Tails on werewolves in folklore were a sign of their inhumanity: a man becoming a beast. Today, many on the internet today unfortunately find tails cute, so I understand a horror werewolf missing a tail. But behold the back end of this The Howling werewolf statue. Kinda hilarious
Just some werewolf thoughts.
hes not sure where his friends went : (
Werewolf Fact #75 - Cynocephali (dog-headed men)
This month's folklore fact is a long-awaited one from over on the Patreon: the cynocephali or "dog-headed men."
Some depictions of cynocephali (the one above is from the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493) are mistaken for werewolves fairly frequently; there are several differences of note, including but not limited to the fact that they are otherwise very, very human (normal hands and feet, no tail, etc) and that their ears are not always shaped like a wolf's/pointing directly upright. They often are, however, so don't take the ear shape as a surefire thing, either. When in doubt, make sure the depiction is actually meant to be showing a werewolf before using it for, I don't know, a royalty-free image in your werewolf publication (I've seen several). The cynocephali do not shapeshift, nor are they associated with wolves. They have nothing to do with werewolves. Yes, it was just a plot to make you click this link and read about cynocephali.
Cynocephali, or singular cynocephalus, is a term derived from the original Greek word "kynokephaloi," meaning "dog-headed." They have other names as well, which mean a range of things such as "dog-faced" and "half-dog." They were mentioned in assorted accounts and tales of travelers in Africa and India, appearing in sources as old as ancient Greece, and some similar beings can be found in other cultures, such as China. Likewise, depictions of and discussions of such beings continue into the Middle Ages. This same term was later used to refer to baboons, to which no-fun modern day scholars now attribute all cynocephali legends (although we do have at least one Ottoman depiction of a cynocephalus battling a monkey).
There are many quotes across various sources and time periods about these beings, including but not limited to this one from the fifth century BC Greek historian Herodotus, Histories 4. 191. 3 (trans. Godley) [source: Theoi]
"For the eastern region of Libya, which the Nomads inhabit, is low-lying and sandy as far as the Triton river; but the land west of this, where the farmers live, is exceedingly mountainous and wooded and full of wild beasts. In that country are the huge snakes and the lions, and the elephants and bears and asps, the horned asses, the Kunokephaloi (Cynocephali) (Dog-Headed) and the Headless Men that have their eyes in their chests, as the Libyans say, and the wild men and women, besides many other creatures not fabulous."
Some stories of the cynocephali are also frightfully specific as to how they live, rear livestock, grow fruit, weave baskets, wage war, and much more, even including details of their society, clothing, how long they live, etc. It's all quite interesting. If you'd like to read more specific quotations, you can find many on one of my favorite websites, Theoi.
Sources seem to dispute one another as to whether they bark, do not bark but only howl, only shriek, or whatever other sounds they may make, and there is also a range of descriptions including elements such as if they have beards and whether hair covers their bodies as well as the dog-head. Overall, probably the majority of sources say they wear the skins of animals as opposed to having fur, but there are those that also call them hairy all over.
Please note that I will not be covering/discussing any gods from ancient Egypt in this post, because despite what some modern day scholars like to discuss, I don't consider them "cynocephali." They were wolf-headed deities, not dog-headed (or even jackal-headed), and are overall only related to cynocephali legends by proxy and by modern scholars always putting everything into blasted categories for their next thesis. There were some dog-headed deities in ancient Egypt, and Anubis, Wepwawet, Duamutef, etc, were not among them, and even then, we can't really assert that the dog-headed deities among the ancient Egyptians are actually related to other legends and records of cynocephali.
With that out of the way, let's continue...
One of my personal favorite stories involving a dog-headed man is a version of the tale of Saint Christopher, though these depictions and this tale are not seen as canon by churches and has been proscribed in Eastern Orthodoxy (where such depictions were generally most common). Some of these depictions still survive, however. Some sources believe that Byzantine depictions of a dog-headed Christopher come from mistaking "Cananeus" (meaning "Canaanite") for "caninus," i.e. canine.
In the story about a dog-headed Saint Christopher, there lives Reprebrus (among other variations of his name; ultimately, they all essentially mean "reprobate"), who is captured by Romans in battle and made to serve among them. Reprebrus was said to be of "enormous size," with the head of a dog, said to be typical of his kind. He was later baptized and martyred. However, in another version (this one from Germany), Saint Christopher is depicted as a giant cynocephalus who ate human flesh and performed many atrocities. He meets the Christ child later and carries him across a river, as in tradition (the name Christopher means "bearer of Christ") and repents for his sinful behavior. He is baptized and becomes human, dedicating himself to serving Christianity and became a soldier saint.
There are far more fascinating details in the story than I relayed here in extreme simplicity, but that's a very simple view (the story is actually very specific about different regions and even the unit in which he served).
Other depictions of cynocephali exist in certain Christian traditions, with Ahrakas and Augani sometimes being depicted with dog heads in Coptic Christian tradition, in the life and legend of Saint Mercurius.
Bestiaries also got pretty wild with the creatures depicted therein, many of which were also mentioned in classical sources (such as the Herodotus quote earlier in this post). The image above is from between 1357 and 1371, in a work called The Voyage and Travels of Sir John Mandeville, or simply Mandeville's Travels, the memoirs of a man who traveled across the Middle East, India, and even as far as China. Medieval bestiaries also recorded all the same creatures shown here: a monopod or sciapod, a cyclops, a blemmy, and a cynocephalus, each different civilizations of beings said to dwell across the world (and often cited in multiple sources over considerable spans of time, which generally cite the same or similar regions for each civilization, which I've always found very interesting).
Mentions of the cynocephali span across centuries, such as in works by scribe Paul the Deacon, a Benedictine monk, and they are even mentioned in the Nowell Codex, a surviving Old English work containing Beowulf (as well as a work of the life of Saint Christopher and Wonders of the East, among others). They are also acknowledged in the works of multiple noteworthy explorers, including but not limited to Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, Ibn Battuta, and Piri Reis.
With that, I think that's a decent overview! Hope you enjoyed the post.
And stay tuned for news and updates on a major [werewolf/fantasy/adventure/horror/epic] book release later this year!
If you like my blog, be sure to follow me here and elsewhere for much more folklore and fiction, including books, especially on werewolves! You can also sign up for my free newsletter for monthly werewolf/vampire/folklore facts, a free story, book previews, and my other sundry projects and works, such as plushes.
The Werewolf: Past and Future (nonfiction) - NOW AVAILABLE!
Prepare to rediscover the forgotten legacy of the legendary werewolf!
Since before recorded history, werewolves have captivated human imagination. Simultaneously, they represent our deepest fears as well as our desire to connect with our primal ancestry. Today, werewolves are portrayed negatively, associated with violence, cruelty, cannibalism, and general malevolence.
However, in ages past, legends depicted them not as monsters, but as a range of neutral to benevolent individuals, such as traveling companions, guardians, and knights. The robust legacy of the werewolf spans from prehistory, through ancient Greece and Rome, to the Middle Ages, into the Early Modern period, and finally into present-day popular culture. Over the ages, the view of the werewolf has become distorted. Media treatment of werewolves is associated with inferior writing, lacking in thought, depth, and meaning. Werewolves as characters or creatures are now generally seen as single-minded and one-dimensional, and they want nothing more than to kill, devour, and possibly violate humans.
Hollywood depictions have resulted in the destruction of the true meanings behind werewolf legends that fascinated and terrified humans for so many ages. If these negative trends were reversed, perhaps entertainment might not only discover again some of the true meanings behind the werewolf myth, but also take the first steps toward reversing negative portrayals of wolves themselves, which humans have, for eons, wrongfully stigmatized and portrayed as evil, resulting in wolves receiving crueler treatment than virtually any other animal.
To revive the many questions posed by lycanthropy, entertainment must show respect to the rich history of so many cultures all around the world – and rediscover the legend of the werewolf.
This book represents a lifetime of work, research, and argument. It’s the centerpiece of, essentially, who I am and what I want to fight for in my life. This underwent very close scrutiny by a board of distinguished professors, and I had to defend my research and my arguments before them in order to earn my degree.
If you enjoy my werewolf facts, you’ll enjoy reading this, I can guarantee it, especially if you want to hear my side of things. It won’t be a guide to werewolves, though it’ll certainly have plenty of useful information on various legends in coherent chronological order (all with proper professional attribution, footnotes, discussion, citation, etc.). This is a great place to start to get my perspective on things while also learning about almost all the werewolf legends and info I’ve covered in various facts - and many more that I haven’t!
It means so much to me that I have finally gotten to publish this. I really hope you’ll enjoy it and find it useful, educational, and thought-provoking.
Werewolf Fact #75 - Cynocephali (dog-headed men)
This month's folklore fact is a long-awaited one from over on the Patreon: the cynocephali or "dog-headed men."
Some depictions of cynocephali (the one above is from the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493) are mistaken for werewolves fairly frequently; there are several differences of note, including but not limited to the fact that they are otherwise very, very human (normal hands and feet, no tail, etc) and that their ears are not always shaped like a wolf's/pointing directly upright. They often are, however, so don't take the ear shape as a surefire thing, either. When in doubt, make sure the depiction is actually meant to be showing a werewolf before using it for, I don't know, a royalty-free image in your werewolf publication (I've seen several). The cynocephali do not shapeshift, nor are they associated with wolves. They have nothing to do with werewolves. Yes, it was just a plot to make you click this link and read about cynocephali.
Cynocephali, or singular cynocephalus, is a term derived from the original Greek word "kynokephaloi," meaning "dog-headed." They have other names as well, which mean a range of things such as "dog-faced" and "half-dog." They were mentioned in assorted accounts and tales of travelers in Africa and India, appearing in sources as old as ancient Greece, and some similar beings can be found in other cultures, such as China. Likewise, depictions of and discussions of such beings continue into the Middle Ages. This same term was later used to refer to baboons, to which no-fun modern day scholars now attribute all cynocephali legends (although we do have at least one Ottoman depiction of a cynocephalus battling a monkey).
There are many quotes across various sources and time periods about these beings, including but not limited to this one from the fifth century BC Greek historian Herodotus, Histories 4. 191. 3 (trans. Godley) [source: Theoi]
"For the eastern region of Libya, which the Nomads inhabit, is low-lying and sandy as far as the Triton river; but the land west of this, where the farmers live, is exceedingly mountainous and wooded and full of wild beasts. In that country are the huge snakes and the lions, and the elephants and bears and asps, the horned asses, the Kunokephaloi (Cynocephali) (Dog-Headed) and the Headless Men that have their eyes in their chests, as the Libyans say, and the wild men and women, besides many other creatures not fabulous."
