cumulative -1 penalty is added to the check until the creature is released at last. Maybe in some cases, if the human form is evil, the lycanthorpe can willingly release control to the creature.

Thoughts? Ideas?

[Kalan]

wizardofowls wrote:

What is the best way to deal with lycanthropes in a world without night? I am thinking that the alernate creature (wolf, rat, bear, whatever) wants out as much as the human does so there is a constant battle for control of the body. Perhaps whenever the lycnathrope is in a stressful situation, or experiences extreme emotion, he must make a will check. If he fails, the other creature comes out for a set amount of time. Each time he makes the save a cumulative -1 penalty is added to the check until the creature is released at last. Maybe in some cases, if the human form is evil, the lycanthorpe can willingly release control to the creature.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Since standard Lycanthropes change during the NIGHT of the full moon a 5 or 10 DC Will save each time the sun goes down with a cumulative +1 DC for each successfull save might work. They just change back when the sun comes up.

I know it sounds like Gargoyals(TM disney) or even the first few issues of the Hulk(3 ranks in comic geek) but it's simple and straight forward.

[wizardofowls]

But you see the sun doesn't go down! There is no night at all. The world has been shattered, and there are only a 1000 "islands," so the world is in a perpetual state of daytime.

[Sect]

wizardofowls wrote:

But you see the sun doesn't go down! There is no night at all. The world has been shattered, and there are only a 1000 "islands," so the world is in a perpetual state of daytime.

Then, obviously, you're going to have to retool the lycanthrope so that either 1) their transformation doesn't depend on nightfall, or 2) they are weaker.

Does the world still have moon(s)? The moon still comes out during the day.

[Purple Dragon Knight]

What about Lycans who live underground, such as in the Realms' Underdark? they don't see the moon either... interesting...

[Heathansson]

Hmmm....there are times when the moon is out during the day.
Does the world have a moon?
(edit) somebody said that. Duuuuh...
well, on the other side of the islands would it be night, the side not facing the sun?

[Bill Lumberg]

Tie the transformation to tidal fluctuations or weather conditions.

[Sect]

Hey, everyone...

Just for your information, Wiz's been posting aseries of threads basically asking for help on his campaign setting. Take a look at them, but, basically:

The world is a bunch of floating shards of lands (islands, if you will) in a void of... uh, air. If you played that one Tales game, you know what I'm talking about. So, no oceans or anything. And, apparantly, no night, due to no revolutions or rotations and whatnot.

[Kalan]

wizardofowls wrote:

But you see the sun doesn't go down! There is no night at all. The world has been shattered, and there are only a 1000 "islands," so the world is in a perpetual state of daytime.

My bad. I didn't realize the thread was tied to your shattered world campaign. Maybe you could do the will save every time they fall asleep instead.

"When one sleeps the other awakens."

Or something close to it?

[Heathansson]

Woah. WRT the moon(s), maybe whatever splosion happened ALZO made the moon splode; either somewhat or totally. So there's moonrock here and there, moonrock meteors that peppered the islands when the cataclysm went down. Moonrock that influences lycanthropes when they are in the range of its unique radiations.
You could have some poor sod go his whole life not knowing he's a werewolf, only to go dipping about in a crater, come to close to the moonrock meteor at the bottom, and go wolfy right then and there.

[ericthecleric]

Maybe when the world shattered, a spiritual tide began to occur, and reoccur maybe once a year or so- and should occur randomly, not at a fixed time of the year, for maybe 1d4 weeks at a time. During this time, animals everywhere become more feral, even domesticated ones (but not to such an extreme). Afflicted lycanthropes are also affected during this time (and perhaps can’t change during the other times). But, perhaps because of the feral animals, most people don’t believe in lycanthropes, seeing the result of any attacks as merely feral animals.
(Natural lycanthropes could still change whenever they wish, though, if this idea is used.)
Perhaps fey are more active during this time, as well.

[Sect]

Perhaps still have moons, and have the transformations tied to the solar eclipses that happen frequently.

Then again, that might defeat the purpose of having a world without "night"...

[Rezdave]

wizardofowls wrote:

What is the best way to deal with lycanthropes in a world without night?

Normally you just designate another trigger. Perhaps there is some other "celestial event" that occurs about once a week or month or whatever and serves as the trigger.

Alternately, individual lycanthropes could be on personal cycles and so change every 168 hours (weekly) or 270 hours (monthly) after becoming afflicted.

wizardofowls wrote:

I am thinking that the alernate creature (wolf, rat, bear, whatever) wants out as much as the human does so there is a constant battle for control of the body. Perhaps whenever the lycnathrope is in a stressful situation, or experiences extreme emotion, he must make a will check.

This is a cool idea, but it has more the feel of a White Wolf "storytelling game of personal horror". If you want to go this route check the Vampire and Werewolf games for suggestions circumstances that trigger Frenzy and Rage respectively.

In this case, I'd say you're really skewing the feel of the campaign and stories. Is this just for the benefit of one lycanthrope PC or the party or an NPC culture?

If you're bothing for the sake of a villain than stop worrying. Whatever triggers the change coincidentally happens as the PCs are adventuring against it and you never need to specify the cause.

HTH,

Rez

[PlungingForward]

The old night-less "Hollow World" setting had some interesting ways for dealing with lycanthropes. I remember one that rejected food in human form, and took saber-tooth form to eat, but there were others I don't. If I can dig the books up, I'll write again.

Aside: How do people on your world keep time without stars, a moon, or a sun that changes position? That might help you with lycanthropes.

[Craig Shackleton]

I like Heathansson's moon rock idea. And he oughtta know.

[Heathansson]

I like the whole asteroids in an air field thing. Reminds me of Larry Niven's The Integral Trees.

[kessukoofah]

Rezdave wrote:

If you're bothing for the sake of a villain than stop worrying. Whatever triggers the change coincidentally happens as the PCs are adventuring against it and you never need to specify the cause.

HTH,

Rez

I Really agree with this statement. there is no point to detailing such a... detailed... system if it's only going to happen once when the PC's fight the bad guy. if there's an entire Lycanthropic culture and they appear in every city all the time then:

Kalan wrote:

Maybe you could do the will save every time they fall asleep instead.

"When one sleeps the other awakens."

Or something close to it?

I vote for this. In fact, I may just use this in place of regular Lycanthrope rules.

And because I feel the need to volunteer an idea: make it a permanant condition so that they are always in hybrid mode, willingly able to enter/exit animal mode. Remove the possible bonus of being able to hide in society. Turn it into a real ailment.

[Valegrim]

yeah, I am with Heathdogbonebreath on this one too; day and night shouldnt make a difference; I would go with tying the lycanthrope to a phase of the moon; if you dont have a moon; well, then I suppose you dont have any moon god or anything; you could do it on some dream sleep cycle for something really out there :) when a certain number ie a die roll of sleepers are having violent and raging dreams; lycanthropes shift in reponse and propogate the terror. Certain times of the year and festivals like our Halloween could greatly enhance the chance for change; ect. I assume people still sleep...

Am just trying to give you a suggestion that could have far reaching gameplay threads and could develop into something really neat instead of tying the shapechange to moon, rock, season, tides sort of thing.