I am thinking about running a Pathfinder game when the new rulebooks come out with the PCs being afflicted werewolves. I am debating whether or not to set it in the Darkmoon Vale location, but that book really doesn't go overly in depth about werewolves other than brief descriptions of their organizations and where they can be found in certain areas, instead focussing on the standard humanoid factions dominating the land.
I was wondering if anyone can suggest some good novels that involve werewolves as main protagonists or have werewolf heavy plots that are in the traditional DnD Fantasy setting. I am trying to get some great ideas for plot hooks and motivations for the players since most of the hooks in the "Guide to Darkmoon Vale" book involve regular players killing werewolves.
If anyone has any good suggestions I would love to hear it!
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It might be hard to find, and it is a 2nd edition Ravenloft book, but Van Richten's Guide to Werebeasts is a wonderful resource for all things lycanthropic and one of the best in the series of guides in my opinion.
Check at your FLGS if they've got old AD&D books, otherwise the internet probably has some for sale.
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For the mechanics end, you might take a look at Sean K Reynolds' Curse of the Moon, but for story elements... well, I can't help thinking about the Werewolf: The Dark Ages sourcebook from White Wolf, even though the setting assumptions of White Wolf's werewolves might make it hard to transplant the concepts across to D&D. A lot depends on what your vision for werewolves is: are they solitary or pack animals? What kinds of goals do they pursue, and how would the PCs fit into those goals? Do they interact with one another a lot, some, or basically not at all? How do afflicted and natural werewolves differ in terms of psychology and sociology? If you give them a society of sorts, then you have a lot more potential for development, but the shape that society takes will have a huge impact on the kinds of games you can run.
I just want to clarify: My game will take place in the Pathfinder Universe, and they will be afflicted werewolves. I was asking if anyone could recommend novels with stories, I don't need game mechanic rules, I just want some ideas for the way the world would react and get a feeling about what could motivate a group of werewolves to travel so far from their forest.
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I just want some ideas for the way the world would react and get a feeling about what could motivate a group of werewolves to travel so far from their forest.
Perhaps the individuals (or individual) who afflicted them, perhaps a lycanthrope with desires to create a pack of their own, perhaps an evil wizard using a spell, perhaps some tainted force buried deep within the forest that taints those who drink from a certain pool by the light of the moon, seeks to control these newly afflicted werewolves. It howls to them in their dreams and they can feel the wolf-spirits fused to their own, pacing like leashed dogs during the daylight hours, clawing at the afflicted from within day and night.
They've fled the forest where they were 'turned' to get away from the force that changed them, and seeks to bind them into it's service.
Depending on how you are using their alignment (instant change to CE, wolf form only is CE, etc.) the motivations can be different. CE afflicted might refuse to be slaves, and have bonded together into a 'pack' to resist the force that changed them (and seeks to enslave them), while a group of not-yet-evil afflicted might band together to try and help each other avoid the (inevitable?) decline into madness.
As for reactions from the world around them, they wouldn't be known to be lycanthropes on sight, and unless they screw up spectacularly, should be able to pose as wandering adventurers without incident. They might even be able to explain away any werewolf sightings in the area where they are visiting by using magic or naturalist skills to scare up a few real wolves, which they kill and leave in the lair of whomever they are facing in the adventure-of-the-moment, blaming any werewolf activity on the 'wolfmen who served the evil cult, whom we killed.' And the party, heroes all, ride off into the sunset, and, lo and behold, true to their word, there are no more werewolf sightings! Convenient, that. :)
An evil party might go so far as to occasionally afflict a social rival or servant of their foes, and then 'unmask them' as a werewolf and slay them, to help dispel any associations between themselves and the occasional lycanthrope sightings. A good (or just non-evil) party might have to find other solutions to throw off suspicions (picking the most notorious gossip in town and charming them until they don't know if they are coming or going might be a good first step, as the town gossip pooh-poohs any scurrilous rumors that connect the adventurers to the wolf-man scourge, and makes other connections to throw suspicion in other directions).
But if the cat (or wolf, in this case) is out of the bag, and the party is limited to one sandbox, where people have found out their secret, it again depends on alignment. If they are CE, they might maintain their safety out of fear for their ruthlessness, perhaps even using some low cunning to convince locals that they are the 'lesser of two evils' and that it's best for the villagers to 'fight monsters with monsters' by keeping the werewolves around as a particularly dangerous last line of defense against supernatural threats. Keep the wolf-people happy by selling them sheep and cattle at fair prices, and ignoring pointedly what they do in their compound to those animals on the nights of the full moon. If the are not evil, or, at least, not yet, and if they happen to have relatives and / or other connections in the town, it's possible that friends, family and allies will rally around them, fighting to prevent their fearful neighbors from putting them to the torch, just because 'they got bit.' The local priest might be convinced that he can redeem them, or a local political figure might be related to one of the party members and have issued a proclamation that she'll send the first villager who lays hands on her daughter straight to the gallows, seize their assets and run their family out of town on a rail!