Some stories of the cynocephali are also frightfully specific as to how they live, rear livestock, grow fruit, weave baskets, wage war, and much more, even including details of their society, clothing, how long they live, etc. It's all quite interesting. If you'd like to read more specific quotations, you can find many on one of my favorite websites, Theoi.
Sources seem to dispute one another as to whether they bark, do not bark but only howl, only shriek, or whatever other sounds they may make, and there is also a range of descriptions including elements such as if they have beards and whether hair covers their bodies as well as the dog-head. Overall, probably the majority of sources say they wear the skins of animals as opposed to having fur, but there are those that also call them hairy all over.
Please note that I will not be covering/discussing any gods from ancient Egypt in this post, because despite what some modern day scholars like to discuss, I don't consider them "cynocephali." They were wolf-headed deities, not dog-headed (or even jackal-headed), and are overall only related to cynocephali legends by proxy and by modern scholars always putting everything into blasted categories for their next thesis. There were some dog-headed deities in ancient Egypt, and Anubis, Wepwawet, Duamutef, etc, were not among them, and even then, we can't really assert that the dog-headed deities among the ancient Egyptians are actually related to other legends and records of cynocephali.
With that out of the way, let's continue...
One of my personal favorite stories involving a dog-headed man is a version of the tale of Saint Christopher, though these depictions and this tale are not seen as canon by churches and has been proscribed in Eastern Orthodoxy (where such depictions were generally most common). Some of these depictions still survive, however. Some sources believe that Byzantine depictions of a dog-headed Christopher come from mistaking "Cananeus" (meaning "Canaanite") for "caninus," i.e. canine.
In the story about a dog-headed Saint Christopher, there lives Reprebrus (among other variations of his name; ultimately, they all essentially mean "reprobate"), who is captured by Romans in battle and made to serve among them. Reprebrus was said to be of "enormous size," with the head of a dog, said to be typical of his kind. He was later baptized and martyred. However, in another version (this one from Germany), Saint Christopher is depicted as a giant cynocephalus who ate human flesh and performed many atrocities. He meets the Christ child later and carries him across a river, as in tradition (the name Christopher means "bearer of Christ") and repents for his sinful behavior. He is baptized and becomes human, dedicating himself to serving Christianity and became a soldier saint.
There are far more fascinating details in the story than I relayed here in extreme simplicity, but that's a very simple view (the story is actually very specific about different regions and even the unit in which he served).
Other depictions of cynocephali exist in certain Christian traditions, with Ahrakas and Augani sometimes being depicted with dog heads in Coptic Christian tradition, in the life and legend of Saint Mercurius.
Bestiaries also got pretty wild with the creatures depicted therein, many of which were also mentioned in classical sources (such as the Herodotus quote earlier in this post). The image above is from between 1357 and 1371, in a work called The Voyage and Travels of Sir John Mandeville, or simply Mandeville's Travels, the memoirs of a man who traveled across the Middle East, India, and even as far as China. Medieval bestiaries also recorded all the same creatures shown here: a monopod or sciapod, a cyclops, a blemmy, and a cynocephalus, each different civilizations of beings said to dwell across the world (and often cited in multiple sources over considerable spans of time, which generally cite the same or similar regions for each civilization, which I've always found very interesting).
Mentions of the cynocephali span across centuries, such as in works by scribe Paul the Deacon, a Benedictine monk, and they are even mentioned in the Nowell Codex, a surviving Old English work containing Beowulf (as well as a work of the life of Saint Christopher and Wonders of the East, among others). They are also acknowledged in the works of multiple noteworthy explorers, including but not limited to Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, Ibn Battuta, and Piri Reis.
With that, I think that's a decent overview! Hope you enjoyed the post.
And stay tuned for news and updates on a major [werewolf/fantasy/adventure/horror/epic] book release later this year!
If you like my blog, be sure to follow me here and elsewhere for much more folklore and fiction, including books, especially on werewolves! You can also sign up for my free newsletter for monthly werewolf/vampire/folklore facts, a free story, book previews, and my other sundry projects and works, such as plushes.
maverick-werewolftoawk asked:https://youtu.be/iFoRR64pR9IWas watching this and recalled your tumblr so figured and I'd send it your way in case you end up liking it.It is a video about wartime encounters with Aufhoker. Searching comes back Aufhocker but they put Aufhoker in their thumbnail.Basically German shapeshifters that may or may not be related to werewolf tales.I'll have to watch the video when I have time (I rarely have time to breathe anymore, especially with a huge book release this November), but I've certainly heard of the Aufhoker and similar tales! Many scholars group assorted "backrider" legends in with werewolves quite often. Sometimes I question it, but it's still an important topic to cover, as it's something many scholars discuss. It's something I really, really need to do a werewolf fact on sometime. I know of several examples throughout folklore that could be considered related to werewolves and/or might even have been something we could classify as "werewolf legends."So, thank you! I'll have to move this up on my list of werewolf facts to write in the future! I'd been de-prioritizing it, but I think the time has come.#asks#toawk#werewolf#werewolves#folklore#backriders
maverick-werewolfncagutierrezart asked:Hey hey master of lore, will you please recommend me some vampire stories or novels that depict old school vampires? You know, the good old pre-Dracula kind. I haven't been able to find a vampire like this in fiction since... well, since Dracula appeared.I FORGOT ABOUT THIS I AM SO SORRY OMGUnfortunately, though, I have no idea. :( Ever since I started researching vampires in my childhood, I was amazed to learn about the whole Dracula thing and the massive influence it had on vampires, likely even more than The Wolf Man had on werewolves. I don't read as much fiction as I probably should these days outside of older literary works and assorted other works that interest me, which frankly are only rarely similar to what I actually study and/or write* (I honestly haven't even read any werewolf books or series, either, lol... except the ones I've mentioned in my work...) and the occasional random novel I pick up and read just to get a feel of what the modern publication world is like.If anyone out there knows of some books to recommend, please hop into the replies and/or tags!*: my favorite genre to read is actually near-future hard sci-fi, things like Michael Crichton's works (he is one of my favorite authors), or else making sure I've read every great classic work out there#asks#ncagutierrezart#vampire#vampires#books#fiction
maverick-werewolfAnonymous asked:Read your Reign of Fire postDidn't the Dragons of the ASOIAF books look a lot like those type of Dragons, if a lot more colorful. To be perfectly honest, I've never actually read ASOIAF (I suppose I really should), but I know many people who have, and after pestering them with this question, I received the same answer: the dragons had many vivid descriptions but without specificity as to whether they had four legs or not, just that they were "mostly neck, tail, and wing" when they were babies and the like. So, I don't know. I'm not a hardcore ASOIAF fan and do not pretend to be, so I'm sure someone can correct me, if this is wrong (it likely is).However, either way, the descriptions in the books are extremely vivid as to their colors, and the show did not reflect that, instead taking a much more Reign of Fire approach in terms of coloration. The show was very clearly taking off from Reign of Fire, like every other Hollywood dragon has since, regardless of if they were imagined in the books as having four legs or not. That's all I am pointing out. :)#asks#anonymous
maverick-werewolfRebloggedmaverick-werewolfFollowFolklore Fact - WyvernsAnother month, another folklore fact! Wyverns handily won the poll over on my Patreon this month (be sure to take a look if you'd like to vote in the next one or even suggest all new subjects!)...GIF by jeremiah146(nearly all modern dragon designs seen in visual media, especially film and television but now quite often also video games, count as the traditional British heraldic classification of wyverns, really; see my post here for a discussion of that, although I could expand that post today and discuss things like Monster Hunter, etc, which I didn't really know much about at the time, and even further discuss some of the subjects already therein... Anyway, maybe I'll revise that sometime in the future and improve it)Wyverns are often described as a dragon with two hind legs, two wings, no forelegs, and a barbed tail. There are varieties, of course; some say the wyvern has the head of a dragon, the legs of an eagle, and a barbed "serpent tail" or simply a long tail with no barb. There are many varieties. Traditionally, at least if you ask English heraldry, the requirement to be a wyvern is that it has no forelegs - unlike the dragon, which has four legs in addition to wings. However, this is a technicality that was obviously not always applied elsewhere, including the European mainland. More on that shortly.The word "wyvern" is not in itself all that old; it originated around 1600, derived from "wyver" from 1300, so the term is not ancient. Like dragon, it essentially means "snake," though in this case it is derived from "viper." As mentioned, "dragon" itself is derived from "drakon" meaning serpent (and/or "giant seafish") [source: again, one of my favorite sites].Stamp of Clifford, Anne, Countess of Dorset (1590 - 1676) [source], depicting a wyvern.There was apparently some discussion around the rise of the heraldic wyvern in England, Scotland, and Ireland regarding what exactly classified a wyvern as opposed to a dragon. In 1610, the writings of John Guillim described a wyvern (then "wiverne") thus: "partake[ing] of a Fowle in the Wings and Legs … and doth resemble a Serpent in the Taile," and in 1682, John Gibbon agrees that a wyvern specifically has "but" two legs. It is noteworthy that both men in question were officers of heraldry, and these remarks are quotations from book on coats of arms, and thus it was specifically heraldry they discussed."Wyverns" as per monsters of myth and folklore were, for most intents and purposes of their time period, referred to as "dragons" and not thought of as their own sort of beast rather than just a variation of dragon for heraldry specifically or even exclusively. Were there any legends about something called a "wyvern?" I haven't found any in all my extensive research on dragon legends, and most all academic sources agree that a "wyvern" is a heraldic creature rather than something you'd find in a bestiary and/or folktale.As mentioned, depictions of what we today might think of as "wyverns" were not always called "wyverns," of course, especially throughout a lot of Europe (as opposed to Great Britain). Here we see a depiction of what we would now think of as a "wyvern" referred to as a dragon ("drago"), from a work dated 1691, so during the same time period that heraldic wyverns were already being classified as such.There are also bestiaries and other things that depict two-legged dragons as "dragons" rather than ever referring to them as "wyverns" specifically, and the creatures depicted therein were in fact meant to simply be "dragons." Older eras lacked the picky categorization that exists more recently, particularly myth and folklore. This is why there are no "categories" of werewolf legends, either, for