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View Full Version : Good Guys as Afflicted Lycanthropes



Leliel
2008-02-26, 07:03 PM
My perennially-suggested campaign idea involves the non-evil players being "cursed" at the beginning of the game with that ever-complicating condition, lycanthropy. Although as the players soon discover, this has absolutely no bearing on their personality other then giving them a more "feral" edge to it (and as strong women know, that isn't exactly a bad thing), the townspeople don't know that, and they quickly find themselves having to hide themselves from the very civilization they're trying to protect. Add that to the fact that lycanthropy in this world is incurable ("You don't like being cursed with awesome? Good luck with that"), transferable for both afflicted and true lycans ("Congratulations, Promiscuous Rouge, you lustful habits have resulted in a werevixen who utterly hates you for making her a social pariah for a cheap thrill"), comes with some powerful instincts that have to be obeyed to retain control of the inner beast (No, none of them involve "eating people", though if you lose control of them, you'll never know what your animal half might do), and identity issues (IC, they didn't know it wasn't a true curse until they found themselves growing fur), then Houston, you have a problem.

So, is this a good idea? What would be some good ideas for such a campaign (other then the basic, "end racism against werebeasts through example")? How about some good adventure hooks? Would it be a good plot twist if the players found out that the princess one of them will inevitably fall in love with has to be "cursed in order to be saved?"

Notes:

1) I already have villain ideas for the main two baddies (who, by the way, have an adversarial (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilerThanThou) relationship, namely because the worse of the two was responsible for the other's fall from grace (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FaceHeelTurn) in a not very nice way (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/MAin/DeadLittleSister)). One's a tragic hero turned Necessarily Evil (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NecessarilyEvil) werefox, the other is a full-on Knight Templar (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KnightTemplar) who heads the monster-hunting (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeWhoFightsMonsters) wing of the Church of Pelor. And yes, the latter's powers have long since been revoked-he's just to delusional to realize why.

2) And no, there is no war with vampires. That is just too cliché.

Begin!

Greenfaun
2008-02-26, 07:39 PM
Well, certainly it could be an interesting campaign, as long as your players know what they're getting into. If they just want to play DnD, then lycanthrope angst and being hunted by the "good guys" might be frustrating.

You might give some thought to giving them positive motivators too. I mean, you've got a LOT of stick in this set-up, maybe it's time to devote some energy to the carrot?

Some thoughts I had: Perhaps there's an elder lycanthrope who has been through this and can act as a mentor for the PC's. Y'know, tutoring them in the Control Shape skill and teaching them to hide and stuff, just as long as he or she is weak in some significant way so that the PC's know they need to fight their own battles. This mentor could bind them together as someone they care about and need to protect. Otherwise, if they're trying to keep their curse a secret, they might actually be motivated to AVOID other cursed characters, and that could potentially hurt group unity.

If you want to go farther, maybe there's some druids or something in a faraway land that revere lycanthropes and can use magic or training to give the characters more control over their curses, and wouldn't treat them like monsters. This could be their Big Rock Candy Mountain, as in "if only we can get to xxx, then all our problems will be solved!" and the villains could be standing in their way. Of course, if they do get there, obviously their problems won't really be solved, what's the fun in that?

As for the princess thing, seems like it could work, but context matters. Depends on how you work up to it, probably. In my experience DMing, it's more useful to come up with a theme and a general situation than planning a particular plot-twist in advance, players are wily and chaotic and just don't stay on rails. :)

Mewtarthio
2008-02-26, 08:16 PM
This sounds kind of familiar. There was a topic on this a while back, which even had the BBEG posted in the Homebrew forum. You could try looking for that. I think it was called something along the lines of "all-lycanthrope campaign."

EDIT: Wait... :smallconfused:

Azerian Kelimon
2008-02-26, 08:28 PM
Yes, it was his. This forum actually IS cyclic! We're trapped in a loop!

Leliel
2008-02-26, 08:35 PM
I know. That's why I said "Perennially Suggested". I like feedback.

ashmanonar
2008-02-26, 09:25 PM
Something you're gonna have to contend with is the byzantine way in which 3.5 deals with lycanthropes, especially regarding alignment.

Basically, if you change one night and can't control it, you automatically go to whatever alignment the book tells you that your lycanthropic type is (ie Rat, Wolf, Bear, etc.) I'm pretty sure that sooner or later your alignment shifts regardless of whether you can control it or not.

I was inflicted with lycanthropy (at about level three? was that really the level we should have been dealing with a freaking lycanthropic dire rat? thankfully we had the means to get rid of it, especially people with ungodly high knowledge and heal skills) and toyed with the idea of sticking with the lycanthropy; until I found out that my alignment would go to chaotic evil, and I wasn't really thrilled with the idea of shifting that radically (from chaotic good). Plus, I would have had to take like 3 levels in Dire rat, which would have screwed my level progression to hell. It was just...utterly ridiculous, and inconvenient.

Really, I suppose my complaints fit in with everything else that is a problem with 3.5 regarding alignment. Thank the gods 4e is changing (I'm pretty sure.)

(Wheee, parenthesis!)

Leliel
2008-02-26, 09:33 PM
I know that too. If you had read my entire post, you would know that lycanthropy does not corrupt the base nature of a person, it just gives her a "feral" edge. Please post somthing not already delt with next time.