This sort of situation will create the most drama, as the party will have a few allies, but also many, many townsfolk who want them put to death 'before they kill us all!' They may find themselves strongly motivated to protect the few townsfolk who *don't* want them dead, as the priest / mayor / whomever become their sole line of defense against the fearful commonfolk, who are sharpening their pitchforks and applying fresh pitch to their torches...
Mixing the two concepts, having the party attempt to hide, but then get caught out, might be do-able, or might be implausible. The townsfolk are even less likely to be all 'live and let live' if they know that the were-folk have been lying and skulking about. After all, surely they wouldn't be lying if they didn't have something to hide, so perhaps they secretely *are* evil monsters, biding their time? Could they have enthralled the priest somehow? Is the mayor secretly one of them? And when farmer Bob's prize bull turns up butchered, and there's bloody clothing out behind the place where the party is holed up, who can blame the townsfolk for jumping to conclusions? (Even though it was Farmer Bob all along, sick of the townsfolk making excuses and letting monsters live in the town, who killed his own prize bull and then planted a bloody shirt behind their home.)
Check also the Spirosblaak setting, where lycanthropes play a major role.
Did you mean stuff like the werewolves in the twilight series?
Like the one in Buffy or that tv series where a werewolf lives with a vampire and a ghost?
How exactly do you want to start this game of yours?
How did they get infected or were they born that way?
I really liked the Goodman Games book that Digitalelf suggested. I will use a lot of the feats, but not all of them, from that book. I still can't find the Guide to Werebeasts.
The type of afflicted werewolves I want to portray are directly from DnD werewolves. Not wolf-men, not "Twilight" werewolves. Just the traditional, raw, fantasy werewolf.
I've been building up the campaign story (It will take place in Golarian, so the world is made, thank goodness) and it's been coming together remarkably well. Here's how the game will start:
The PC's wake up in the middle of a scene of total carnage. On a road through a dark forest, wagons lay rolled over or smashed, horse carcasses lay around them, and a dozen dead humans, half-elves, and dwarves lay about, their bodies gutted and ripped to shreds. The PC's will find themselves covered in blood and their clothes and armor missing or scattered in various areas, but otherwise they will seem unharmed. As they make their Will checks, a few will undoubtedly realize what they did the previous night, the first night of the full moon, and they will find that they will need to stick together if they are going to unravel how this happened and how are they going to continue from here on.
I'm a fan of alignment preference, so I will let the players decide for themselves if they want to go through this campaign with an evil, neutral, or pariah (good) mindset. I intend on requiring them to travel out of Darkmoon Vale to other parts of Golarion at various points, allowing them to take lycanthropy on the road. All in all I think this will turn out to be a really fun and unique campaign experience for both me and the players.
You might want to decide whether they were infected, cursed or caught in some wild magic effect, perhaps they were unknowingly used to summon some animal spirits that unknown to the caster remained bonded to them which is why only some are able to remember bits and pieces of what had happened just not the actual reason for it.
Perhaps you should eventually introduce them to druids who could lend a hand perhaps giving them a way out whether to be able to control the change when it happens or be somewhere where they can avoid killing those around them as they react to the presence of a lycanthrope (I notice you didn't state whether they had simply fought in self defence rather than outright sociopathic savagery).
Of course it will be interesting to see how they cope with this, do they actually seek a cure or simply use it for their own ends... how do they react to others who are currently unaware of their plight and who do they trust if they want to be "cured"?
More importantly is how and why they were infected/cursed, etc... for example see the movie Ladyhawke.
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I still can't find the Guide to Werebeasts.
You can find two used copies here ...
I have made purchases from these guys before. They ship your order pretty fast, and they are quite friendly too...
It might be hard to find, and it is a 2nd edition Ravenloft book, but Van Richten's Guide to Werebeasts is a wonderful resource for all things lycanthropic and one of the best in the series of guides in my opinion.
Check at your FLGS if they've got old AD&D books, otherwise the internet probably has some for sale.
For anybody looking for this in DFW, I recently saw it. Trouble is, I don't remember if it was the Irving Half-Price Books or the main store on NW Hwy. Both had some Ravenloft stuff.