instance, or different "types" of werewolves - except as put on them retroactively by modern scholars.A "wyvern" from 1380 in the Chester Cathedral in England; given its hooves and head of a man, it isn't exactly a "standard" wyvern.So, again, the idea of the wyvern as a unique creature as opposed to another sort of dragon likely stemmed from heraldry - which in itself has a lot of unique creatures and specifics, such as the enfield and bagwyn - and specifically heraldry from Great Britain and Ireland, which meant that such defined notions of a wyvern came about in later centuries. There are certainly depictions of dragons and dragon-like creatures without forelegs from other centuries, such as the 1300s, but these are not explicitly as sourced "wyverns" during their own time period. Rather, they are described as such now by people retroactively applying the wyvern concept onto them. Such a concept became common starting around the 1600s, as mentioned earlier with the heraldic writings of Guillim and Gibbon. There are plenty of examples of "dragons" with two legs and, sometimes, even "wyverns" with four legs floating around out there.But since modernity also thrives on technicality, categories, and specifics, things like D&D for a while there often referred to a "wyvern" as a two-legged dragon (which I personally find preferable, despite my usual aversion to categorization of mythological things) - at least, until a lot of media is today started changing that ever since Reign of Fire in 2003. These days, outside of a handful of fantasy things, like D&D with their older established rules and a few other fantasy games that originated before this sweeping design change occurred, dragons very often have two legs instead of four. I could say a lot more about that, but I won't get into it...And that covers a general overview on wyverns! Until next time. For June, expect to see a brand new werewolf fact.( If you like my blog, be sure to follow me here and sign up for my free newsletter for more folklore and fiction, including books! And plenty of werewolf things.Free Newsletter - maverickwerewolf.com (info + book shop) — Patreon — Wulfgard — Werewolf Fact Masterlist — Twitter — Vampire Fact Masterlist — Amazon Author page )#seems like this may interest a lot of my new followers
maverick-werewolfJuly Smashwords Ebook Sale! Free + under $2 titles!Hi, all! All my books (except for my edition of The Book of Werewolves by Sabine Baring-Gould, which is available exclusively on Amazon and my website) are part of the big July ebook sale over on Smashwords!It's a big sale! Great time to grab some of (or all of?) my titles*.Wulfgard: The Tomb of Ankhu is COMPLETELY FREEWulfgard: The Hunt Never Ends is less than $2The Werewolf: Past and Future is less than $2Check it out here!Or, if you prefer print books (like me), you can also buy all my titles + The Book of Werewolves on my website or Amazon. Order from my website shop to get a signed copy!More news coming very soon, and expect a physical book sale later this year. Until next time!*: Tales of Wulfgard: Vol I is not part of this sale, but it's always $1 as an ebook anyway.#books#book sale#booksale#smashwords#ebook#ebooks#fantasy#Wulfgard#werewolf#werewolves#folklore#research#nonfiction#fiction#adventure#horror1 note
maverick-werewolfWOW, thank you all for so much love on my post about the history of dragon designs in Hollywood! I'm floored! And I've been really enjoying reading everybody's tags (yes, I read all of them, I want to hear everybody's thoughts).And welcome to new followers! :D I almost have 2k followers now!I hope you all enjoy my humble blog <3#yay#appreciation post#thank you#love you all5 notes
maverick-werewolfWerewolf Fact #73 - Hypertrichosis, excessive hair growth ("werewolf syndrome"), Beauty and the Beast, and BluebeardToday I'll be covering something else clinical: hypertrichosis.You may have heard of "werewolf syndrome," a condition of excessive hair growth. It isn't to be confused with clinical lycanthropy, which is something else entirely. "Werewolf syndrome" is also called hypertrichosis - and it's occasionally associated with and/or can even be derived from another condition, porphyria, that was also associated with "werewolves" throughout scholarship. Likewise, the most well-known kind of hypertrichosis that involves excessive hair growth all over the body is also often associated with gum and teeth problems; such issues could lead to unusual teeth and mouth shape.Interestingly, however, despite a lot of modern scholars retroactively assuming that werewolf victims of the past could have suffered hypertrichosis, many of the werewolf legends in question specifically describe lycanthropy sufferers to look quite different. The legends in question are later era ones from the Early Modern period, during which time lycanthropy had become a madness and a disease under clinical and scientific supervision, very much unlike previous time periods, as I cover extensively in my book The Werewolf: Past and Future as well as other werewolf facts.These legends describe sufferers of the werewolf curse variably to only be "hairy" when in their wolf form specifically (other than, occasionally, having long hair without mention of unusual body hair), highlighting how they were not unusually hairy in human form, or to "always [have] some hairs in the hollow of his hand" (as noted by Sabine Baring-Gould in The Book of Were-Wolves; taken from page 121 of my own edition of his work). Hypertrichosis often specifically does not have hair growth on the palms, conversely. Likewise, many legends of later time periods even specifically say that werewolves are not hairy "on the outside," but that their hair "grows inward" when they aren't in their inhuman form.Still, scholars entertain the notion of connections that I still question to a healthy degree, so I have studied it as a result. I think it's best to simply summarize it as, the syndrome reminds people of what werewolves are meant to look like, rather than asserting that "this is why some people believed in werewolves" and the like.Hypertrichosis is rare, and any kind of proper documentation only began perhaps around the 1600s. During this time and for a very long time after, sufferers of hypertrichosis were often called a variety of terms like "ape-men" or "wolf-men." They were considered spectacles and often were brought to noble courts like exotic animals, to entertain high society. Many were circus freaks. Not all examples are before our time, either.But, Mav, you ask, how is this related to Beauty and the Beast and Bluebeard? Aren't those fairytales?One famous example of someone with hypertrichosis is the one whose related image began this post: Petrus Gonsalvus, who lived from around 1537 to sometime past 1617. He was called assorted names, such as "the wild gentleman of Tenerife," "the man of the woods," and of course, "the Canarian werewolf." He lived in assorted courts throughout both Italy and France, including the court of Henry II, King of France, around 1547 - he was sent there when he was but 10 years old as a gift from a regent (Margaret of Parma) of the Netherlands. He moved about various courts over time and even married.Much of Gonsalvus's family inherited his condition (four of his seven children), including some of his daughters. Like their father, they were often traded amongst courts as pets of a sort. Here is Madelene Gonsalvus, a portrait from 1580:It is believed that the marriage of Petrus Gonsalvus to his wife, a woman believed to be named Catherine and a lady-in-waiting to Catherine de Medici, may have provided some inspiration for the tale of Beauty and the Beast, which was first written in 1740 by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve.Beauty and the Beast may not be the only fairytale inspired by hypertrichosis, either. The tale of Bluebeard, as also discussed by Baring-Gould in his Book of Werewolves, describes Bluebeard as "His hair and moustache were light brown, and his beard was clipped to a point. This beard, which resembled no other beard" (232), similar to some elements of hypertrichosis variations, as well as mention of his gum condition: "At intervals he ground his teeth like a wild beast preparing to dash upon his prey, and then his lips became so contracted, as they were drawn in and glued, as it were, to his teeth, that their very colour was indiscernible" (233).Sidebar: if you're interested in the story of Bluebeard and what it was based on, definitely check out Sabine Baring-Gould's The Book of Were-Wolves, as he has an unmatched documentation of it. I don't think it really has a place in a book about werewolves, but obviously I preserved his work in its original condition, so you can find it in my edition of his book, as well. It's not for the faint of heart, but it's morbidly very interesting.So, connection to werewolves or not, it's still certain that hypertrichosis was seen as an inhuman condition. There are many examples of people who had or have the condition and records of how they were treated throughout history.As mentioned, I have to wonder how much of this was actually associated with werewolf legends - given legends always explicitly involved transformation, which was the entire basis of it - but scholars eat this kind of thing up. In academia, everyone is always trying to come up with "new arguments" to "add to the conversation" or whatever, so we end up discussing and studying hypertrichosis alongside werewolf legends that specifically state such things weren't a part of the legends. Weird, isn't it?Anyway, hope you enjoyed the post. Until next time!And stay tuned for news and updates on a major [werewolf] book release later this year!If you like my blog, be sure to follow me here and elsewhere for more folklore and fiction, including books, especially on werewolves! You can also sign up for my free newsletter for monthly werewolf/vampire/folklore facts, a free story, and book previews.Free Newsletter - maverickwerewolf.com (personal site + book shop + free fiction) — Patreon — Wulfgard — Werewolf Fact Masterlist — X — Vampire Fact Masterlist — Amazon Author page #werewolf#werewolves#werewolf fact#werewolf facts#werewolf wednesday#werewolfwednesday#folklore#folklore facts#mythology#history#wolf#wolves#lycanthrope#lycanthropes#lycanthropy#shapeshifting#shapeshifters#resources#hypertrichosis#beauty and the beast#fairytales#fairy tale… See all30 notes
maverick-werewolfVoyageurs Wolf Project Donation DriveHi, all! I'm not sure if this is kosher, but I really want to help spread the word.GIF by wolveswolvesOne of my favorite foundations for wolf research, Voyageurs Wolf Project, is asking for donations to help fund their continued research on wolves. They're an amazing organization that teaches us new things about wolves every year - not to mention giving us great photos, video, and news on wolf packs.They've almost hit their goal!Please consider donating to their drive here and helping them continue to research wolves!(note: this does not benefit me in any way; I am unfortunately not involved in Voyageurs Wolf Project, lol. I just really love their work and I love wolves and want to see them continue doing great things for our wolfie friends and helping us better understand them and how to live alongside them.)#wolf#wolves#wolf research#voyageurs wolf project#real wolves not folklore wolves#animal research#donations#donate if you can