Jayngfet
2008-02-27, 12:41 AM
huh, whats the availability of items to control it, like some coller made of silver or some spell

im making a world where lycanthropy spread among elves, many wrer exiled before a new magic item was developed(DC25 will save per hour, stuck in hybrid form), of course it was expensive, so exile spread, eventually some high charisma sorcerers and a few druids got exiled, genes get diluted to a few Spell like abilities, they gain eventual control, resulting in catgirls, and anthropomorphic wolves, with the ability to transform to panthers and wolves


they're player races

The Extinguisher
2008-02-27, 01:17 AM
I've never really liked the alignment rules on werethingys. The automatic shift is kind of stupid and unproductive. I think it should be, as long as you are constantly trying to control it and seek a cure, you're alignment doesn't change. However, if you embrace it or change willingly, it does.
Or you could do away with the alignment change, if you really wanted to.

But that's just my 4 half-cents.

Leliel
2008-02-27, 04:45 PM
Well, I'm doing away with it for this game.

Much of the game's story is about how unfairly the lycanthropes are treated in this world for something that they cannot control. What's more, that thing isn't even a bad thing, just an amoral force of nature. The parallels to real-life racism are not unintentional.

Belial_the_Leveler
2008-02-27, 05:06 PM
There's an Eberron novel flying around somewhere with a priest of the Silver Flame that also happens to be a lycanthrope as a secondary character.

And yes, the Silver Flame fanatics were responsible for the near-extinction of lycanthropes in Eberron. And yes, the church of the Silver Flame is 99% fanatics, racial purists and Mikolike paladins.

BTW, said novel also has a Silver Flame priest that was once an assasin and was posessed by a demon and whose love interest is a vampire.

Mut
2008-02-28, 12:32 AM
I think if done right it could really rock as a role-playing experience, but it's not for every group. Lycanthropy is a pretty major change to a character, and it can completely mess up a player's concept for that PC -- particularly if it's obvious, stigmatized, and uncurable. (That would go extra for alignment shift thing -- I think you're right to turn that off here.) Players can sometimes be kind of touchy about radical changes to their characters like that, so make sure they're going to be on board with it first.

Plot-wise, some good ideas've been tossed around already. (Greenfaun's post has a bunch). Off the top of my head, here are a few more suggestions:

Having everyone in the same boat can get bland, even with something as cool as lycanthropy. So how about having one or two PCs who aren't infected at all? That creates contrast, a natural tension/split within the party, it gives the PCs more options on full moon nights, it gives the party chance to play through and (hopefully) overcome the fear/mistrust angle within the party as well as from the outside, the uninfected PCs have to worry about accidentally getting infected -- all kinds of good stuff. It also gives you as DM an "out" if there's a player you know won't want their characters turned into things. (You do need some good reason for that PC to stick around -- the obvious one is for an infected character to be family or a lover, but I can also picture a druid feeling it's her duty to help the new fuzzies out. Or heck, even a paladin.)

An uninfected character sets up various episodes based on the natural split in the party or playing around with the campaign theme in a different way. Like: the villagers see the still-human character running around with a bunch of wolves, so they put *him* on trial for being a werewolf -- how are the real werewolves going to clear him? Or maybe the werewolves have their fun and go running through the woods at night, but when they come back to the camp in the morning, there are signs of a struggle and their human buddy is gone! Perhaps the PCs find a "safe haven" town where everyone is a werewolf -- but how is the uninfected guy going to handle that? Obviously you don't want to overdo it, but it gives you a way to mix things up.

I think at least once the PCs should run into a really vicious werewolf (or pack of 'em) who illustrate just why lycanthropes have such a bad rap in this world. (Interesting options for the party there -- do they chop the renegades to pieces with extreme prejudice for having let the side down, or do they feel solidarity and try to save or reform them despite what they did?) Maybe the PCs come under suspicion for grisly murders and have to clear their names -- or maybe the desperate, unsuspecting villagers hire them as werewolf-hunters. Maybe they come across a farm where every living soul was butchered and have to decide for themselves what to do.

You can play with the infectiousness of lycanthropy. Like: a rogue werewolf is infecting everyone he can, either because it's a wonderful gift, or to "show them all what it's like", or just out of general craziness. What are the players going to do about it -- will they stop him? How far will they go to do so? How are they going to help his newly infected victims come to terms with it? (Bonus points if a particularly beloved or obnoxious recurring NPC is among them.) You could set things up so the players worry that they were the ones who infected the first victim they find out about, at least initially. (Example: The NPC finishes off a glass of wine the PC's been drinking. How infectious is saliva, exactly?) Or maybe the rogue werewolf makes a bad choice of victim and tries to infect a werewolf PC -- oops!

Every now and then, have a "straight" adventure where lycanthropy is completely irrelevant. Let the PCs toss fireballs, kill a dragon, rescue a princess, fight an orc guarding a chest in a ten-by-ten room, all that stuff.

Have a loose idea for the end game. (It sounds like you have villains and things in mind, so maybe this is all set.) Are the PCs going to bring lycanthropy into the light of day and have it become socially accepted? Will they be "cured"? Will someone force the issue, e.g. by infecting the entire capital city and royal family? Or is the thematic climax of the campaign going to be saving the world from a completely different kind of threat?

Anyway, hope that's of some help. Good luck!