Moon Baby//Lycanthropy

For my upcoming Egypt campaign one of my players expressed his desire to play as a werespider. Yes, a werespider. I was perplexed and hesitant at first but after thinking about it, why not? Lifespans in lamentations tend to be quickly and brutally extinguished. So, in order to fulfill this wish I had to do some research into Lycanthropy and how I would implement it into my game. I asked around the official LotFP Facebook page, the OSR discord and did some googling and got a lot of good feedback. I did struggle because I wanted to the curse to be powerful but with powerful consequences. Also I didn’t want it to be overly complex. Thankfully I was inspired by listening to one of Fantastic Dimension’s Rogue to Riches sessions and how he used the LotFP disease rules in his game. *Update* 08/31/19 Thanks to some great random encounter rolls 2 of my players are werewolves now. I had to tweak some things here after some testing.

Lycanthropy-Werewolf Strain

The curse of Lycanthropy acts much as a disease would so we’ll be using LotFP’s Rules & Magic disease rules as the base for the curse. The curse is transferred through bodily fluids, most commonly saliva via bite. On page.35 in the Rules & Magic book you’ll see diseases are broken up into four stages: incubation, infection, interval, and effect. We’ll use these to fill in what actually happens when your infected by Lycanthropy.
Note: I’ll be using the traditional werewolf as the example for this strain of Lycanthropy, in future posts I’ll be going over some other strains, the werespider and werecroc.

• Incubation- The incubation time is from first infected to the time of the next full moon and every full moon after.
• Infection- Every night that hosts a full Moon.
• Interval- From the Moon's Peak to Dawn.
• Effect- Transform into a werewolf.(see below). Takes 2 minutes and is excruciatingly painful. Reverting back to human at dawn takes a round.

So in other words once infected to the time of the next full moon(incubation) and every full moon after(infection) the infected transforms into a Werewolf(effect) from the full moon's peak to dawn(interval).

Werewolf Stats

Armor 16, Move 180’, 5 Hit Dice, 28hp, 2x Claw 1d8 damage, 1x Bite 1d6 damage, Morale 10. Those injured by a Werewolf that survive must make a Save versus Magic or become infected with Lycanthropy. Double damage from Silver Weapons(triggers a immediate morale check when hit, will flee on a fail)

Retaining Control

The real reason anyone would even want to play a Lycanthrope, the possibility of harnessing the curse. So, how do you do it? Certain packs have devised religious rituals to soothe their bestial side. Others have had tamed the beast through sheer will and an overpowering persona, though these individuals are a rare breed, 18 Charisma maybe? Check out the Lunar Lullaby below for an example of how to tame the curse.

The Lunar Lullaby

Music is a gateway to the soul and some would say the key to one's humanity. One pack in southern France devised a way to keep control of themselves during their transformation by playing a secret piece of music written and known only to them. Learning this piece and having it played during your transformation grants a a Save vs. Magic with a +4 to during the transformation phase of the curse. Success means your are fully in control of your character while transformed.

Lingering Consequences

The biggest would be a TPK after the referee gains control of the werewolf. If you've seen An American Werewolf in London after the protagonist killed his best friend he was haunted by him, which is a great idea for a lingering consequence. Here are some side effects for those afflicted with Lycanthropy.

•  Aversion to Silver, touching silver with bare skin causes the afflicted to lose 1d100 experience points.
• Aversion to non-meaty meals: Food without meat tastes bland and terrible not matter how well made it is. It takes twice the amount of food/rations to satisfy a werewolf if it has no meat.
• Add a +1 Modifier to Strength & Constitution. Does not increase the ability score, just the modifier.
• Death Friend: If the afflicted kills a Player Character that character may haunt the afflicted a number of times per week equal to twice their Charisma Score Modifier, Minimum 1. The "Death Friend's" spirit may never rest until the werewolf that killed them is dead.
• NPCs killed can haunt the afflicted but they tend to crowd together to judge from a distance.

The Cure

A Remove Curse spell during the incubation phase will cure the infected. However once the first transformation has occurred the only way to remove the curse is a lengthy quest(at referee's discretion).