maverick-werewolfRebloggedmaverick-werewolfFollowFolklore Fact - WyvernsAnother month, another folklore fact! Wyverns handily won the poll over on my Patreon this month (be sure to take a look if you'd like to vote in the next one or even suggest all new subjects!)...GIF by jeremiah146(nearly all modern dragon designs seen in visual media, especially film and television but now quite often also video games, count as the traditional British heraldic classification of wyverns, really; see my post here for a discussion of that, although I could expand that post today and discuss things like Monster Hunter, etc, which I didn't really know much about at the time, and even further discuss some of the subjects already therein... Anyway, maybe I'll revise that sometime in the future and improve it)Wyverns are often described as a dragon with two hind legs, two wings, no forelegs, and a barbed tail. There are varieties, of course; some say the wyvern has the head of a dragon, the legs of an eagle, and a barbed "serpent tail" or simply a long tail with no barb. There are many varieties. Traditionally, at least if you ask English heraldry, the requirement to be a wyvern is that it has no forelegs - unlike the dragon, which has four legs in addition to wings. However, this is a technicality that was obviously not always applied elsewhere, including the European mainland. More on that shortly.The word "wyvern" is not in itself all that old; it originated around 1600, derived from "wyver" from 1300, so the term is not ancient. Like dragon, it essentially means "snake," though in this case it is derived from "viper." As mentioned, "dragon" itself is derived from "drakon" meaning serpent (and/or "giant seafish") [source: again, one of my favorite sites].Stamp of Clifford, Anne, Countess of Dorset (1590 - 1676) [source], depicting a wyvern.There was apparently some discussion around the rise of the heraldic wyvern in England, Scotland, and Ireland regarding what exactly classified a wyvern as opposed to a dragon. In 1610, the writings of John Guillim described a wyvern (then "wiverne") thus: "partake[ing] of a Fowle in the Wings and Legs … and doth resemble a Serpent in the Taile," and in 1682, John Gibbon agrees that a wyvern specifically has "but" two legs. It is noteworthy that both men in question were officers of heraldry, and these remarks are quotations from book on coats of arms, and thus it was specifically heraldry they discussed."Wyverns" as per monsters of myth and folklore were, for most intents and purposes of their time period, referred to as "dragons" and not thought of as their own sort of beast rather than just a variation of dragon for heraldry specifically or even exclusively. Were there any legends about something called a "wyvern?" I haven't found any in all my extensive research on dragon legends, and most all academic sources agree that a "wyvern" is a heraldic creature rather than something you'd find in a bestiary and/or folktale.As mentioned, depictions of what we today might think of as "wyverns" were not always called "wyverns," of course, especially throughout a lot of Europe (as opposed to Great Britain). Here we see a depiction of what we would now think of as a "wyvern" referred to as a dragon ("drago"), from a work dated 1691, so during the same time period that heraldic wyverns were already being classified as such.There are also bestiaries and other things that depict two-legged dragons as "dragons" rather than ever referring to them as "wyverns" specifically, and the creatures depicted therein were in fact meant to simply be "dragons." Older eras lacked the picky categorization that exists more recently, particularly myth and folklore. This is why there are no "categories" of werewolf legends, either, for instance, or different "types" of werewolves - except as put on them retroactively by modern scholars.A "wyvern" from 1380 in the Chester Cathedral in England; given its hooves and head of a man, it isn't exactly a "standard" wyvern.So, again, the idea of the wyvern as a unique creature as opposed to another sort of dragon likely stemmed from heraldry - which in itself has a lot of unique creatures and specifics, such as the enfield and bagwyn - and specifically heraldry from Great Britain and Ireland, which meant that such defined notions of a wyvern came about in later centuries. There are certainly depictions of dragons and dragon-like creatures without forelegs from other centuries, such as the 1300s, but these are not explicitly as sourced "wyverns" during their own time period. Rather, they are described as such now by people retroactively applying the wyvern concept onto them. Such a concept became common starting around the 1600s, as mentioned earlier with the heraldic writings of Guillim and Gibbon. There are plenty of examples of "dragons" with two legs and, sometimes, even "wyverns" with four legs floating around out there.But since modernity also thrives on technicality, categories, and specifics, things like D&D for a while there often referred to a "wyvern" as a two-legged dragon (which I personally find preferable, despite my usual aversion to categorization of mythological things) - at least, until a lot of media is today started changing that ever since Reign of Fire in 2003. These days, outside of a handful of fantasy things, like D&D with their older established rules and a few other fantasy games that originated before this sweeping design change occurred, dragons very often have two legs instead of four. I could say a lot more about that, but I won't get into it...And that covers a general overview on wyverns! Until next time. For June, expect to see a brand new werewolf fact.( If you like my blog, be sure to follow me here and sign up for my free newsletter for more folklore and fiction, including books! And plenty of werewolf things.Free Newsletter - maverickwerewolf.com (info + book shop) — Patreon — Wulfgard — Werewolf Fact Masterlist — Twitter — Vampire Fact Masterlist — Amazon Author page )#icymi
maverick-werewolfAnonymous asked:What would happen if a vampire drank the blood of a werewolf (while in their human form) ? Does drinking the blood of other supernatural/mythical creatures affect vampires at all?Thank you for the ask, anon!The answer is simple, though - it would depend entirely on the lore of whatever story they are appearing in.Folklore doesn't exactly "cross over" monsters in such ways that modern pop culture does. A vampire story will be a story about a vampire. A werewolf story will be a story about a werewolf. So there isn't a "folklore accurate" way to approach or answer that question, I'm afraid.If you'd like to see how I would/will handle that, myself, stay tuned to my world of Wulfgard and publications therein. You will absolutely find out eventually.Hope you have a great day :D#asks#anonymous#werewolf#werewolves#vampire#vampires#lore#folklore
maverick-werewolfFolklore Fact - WyvernsAnother month, another folklore fact! Wyverns handily won the poll over on my Patreon this month (be sure to take a look if you'd like to vote in the next one or even suggest all new subjects!)...GIF by jeremiah146(nearly all modern dragon designs seen in visual media, especially film and television but now quite often also video games, count as the traditional British heraldic classification of wyverns, really; see my post here for a discussion of that, although I could expand that post today and discuss things like Monster Hunter, etc, which I didn't really know much about at the time, and even further discuss some of the subjects already therein... Anyway, maybe I'll revise that sometime in the future and improve it)Wyverns are often described as a dragon with two hind legs, two wings, no forelegs, and a barbed tail. There are varieties, of course; some say the wyvern has the head of a dragon, the legs of an eagle, and a barbed "serpent tail" or simply a long tail with no barb. There are many varieties. Traditionally, at least if you ask English heraldry, the requirement to be a wyvern is that it has no forelegs - unlike the dragon, which has four legs in addition to wings. However, this is a technicality that was obviously not always applied elsewhere, including the European mainland. More on that shortly.The word "wyvern" is not in itself all that old; it originated around 1600, derived from "wyver" from 1300, so the term is not ancient. Like dragon, it essentially means "snake," though in this case it is derived from "viper." As mentioned, "dragon" itself is derived from "drakon" meaning serpent (and/or "giant seafish") [source: again, one of my favorite sites].Stamp of Clifford, Anne, Countess of Dorset (1590 - 1676) [source], depicting a wyvern.There was apparently some discussion around the rise of the heraldic wyvern in England, Scotland, and Ireland regarding what exactly classified a wyvern as opposed to a dragon. In 1610, the writings of John Guillim described a wyvern (then "wiverne") thus: "partake[ing] of a Fowle in the Wings and Legs … and doth resemble a Serpent in the Taile," and in 1682, John Gibbon agrees that a wyvern specifically has "but" two legs. It is noteworthy that both men in question were officers of heraldry, and these remarks are quotations from book on coats of arms, and thus it was specifically heraldry they discussed."Wyverns" as per monsters of myth and folklore were, for most intents and purposes of their time period, referred to as "dragons" and not thought of as their own sort of beast rather than just a variation of dragon for heraldry specifically or even exclusively. Were there any legends about something called a "wyvern?" I haven't found any in all my extensive research on dragon legends, and most all academic sources agree that a "wyvern" is a heraldic creature rather than something you'd find in a bestiary and/or folktale.As mentioned, depictions of what we today might think of as "wyverns" were not always called "wyverns," of course, especially throughout a lot of Europe (as opposed to Great Britain). Here we see a depiction of what we would now think of as a "wyvern" referred to as a dragon ("drago"), from a work dated 1691, so during the same time period that heraldic wyverns were already being classified as such.There are also bestiaries and other things that depict two-legged dragons as "dragons" rather than ever referring to them as "wyverns" specifically, and the creatures depicted therein were in fact meant to simply be "dragons." Older eras lacked the picky categorization that exists more recently, particularly myth and folklore. This is why there are no "categories" of werewolf legends, either, for instance, or different "types" of werewolves - except as put on them retroactively by modern scholars.A "wyvern" from 1380 in the Chester Cathedral in England; given its hooves and head of a man, it isn't exactly a "standard" wyvern.So, again, the idea of the wyvern as a unique creature as opposed to another sort of dragon likely stemmed from heraldry - which in itself has a lot of unique creatures and specifics, such as the enfield and bagwyn - and specifically heraldry from Great Britain and Ireland, which meant that such defined notions of a wyvern came about in later centuries. There are certainly depictions of dragons and dragon-like creatures without forelegs from other centuries, such as the 1300s, but these are not explicitly as sourced "wyverns" during their own time period. Rather, they are described as such now by people retroactively applying the wyvern concept onto them. Such a concept became common starting around the 1600s, as mentioned earlier with the heraldic writings of Guillim and Gibbon. There are plenty of examples of "dragons" with two legs and, sometimes, even "wyverns" with four legs floating around out there.But since modernity also thrives on technicality, categories, and specifics, things like D&D for a while there often referred to a "wyvern" as a two-legged dragon (which I personally find preferable, despite my usual aversion to categorization of mythological things) - at least, until a lot of media is today started changing that ever since Reign of Fire in 2003. These days, outside of a handful of fantasy things, like D&D with their older established rules and a few other fantasy games that originated before this sweeping design change occurred, dragons very often have two legs instead of four. I could say a lot more about that, but I won't get into it...And that covers a general overview on wyverns! Until next time. For June, expect to see a brand new werewolf fact.( If you like my blog, be sure to follow me here and sign up for my free newsletter for more folklore and fiction, including books! And plenty of werewolf things.Free Newsletter - maverickwerewolf.com (info + book shop) — Patreon — Wulfgard — Werewolf Fact Masterlist — Twitter — Vampire Fact Masterlist — Amazon Author page )#folklore#mythology#wyvern#wyverns#dragon#dragons#fantasy creature#folklore fact#folklore thursday#myth#medieval#medieval folklore#heraldry#history#fantasy
maverick-werewolfI have been struggling a lot lately. I apologize for the lack of updates (even my Patreon has been slow lately). I am working very hard on a big book release for this November, and I am very nervous about it. It and other things are shredding my nerves.I hope to have a new folklore post about wyverns up soon. Any other updates beyond that might be slow for a while still, but next month will bring another brand new werewolf fact.
maverick-werewolfRebloggedmaverick-werewolfFollowFolklore Fact - Gryphons/GriffinsGryphons, griffins, griffons, however you prefer to spell it (I personally use gryphon) - let's talk their folklore and mythology!(Attic pottery depicting a satyr and a griffin and an Arimaspus from around 375-350 BC, Eretria.)You probably already know the common popular culture concept of a gryphon: a big, vicious beast that attacks people and probably eats them and/or carries people away to its nest to feed them to its babies. Not much about it has changed in legend, though in a lot of popular culture today, it has seemed to lose its divinity. Gryphons - griffins, whatever you prefer - have quite the robust history, like so many creatures of myth and folklore. Unlike some, however, they have changed very little over time.Note that this article a general overview of concepts, not a detailed history.Let's start with etymology, because I just love that stuff. The word "griffin" comes from the Greek word "gryps," which referred to a dragon or griffin and literally meant "curved [or] hook-nosed." Late Latin spelled it "gryphus," a misspelling of grypus, a Latinized version of the Greek (source: https://www.etymonline.com/, one of my favorite websites).Griffins are said to have the head and wings of an eagle and body of a lion. They may or may not also have pointed ears, depending on the depiction (they more often did, overall, though the griffin of Crete is a notable exception). They were said to guard the gold in the mountains of the north, specifically the mountains of Scythia. The one-eyed Arimaspian people rode on horseback and attempted to steal the griffins' gold, causing griffins to nurture a deep hatred of and hostility toward horses.A Scythian pectoral, thought to have been made in Greece, depicting - among other things - griffins slaughtering horses. Griffins really, really hate horses.The famous griffin in the palace of Knossos at Crete, from the Bronze Age (restored).Griffins appear in truly ancient civilizations, not only Greece but also ancient Egypt and civilizations to the east, including ancient Sumeria. Griffins were later said to also dwell in India and guard gold in that region, and they continued to appear in art throughout ancient Persia, Rome, Byzantium, and into the Middle Ages throughout other regions such as France; they were depicted in ancient Greece with relative frequency and occasionally of considerable importance.Griffins appeared in many ancient Greek writings, including Aristeas in the 7th century BC. Herodotus and Aeschylus preserved and continued these writings in the 5th century BC, including lines such as,"But in the north of Europe there is by far the most gold. In this matter again I cannot say with assurance how the gold is produced, but it is said that one-eyed men called Arimaspoi (Arimaspians) steal it from Grypes (Griffins). The most outlying lands, though, as they enclose and wholly surround all the rest of the world, are likely to have those things which we think the finest and the rarest." Herodotus, Histories 3. 116. 1 (trans. Godley) (Greek historian C5th B.C.), source: https://www.theoi.com/Thaumasios/Grypes.html (a wonderful site)Physical descriptions of the griffin were not commonplace until some later works, and even then, their appearance wasn't always agreed upon. Even the notion of griffins having wings was sometimes disputed. Some scholars even got pretty wild, claiming griffons had no wings at all but instead skin-flaps that they used to glide. They apparently hated awesome things, so it turns out there were always boring people who thought they knew everything, wanted to explain everything "logically," and generally assume they were the smartest ever while also ruining mystique. They would make great scientists today.Griffins were, however, often said to be holy in nature. They were referred to as the "unbarking hounds of Zeus" by Aeschylus, who warned others never to approach them. Gryphons were also considered sacred to several gods, including prominently Apollo, who was said to depart Delphi each winter, flying on a griffon (griffin, gryphon, etc, I keep swapping this around, I know; my brain spells it differently because I've read way too many sources), and he also is occasionally depicted as hitching griffins to his chariot in addition to riding one. This was particularly prominent in the cults of Hyperborean Apollo, one of the many endless and fascinating cults of ancient Greece.Medieval bestiary depiction of a griffin slaughtering a horse.Even by the Middle Ages, gryphons still hated and slaughtered horses and guarded gold, elements that certainly persisted throughout their legends. They also killed men and carried them away to their nests, similar to the manner in which Aeschylus warned people to stay away from gryphons even back when. We can obviously assume griffons were never cuddly, so that isn't much of a change.Griffins also did not entirely lose their divine relations even into the Middle Ages. Christianity often used positive portrayals of griffins to represent and uphold certain positive tenets of Christian faith; likewise, they became important symbols of medieval heraldry, used to represent a Christian symbol of divine power, as well as general courage, strength, and leadership, especially in a military sense. The depiction of the griffin as a powerful and majestic creature - killing horses and men or not - throughout its history is no doubt because they are a combination of two beasts often considered noble symbols of bravery, power, and divinity: the lion and the eagle, kings of land animals and birds, respectively.That's a general overview! As you can see, griffins aren't always so bad, at least not compared to some of the other creatures out there from folklore and myth.( If you like my blog, be sure to follow me here and sign up for my free newsletter for more folklore and fiction, including books! Free Newsletter - maverickwerewolf.com (info + book shop) — Patreon — Wulfgard — Werewolf Fact Masterlist — Twitter — Vampire Fact Masterlist — Amazon Author page )maverick-werewolfThey are not popular on Tumblr, but I do folklore facts on a wide variety of mythology, folklore, and creatures, etc.
maverick-werewolfRebloggedmaverick-werewolfFollowWerewolf Article - (Play As A) Werewolf Video GamesThe results of the poll for this month on my Patreon are in, and the winner is an opinionated article on werewolf video games! Apologies in advance if any of my opinions here anger you. I was asked for opinionated, so I went opinionated and did not hold back.For clarity's sake: this will be a relatively concise list of SOME video games in which you can or do play as a werewolf. It will NOT include every single game in which you can or do play as a werewolf, nor will it include certain kinds of playable werewolves that exist in gaming, for the sake of brevity. You'll notice some missing and then want to be first to tell me I left out [thing], but I assure you I am aware of those too. I am also not going to list games in which you can play as a werewolf but it requires either user-made mods or else playing in a custom campaign/tileset/server (like Neverwinter Nights <3), only games wherein you can play as a werewolf as part of base game or expansion pack mechanics.This IS a tiered list. It is tiered based on the werewolf gameplay mechanics and elements in the game.Let's get started. I will begin at #9, go to #1, and then I will close with some words on some other games that didn't make the numbered list.9. World of Warcraft: CataclysmNote: your player character will never have torn-up clothing or use his claws like in this artwork/like the enemy worgen doI'm just going to list Cataclysm here because, frankly, I don't even want to discuss WoW at Shadowlands and beyond... even if discussing the model update will reach into that era of content. Obviously, I don't play WoW anymore and haven't in quite a while, but yeah, I used to really enjoy it. Played it for many, many years. Probably too many.Cataclysm was a pretty outright bad expansion, but it did add playable worgen (something I obviously wanted from day 1 after seeing the worgen mobs running around), and they can even turn into human form, which is a must for me in terms of actually being a werewolf instead of just a wolf-person, which I wouldn't even roll. That was a nice touch I didn't actually expect from the devs.Unfortunately, the model update turned them into something far "cuter" and more cuddly than I liked, not to mention adding preposterous fur options like stripes and merle, but the human form customization was nice. Still, the model update drove me toward playing different races, like maining my kul'tiran and night elf instead of the worgen I was always ultimately pretty disappointed in, given his wearing fine armor and wielding giant weapons. Anyway, the entire game took a huge nosedive not long after the model change, so it's a moot point for me regardless.As for the deeper worgen lore beyond "they are werewolves with a funny name": I hate it with all my heart. I did my best to ignore every scrap of that and how they are just self-parodies, to delete the Gilneas/worgen starting zone quests from my entire brain, and especially to ignore the fact that they were all preposterously British despite England being one of the last places historically to even have many werewolf legends of its own. I have an article about that here if you are interested in the topic. The game made all of these things very difficult, especially how hard they wanted to drive home that the worgen are silly posh British parody dog-people strutting around in waistcoats and tophats instead of being fearsome cursed werewolves. So I won't bother going into all that.The mechanics are fun except for the fact that you have to wear armor and use weapons, so ultimately you just look like a beast-person instead of a werewolf, especially after the model change making them far more appealing to a certain demographic. If Blizzard had wanted to put in effort, they would have made your gear look tattered and would have made you swap to claws when you turn, but that would've been a lot of work. They could have at least added a specialized class or something and then also given it to some Horde races to make the precious Horde players happy. I don't know. I just think werewolves wearing fine clothes and armor and wielding weapons is immensely silly. They're supposed to be werewolves.So while they are extremely far from perfect, the worgen are at least relatively fun in that, if nothing else, you can go between werewolf and human forms and run on all fours as fast as the fastest ground mount, and I am deeply surprised they did either. I immensely enjoyed both of those things during my time playing a worgen, and they helped mitigate the great disappointment otherwise in many other regards - though not enough to keep me from maining other races, especially later on. But, in the end, WoW sucks now and it's unrecoverable, and WoW Classic is a joke, so I'll never be playing a worgen again anyway.8. Diablo III'm sure you were looking for this one - the werewolf druid in Diablo II (preemptive sidebar: I am not going to talk about Diablo IV). I love his design and gameplay mechanics. He's fantastic. However, he is of course yet another instance of "the werewolf must be a druid," which I personally find a little tiresome after so much of it. But hey, this was one of the earlier games to do that, so it predated a lot of the craze.At any rate, the Druid class in Diablo II obviously gets a werewolf form. It also gets a requisite werebear because werewolves can almost never just be werewolves, but at least the werewolf does not completely suck. You can also summon wolves, which is a bonus.While I'm not really that big on Diablo-type gameplay - I prefer either third-person or else a proper isometric, party-based RPG - so Diablo II didn't really hold my interest a lot, the werewolf druid is very fun and a very cool werewolf, the setting is great, and the werewolf suits the dark Gothic feeling and look of the game that is enjoyable and well conveyed in the first place. The werewolf druid is a great addition that I am glad they added.7. Baldur's Gate IILet me make something perfectly clear: Baldur's Gate II is, in my opinion, the best game ever made (only Uncharted 2: Among Thieves also makes this rank for me). Combined with BG1 to create the Baldur's Gate Saga, it is one of the best stories ever told and also my favorite game mechanics-wise, again alongside Uncharted 2 even if yes, I know that those games could almost not be farther apart in terms of mechanics. I absolutely love BG2 beyond words. Please note I am talking about the original Baldur's Gate II, as released in 2000, not the "Enhanced Edition," which is a disgrace to the game, the entire series, and a piece of garbage. It's shamefully difficult to find the original game anymore, but it's worth it over playing the EE; trust me. I'll try to spare you any further ranting on this topic, as the original Baldur's Gate Saga is something very close to my heart.Anyway, the werewolf in BG2 is - once again - a druid, specifically a druid subclass called Shapeshifter. It doesn't really have any werewolf gameplay mechanics in that you are not treated differently for it, nor do you transform out of your own control. In fact you will be spending the majority of your time in werewolf form, which can get quite tiresome. I'm not the biggest fan of a werewolf holding normal conversations with NPCs, etc. But regardless, it's there, and I love it, and it looks awesome, and that's more than I can say for so many games. Plus, you get cool bonuses and stuff. The power of it varies over time and with the progression of your character. I will not go too deeply into it, as I am actually an insane D&D video game nerd and even today I can spend far too much time building characters and tweaking numbers and doing ridiculous tricks in D&D games to powergame. If you want just one of my credentials I beat BG2 on the hardest difficulty with Ascension and no other gameplay mods. Long story short, the Greater Werewolf is quite powerful, and it shouldn't be a detriment to your party to either be one or bring along Cernd, one of my favorite companions.So don't listen to the people down on the Shapeshifter in BG2. You can get mods that make them overpowered, anyway. Also don't listen to my complaints about it not feeling werewolfish enough because that's nearly impossible to come by anyway if you're not playing the #1 game on this list. Go try one out. It's fun! Plus, BG2 is the best game ever made.6. Altered BeastWhat are some of Mav's favorite things? Ancient Greece, hoplites, hot men, werewolves, dragons, tigers...When I found out Altered Beast exists and is a game wherein you play as an awesome hoplite dude and turn into a werewolf, a green dragon, a tiger-man, and ultimately a werewolf is still the most powerful of all his forms, I was ecstatic. I had to play it immediately.I wasn't disappointed. It's a fun, unforgiving game, because it was made before video games started becoming what I think we're supposed to call accessible today. I don't know what else there is to say about the game if what I've already said hasn't convinced you to play it. The werewolf form is your first transformation, and your most powerful is a golden werewolf. Me being me, I appreciate that a werewolf form is still the best in the end instead of being outshone by other creatures, and even the other forms available are all very cool.As I said, I really don't know what more one could ask for of this setting and gameplay. I've never been picky about genre; I play a very wide variety of video games and have plenty of fun, and I certainly had fun with this one.(Note: I'm not going to talk about that 2005 Altered Beast remake, I like to pretend it never happened)5. Werewolf the Apocalypse: EarthbloodI'll be the first to admit I'm far from the biggest World of Darkness fan ever, as has brought many insults my way already, but I was pleasantly surprised by the mechanics of the werewolf form in Earthblood. I will not call it the "crinos form," as that terminology is so immensely silly that I could no longer take it seriously if I did. So anyway, the gameplay actually lets you feel like a werewolf, and you even get two stances you can swap between for different combat styles instead of anchoring werewolves down to just doing one thing. I'm not going to wax on about the lore, the story, etc. - but man the werewolf mechanics really are fun. It is, of course, the main draw of the whole deal, and they didn't slouch on that element.It's important to me that a werewolf feel powerful and also violent. Werewolves should not be cuddly, or else they are no longer werewolves. Painting hallways with the blood of my enemies as if I'm recreating the Ninja lead-up in Metal Gear Solid while in werewolf form is cathartic and a good way to give the player a sense of being a werewolf instead of just an animal-headed person. This is a very solid "play as a werewolf" game, and one of the few games that exist with the primary purpose of letting you really play as a werewolf, whether you are a predetermined character or not. Be warned, the game is notoriously janky, but if you're like me, you're enjoying the werewolf mechanics enough that you don't care - or you can be even more like me and not give a toss about "jankiness" in a game in the first place.4. The Elder Scrolls V: SkyrimWhile a significant and crushing downgrade from the werewolves in certain other Elder Scrolls entries - more on that momentarily - at least Skyrim let you become a werewolf in the base game. No waiting for an expansion pack and no waiting forever until you move on (thanks, Oblivion). However, the differences between the mechanics of werewolves in past entries and the Skyrim werewolves are many and tragic. I confess I did not play Skyrim much, partially as a result of these exact elements, and partially because I just don't spend much time playing video games anymore, among other things.In Skyrim, being a werewolf becomes what is colloquially called an "awesome button," letting you turn into a big, strong, cool werewolf that can eat people to extend your werewolf timer. It's great and enjoyable, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't actually feel as if you are truly cursed with lycanthropy or smelly lupus or whatever silly name Elder Scrolls gave it (yes, I know the name, but that doesn't make it less silly). You have no real disadvantages to being a werewolf, such as having to worry about when you will transform outside your own control - because you never will, which is an immense downgrade in terms of feeling werewolfish and adding appropriate challenge and downside to being a werewolf. You also don't have to worry about being forced to devour a civilized race in order to sate your accursed hunger. Instead, you're doing that on purpose to turn out of werewolf form again, because the more you eat, the longer you stay transformed. Still, the werewolves in Skyrim are good - they just don't compare to previous entries. But I certainly appreciate them and the fact that they are present in the base game.3. The Sims 3Trust me, they do look better in game, but I couldn't find any of my own screenshots because it's been a hot minute since I played this.You probably think I'm trolling you, but the werewolves in The Sims have always been pretty fun; I remember when the ones in 2 first came out, I enjoyed them like crazy. The ones in 3 rocked and were easily the best variant; too bad the game is relatively difficult to get running properly, and many aspects of the werewolves are delicate and easy to glitch, including your entire Sim's werewolf form design. I am not going to talk about those abominations that were added to The Sims 4, because they are some of the worst things I have ever had the misfortune of seeing and are not werewolves by any metric.Sims 3 changed the aspects of Sims 2 werewolves that I didn't like, such as how being a werewolf altered your sim's entire personality over time and how the werewolf form always looked the same. They made the system much more robust. Frankly, the Sims 3 werewolves are some of the better werewolves in gaming, especially for the kind of game that The Sims is (expect assorted dog jokes, for example, given it's The Sims, yet it still isn't half as bad as it could be). I also love the wolf-man design; it works much better with Sims than something bigger and more wolfish. Certainly far better than whatever the hell is in Sims 4, which again, I will try my best not to talk about.Anyway, I absolutely recommend Sims 3 if you enjoy Sims games and werewolves and want to have some werewolf fun. I'd probably still be occasionally blowing my finite amount of time on this earth playing it if I had it properly running on my current PC.2. The Elder Scrolls II: DaggerfallBet you didn't expect to see this one, did you? You thought I was gonna say Skyrim as #2, right? Actually, I bet you thought I was going to say that one as #1.The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall is a game many would consider unapproachable today. I enjoyed it. Obviously, I played it for the playable werewolf, and I had fun! They work similarly to the ones in Bloodmoon, but, in my opinion, they still aren't as fantastic as the Bloodmoon ones. But the game does force you to actually live and behave as a werewolf - I love the werewolf hunter[s] mechanic - which, again... it's almost the only one of its kind other than Bloodmoon. For that, it gets #2 on this list.And that means you know what makes #1, untouched in its glory, undimmed by time...1. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - BloodmoonAlright. Have I ever talked about how this is the single greatest werewolf game ever made? I think I have, but let's get into it again.I like Morrowind in the first place. I think it's hands down the best of the Elder Scrolls series and, frankly, the only one really worth dedicating much time to (forgive me). I played it when it first came out, and while I have never been the kind of person to pour hours into any ES or even any other open world game, Morrowind held my attention even as a kid - before I knew about "open world" and before it was such a buzzword - whereas other games before and after it struggled to do so or else failed entirely. Morrowind was groundbreaking for its time in many ways. And then they announced the expansion pack called Bloodmoon that would let you play as a werewolf. I was so excited I could hardly stand it, and even with my extreme werewolf pickiness, I was not disappointed. At all.This is a game wherein the werewolves are treated as a serious threat, they are insanely rare to encounter in the wild in any capacity (I actually became a werewolf through a random encounter because I ran around on Solstheim obsessively every night rather than just becoming one through the story - it took me many nights, IRL, to encounter one), and when you do run into them, they are likely to destroy you. You are insanely, over the top powerful when you turn into a werewolf, yourself. Some would even call it stupid. I would not. You run at the speed of light and your jump turns into borderline flight. It's basically gliding. You're also preposterously powerful in general. I love it.Most importantly of all, however, is that you are actually forced to roleplay as a werewolf. You will turn each night, and you must consume 1 victim NPC of any of the playable races. Solstheim is full of assorted enemies that will work for this, but when you go back to Vvardenfell, it can be harder to find a nightly meal while avoiding devouring any quest NPCs. Plus, you have to manage your gear before and after transformations, and you have to be sure you are never witnessed transforming. The entire system is in-depth and very awesome, making you actually feel like a cursed being that has to worry when the sun starts to set, forcing you to run far from civilization.I cannot put into words how much I adore this game's werewolf system. Nothing compares. This is a real werewolf system, instead of "play as a wolf-person" or "hit the awesome button to become a werewolf for a little while with 0 consequences" like basically every other werewolf game out there.So long story short, if you claim to love werewolves and want to play as one in a video game, and you haven't played Bloodmoon, then you're lying to yourself and the whole world. Shame on you.And now for things that didn't make the list...10. Assorted AcknowledgementsThis category is for ones I don't even really have a lot to say about, but I figured I would mention them.Terraria - You can get an item that lets you turn into a werewolf when night falls. It's pretty fun! I like the mechanics of it, plus it has a neat werewolf design, to boot. I dock serious points in this game for straight-up replacing the zombies with hordes of werewolves in hard mode, though. "Werewolf infestations" and werewolves being zombie stand-ins these days is preposterous and overdone. But I had a lot of fun running around as a werewolf and exploring, so it's absolutely top of the non-tiered list especially as far as werewolf mechanics go.Pillars of Eternity - The "werewolf" in this game is one of several animal-person forms the druid can get, continuing the common theme in gaming of druid werewolves. The wolf is decidedly the worst of the lot, less useful even than the prey animals available. Put bluntly: they are basically terrible, and you're an idiot to ever use this form when there are so many build options available. There are also lots of other RPG options available. As in other games out there in the world. You should play those instead.Guild Wars 2 - You cannot actually play as a werewolf in Guild Wars 2, but I figured I would mention it because lots of people do. If you want to roll one of the Norn giant race, either as a pretty giant woman who is the mommy stepping on you from some men's dreams or as the ugly tiny-headed cartoon men, you can get an ability to turn into a werewolf for like 30 seconds; it's far from exciting. And like so many werewolf abilities today, it comes with the option to also turn into other humanoid animals with different abilities. I've heard that, of them, only the cat and bear are useful, which is not a shocker as video game logic goes (game devs think wolves straight up suck at everything lol). I didn't play a Norn during my stint with Guild Wars 2 - I played a male human. He's Nolan North, so he's obviously the only choice and also why I played the game as much as I did.The Elder Scrolls Online - This disgraceful abomination of a "game" is terrible in every way and could not have been a bigger disappointment on the promise of an "Elder Scrolls but MMORPG" concept even from the very beginning. It was never good, it only ever got worse, and I am happy to say I abandoned it long ago (I am not happy to say I was playing it in early closed beta because of the promise of werewolves - and I played it far more than I should have, so I am not coming at this from ignorance). It is a game with designs so ugly and unremarkable that you want to quit and walk through the woods just to remind yourself beauty still exists in the world. ESO clearly had no idea what direction to take itself in from the moment it dropped, and it certainly was never created with the pretense of playing like an Elder Scrolls game but being massively multiplayer. It has no sense of mood or atmosphere whatsoever and possesses writing that will make you long for the riveting tales in other low-rent, low-thought MMORPGs. You can play as a hideous weird sad werewolf model that is absurdly small (most likely smaller than the race you are playing as, which means you actually shrink when you transform) and should have been left in beta, which functions like a worse awesome button werewolf than the ones in Skyrim, because you also suck gameplay-wise especially depending on the dev's mood with the meta. It is terrible, as is everything about the game. ESO also went out of its way to completely wreck all previous Elder Scrolls werewolf lore that was actually really good. Anyway, don't play this. Your time is worth more than that, even if you don't think it is.That covers some of the best! Requisite apologies if I didn't include your favorite.( Free Newsletter — Patreon — Wulfgard — Werewolf Fact Masterlist — Twitter — Vampire Fact Masterlist — Amazon Author page )
maverick-werewolfRebloggedmaverick-werewolfFollowMy website shop is now open!Ever wanted to buy one of my books? Now is the perfect time!All my books are now available directly through me on my personal website as paperbacks, ebooks, and yes, even some hardback editions! And the prices on my fiction ebooks are now lower than ever!Books available include all my prior books (such as my popular nonfiction work The Werewolf: Past and Future and all of my fiction) and even my newest release, my own edition of Sabine Baring-Gould's irreplaceable folklore source, The Book of Werewolves.Visit the shop at maverickwerewolf.com/books (click here)!
maverick-werewolfRebloggedmaverick-werewolfFollowThe Werewolf: Past and Future (nonfiction) - NOW AVAILABLE!Prepare to rediscover the forgotten legacy of the legendary werewolf!Purchase here on Amazon.com!Since before recorded history, werewolves have captivated human imagination. Simultaneously, they represent our deepest fears as well as our desire to connect with our primal ancestry. Today, werewolves are portrayed negatively, associated with violence, cruelty, cannibalism, and general malevolence.However, in ages past, legends depicted them not as monsters, but as a range of neutral to benevolent individuals, such as traveling companions, guardians, and knights. The robust legacy of the werewolf spans from prehistory, through ancient Greece and Rome, to the Middle Ages, into the Early Modern period, and finally into present-day popular culture. Over the ages, the view of the werewolf has become distorted. Media treatment of werewolves is associated with inferior writing, lacking in thought, depth, and meaning. Werewolves as characters or creatures are now generally seen as single-minded and one-dimensional, and they want nothing more than to kill, devour, and possibly violate humans.Hollywood depictions have resulted in the destruction of the true meanings behind werewolf legends that fascinated and terrified humans for so many ages. If these negative trends were reversed, perhaps entertainment might not only discover again some of the true meanings behind the werewolf myth, but also take the first steps toward reversing negative portrayals of wolves themselves, which humans have, for eons, wrongfully stigmatized and portrayed as evil, resulting in wolves receiving crueler treatment than virtually any other animal.To revive the many questions posed by lycanthropy, entertainment must show respect to the rich history of so many cultures all around the world – and rediscover the legend of the werewolf.This book represents a lifetime of work, research, and argument. It’s the centerpiece of, essentially, who I am and what I want to fight for in my life. This underwent very close scrutiny by a board of distinguished professors, and I had to defend my research and my arguments before them in order to earn my degree.If you enjoy my werewolf facts, you’ll enjoy reading this, I can guarantee it, especially if you want to hear my side of things. It won’t be a guide to werewolves, though it’ll certainly have plenty of useful information on various legends in coherent chronological order (all with proper professional attribution, footnotes, discussion, citation, etc.). This is a great place to start to get my perspective on things while also learning about almost all the werewolf legends and info I’ve covered in various facts - and many more that I haven’t!It means so much to me that I have finally gotten to publish this. I really hope you’ll enjoy it and find it useful, educational, and thought-provoking.Purchase The Werewolf: Past and Future on Amazon.com!
maverick-werewolfNew Werewolf Book Coming SoonI have completed the draft of my next big - and indeed my biggest - project...The first book in my "werewolf series," as it were. If you have ever wondered how I personally would choose to portray werewolves, look no further than this November, when you can read Wulfgard: Knightfall.Stay tuned for more updates!#werewolf#werewolves#fiction
maverick-werewolfFolklore Fact - Gryphons/GriffinsGryphons, griffins, griffons, however you prefer to spell it (I personally use gryphon) - let's talk their folklore and mythology!(Attic pottery depicting a satyr and a griffin and an Arimaspus from around 375-350 BC, Eretria.)You probably already know the common popular culture concept of a gryphon: a big, vicious beast that attacks people and probably eats them and/or carries people away to its nest to feed them to its babies. Not much about it has changed in legend, though in a lot of popular culture today, it has seemed to lose its divinity. Gryphons - griffins, whatever you prefer - have quite the robust history, like so many creatures of myth and folklore. Unlike some, however, they have changed very little over time.Note that this article a general overview of concepts, not a detailed history.Let's start with etymology, because I just love that stuff. The word "griffin" comes from the Greek word "gryps," which referred to a dragon or griffin and literally meant "curved [or] hook-nosed." Late Latin spelled it "gryphus," a misspelling of grypus, a Latinized version of the Greek (source: https://www.etymonline.com/, one of my favorite websites).Griffins are said to have the head and wings of an eagle and body of a lion. They may or may not also have pointed ears, depending on the depiction (they more often did, overall, though the griffin of Crete is a notable exception). They were said to guard the gold in the mountains of the north, specifically the mountains of Scythia. The one-eyed Arimaspian people rode on horseback and attempted to steal the griffins' gold, causing griffins to nurture a deep hatred of and hostility toward horses.A Scythian pectoral, thought to have been made in Greece, depicting - among other things - griffins slaughtering horses. Griffins really, really hate horses.The famous griffin in the palace of Knossos at Crete, from the Bronze Age (restored).Griffins appear in truly ancient civilizations, not only Greece but also ancient Egypt and civilizations to the east, including ancient Sumeria. Griffins were later said to also dwell in India and guard gold in that region, and they continued to appear in art throughout ancient Persia, Rome, Byzantium, and into the Middle Ages throughout other regions such as France; they were depicted in ancient Greece with relative frequency and occasionally of considerable importance.Griffins appeared in many ancient Greek writings, including Aristeas in the 7th century BC. Herodotus and Aeschylus preserved and continued these writings in the 5th century BC, including lines such as,"But in the north of Europe there is by far the most gold. In this matter again I cannot say with assurance how the gold is produced, but it is said that one-eyed men called Arimaspoi (Arimaspians) steal it from Grypes (Griffins). The most outlying lands, though, as they enclose and wholly surround all the rest of the world, are likely to have those things which we think the finest and the rarest." Herodotus, Histories 3. 116. 1 (trans. Godley) (Greek historian C5th B.C.), source: https://www.theoi.com/Thaumasios/Grypes.html (a wonderful site)Physical descriptions of the griffin were not commonplace until some later works, and even then, their appearance wasn't always agreed upon. Even the notion of griffins having wings was sometimes disputed. Some scholars even got pretty wild, claiming griffons had no wings at all but instead skin-flaps that they used to glide. They apparently hated awesome things, so it turns out there were always boring people who thought they knew everything, wanted to explain everything "logically," and generally assume they were the smartest ever while also ruining mystique. They would make great scientists today.Griffins were, however, often said to be holy in nature. They were referred to as the "unbarking hounds of Zeus" by Aeschylus, who warned others never to approach them. Gryphons were also considered sacred to several gods, including prominently Apollo, who was said to depart Delphi each winter, flying on a griffon (griffin, gryphon, etc, I keep swapping this around, I know; my brain spells it differently because I've read way too many sources), and he also is occasionally depicted as hitching griffins to his chariot in addition to riding one. This was particularly prominent in the cults of Hyperborean Apollo, one of the many endless and fascinating cults of ancient Greece.Medieval bestiary depiction of a griffin slaughtering a horse.Even by the Middle Ages, gryphons still hated and slaughtered horses and guarded gold, elements that certainly persisted throughout their legends. They also killed men and carried them away to their nests, similar to the manner in which Aeschylus warned people to stay away from gryphons even back when. We can obviously assume griffons were never cuddly, so that isn't much of a change.Griffins also did not entirely lose their divine relations even into the Middle Ages. Christianity often used positive portrayals of griffins to represent and uphold certain positive tenets of Christian faith; likewise, they became important symbols of medieval heraldry, used to represent a Christian symbol of divine power, as well as general courage, strength, and leadership, especially in a military sense. The depiction of the griffin as a powerful and majestic creature - killing horses and men or not - throughout its history is no doubt because they are a combination of two beasts often considered noble symbols of bravery, power, and divinity: the lion and the eagle, kings of land animals and birds, respectively.That's a general overview! As you can see, griffins aren't always so bad, at least not compared to some of the other creatures out there from folklore and myth.( If you like my blog, be sure to follow me here and sign up for my free newsletter for more folklore and fiction, including books! Free Newsletter - maverickwerewolf.com (info + book shop) — Patreon — Wulfgard — Werewolf Fact Masterlist — Twitter — Vampire Fact Masterlist — Amazon Author page )#folklore#mythology#gryphon#griffin#fantasy creature#gryphons#griffins#griffon#folklore fact#folklore thursday#greek myth#myth#persian myth#medival#medieval folklore#history
maverick-werewolfRebloggedmaverick-werewolfFollowWerewolf Fact #71 - Book Review: Sabine Baring-Gould's The Book of WerewolvesWhile it may not be a "werewolf fact" of the traditional nature, it's very important when studying folklore to know and understand one's sources.One of the very best sources for werewolf folklore - and indeed other folklore and mythology besides - is Sabine Baring-Gould's The Book of Werewolves (or The Book of Were-Wolves as he called it), written in 1865. However, like any academic/rhetorical source, it shouldn't be taken at face value. Let's dive into why it's such a useful source - and why you shouldn't always take to heart everything Baring-Gould attempts to assert.GIF by schifty-alAlready a scholar, Baring-Gould was a skeptical guy. It all began when, during his travels, Baring-Gould encountered several people terrified of a werewolf. He was baffled they truly believed in such a thing, and that it would stop them from wanting to traverse a road at night...“If the loup-garou were only a natural wolf, why then, you see”—the mayor cleared his throat—“you see we should think nothing of it; but, M. le Curé, it is a fiend, a worse than fiend, a man-fiend,—a worse than man-fiend, a man-wolf-fiend.”Baring-Gould, not intimidated, walked the road alone. However, along the way, the words of the others got to him, and he found himself frightened. The manner in which such preposterous superstition (naturally, he wasn't exactly a believer) would actually make him afraid at all made him very curious about such things and why people would believe in them...This was my first introduction to werewolves, and the circumstance of finding the superstition still so prevalent, first gave me the idea of investigating the history and the habits of these mythical creatures.
I must acknowledge that I have been quite unsuccessful in obtaining a specimen of the animal, but I have found its traces in all directions. And just as the palæontologist has constructed the labyrinthodon out of its foot-prints in marl, and one splinter of bone, so may this monograph be complete and accurate, although I have no chained werewolf before me which I may sketch and describe from the life.
The traces left are indeed numerous enough, and though perhaps like the dodo or the dinormis, the werewolf may have become extinct in our age, yet he has left his stamp on classic antiquity, he has trodden deep in Northern snows, has ridden rough-shod over the mediævals, and has howled amongst Oriental sepulchres. He belonged to a bad breed, and we are quite content to be freed from him and his kindred, the vampire and the ghoul. Yet who knows! We may be a little too hasty in concluding that he is extinct. He may still prowl in Abyssinian forests, range still over Asiatic steppes, and be found howling dismally in some padded room of a Hanwell or a Bedlam.Baring-Gould has his biases, but he also has an open mind about some topics, even if he's shut tighter than a bear trap on others, especially where anything scientific is concerned, as he was a big believer in the science of his time (not all of which is applicable to today). He's a complicated bag of tricks, and reading his work is quite an experience.Whatever his biases and whatever one might think of his occasionally very judgmental and overly authoritarian words (i.e., he can sometimes think he knows better than everyone, including the people who actually lived during the time periods he's discussing), he is nothing short of phenomenal at his work of gathering and examining sources... even if he isn't always right. He contradicts his own research at least once, namely in relation to berserkers, but I won't go into all that (unless you read my edition of his book, of course; I discuss it extensively there).He even spins some of his sources into thrilling tales. He honestly isn't bad at narration, able to paint an impressive and thrilling picture when retelling various werewolf (and other) legends...But when dusk settled down over the forest, and one by one the windows of the castle became illumined, peasants would point to one casement high up in an isolated tower, from which a clear light streamed through the gloom of night; they spoke of a fierce red glare which irradiated the chamber at times, and of sharp cries ringing out of it, through the hushed woods, to be answered only by the howl of the wolf as it rose from its lair to begin its nocturnal rambles.Something to note with Baring-Gould is that some of his sources are actually no longer with us. They did clearly exist, and he could access them during his own time, but they've since been lost, especially in such original formats (or they might be gone altogether). This is just another reason why Baring-Gould's work is irreplaceable as a source for many, many fields, not just werewolf studies. He cites and discusses works about many kinds of folklore, mythology, and even history, and he even provided the first English translation of the trail of Giles de Rais, a famous killer (and basis for the fairy tale Bluebeard). It's a fascinating read, even if you're just there for general folklore and mythology or if you're there specifically for werewolves or, broader spectrum, all manner of shapeshifters - he even talks a little bit about dragons!However, when reading, bear in mind that Baring-Gould is not without his biases, as I mentioned before. He can be very judgmental of other scholars, especially from the past, but that isn't exactly uncommon even in modern scholarship. It's easy enough to read around, as long as you don't take everything he writes as fact. No scholar is perfect, no matter how impressive their work is, and that certainly includes Baring-Gould. He also approaches his work with werewolves specifically with the determination to relate them to "madmen" and serial killers, which is a consistent theme throughout the book. He will discuss werewolf legends and detail them well, but toward the end of each section, when providing his own assessment, he will generally offer how such things could be rationalized in his own mind. In doing so, of course, he does offer interesting discussion and food for thought, regardless of whether you agree with him (I agree with him at times but can also find him very disagreeable; it's like that with most everything one reads, so no shocker there). And, of course, his work even if only used for informational purposes is still impressive.Biases is no reason to pass on what might be the best single source on these many topics. Besides, reading around potential biases is a skill everyone should learn.One of his biggest downsides is that he doesn't provide English translations of all his quoted passages and sources. This was a problem in the original publication from the 1800s, and it continues into today with nearly all editions...However, if you do want translations of nearly all of his quoted passages from various sources (as well as extensive annotations discussing werewolf studies, mythology, and more, and putting his scholarship into a modern context and even pointing out his errors, such as when he contradicts himself), then you need to see my edition of his work! I personally translated and annotated The Book of Werewolves this year, and it's now available for purchase both through Amazon.com and my personal website, with a cover that's a different take on the book's original 1865 release...Be sure to check it out at Amazon.com and my personal website!If you buy it directly from me, I'll sign it for you, too. You can also download an ebook, if you prefer.I assure you it's the best edition of this book you'll find. I know because I've bought nearly all of them trying to find one that's at all easy to reference. My edition even includes a bibliography that will assist you with further related reading, among other useful things. I've made sure the formatting is easily readable, so it's good for both casual reading and citation/quotation in research/academic projects. This was a lot of work, and I'm very proud of how it turned out, especially as I myself have worked with this book for years.Final words: even with all my own personal biases about werewolves, the study of werewolf and other legends, and my opinions on some of Baring-Gould's assertions, I have to give Baring-Gould's work a 10/10 for being a must-read for anyone interested in werewolves. Trust me - if you love werewolves and studying their folklore like I do, you won't be able to put this book down, and you'll walk away with far more knowledge than you had before. Reading this book alone will give you a decent foundational knowledge of werewolf studies, while also touching upon other fields.However, of course, I do recommend reading mine. Obviously. Especially because Baring-Gould is just so wrong about berserkers (hence, my own assertions)! But anyway.That's all for now. Until next time, and be sure to check out my newsletter linked below!( If you like my blog, be sure to follow me here and elsewhere for more folklore and fiction, including books, especially on werewolves! You can also sign up for my free newsletter for monthly werewolf/vampire/folklore facts, as well as free fiction and nonfiction book previews.Free Newsletter - maverickwerewolf.com (personal site + book shop) — Patreon — Wulfgard — Werewolf Fact Masterlist — Twitter — Vampire Fact Masterlist — Amazon Author page )
maverick-werewolfRebloggedmaverick-werewolfFollowNEW BOOK! - Wulfgard: Djedar Rath, Book I - The Tomb of AnkhuDeep in the southernmost deserts of Wulfgard lies the resting place of Pharaoh Ankhu the Endless, one of the greatest evils the land of Kemhet, or the world, has ever known. So terrible was his power that the gods themselves cursed him, sealing him away in an underground labyrinth. Ankhu rises with each darkening of the moon, a walking mummy, wandering this tomb in search of his own still-beating heart, without which he can never reach the afterlife.Over untold ages, Ankhu’s tomb remained undiscovered, a secret protected always by the loyal Medjai, an order sworn to guard Kemhet from all threats. And now, a new threat has arisen: Lord Tefnahkt the Red, a powerful warlock, drives his cult and his many slaves to uncover Pharaoh Ankhu’s resting place and steal the mummy’s power.While a small group of Medjai desperately work to stop Tefnahkt’s plans, one slave may become the key to putting an end to this evil once and for all: Djedar Rath. In a race against time, Djedar must lead the Medjai to prevent Tefnahkt from opening the tomb of Ankhu before the coming of the new moon, when the undead Pharaoh will awaken once more. For, if Ankhu escapes, the world will never survive his wrath.Don’t miss out on my all-new novella, Wulfgard: The Tomb of Ankhu, the first in a short series of novellas centered upon the character Djedar Rath and set in the vast ancient-medieval dark age fantasy realm of Wulfgard: a world where all myths are true.Inspired heavily by real-world ancient Egyptian and other mythologies - but with many original additions and elements - as well as the classic character-driven adventure genre that mixes aspects of action, thriller, and horror, with a tasteful sprinkling of levity, The Tomb of Ankhu is a tale of non-stop adventure and excitement that will leave you on the edge of your seat!Now available in ebook and paperback!Go here to purchase on Amazon! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C8897R1KPlease help spread the word by giving this post a reblog - every book release means the world to me, and this one is no different. I’m very proud of this story, and I really think you’ll enjoy it. Thanks for reading!#icymi#sequel coming next year#big release coming later this year as well#stay tuned for announcements
maverick-werewolfRebloggedvancityreynoldsFollowDeadpool & Wolverine | TrailerFound the guy who killed Bambi’s mom. ❤️💛
maverick-werewolfRebloggedvancityreynoldsFollowHugh got his nails done for this.
maverick-werewolfAnonymous asked:Hi! I suck at sending asks so I hope I don’t come off in any kind of bad wayI know you very briefly mentioned Van Helsing (2004) in one of your ‘Vampire vs Werewolf’ posts, but I wanted to know your thoughts on the werewolf designs in them. I was doing research for one of my characters, and I’m not really sure if drawing inspiration from their designs would fit/work with the actual folklore. Maybe you could even list some of your favorite designs or good places to reference from, if you know any?— House 🩵 (I love your blog so much it’s a literal godsend for Vamp and Wolf research)Not at all a bad way; thank you for sending in an ask! And I'm so glad you enjoy the blog, thank you for the kind words! :DI actually love the werewolf designs in Van Helsing, overall. They're very cool - they're big, scary, muscular, and wolfish (all traits I personally love), but they are also varied according to character...This is concept art from the film. Notice how they all look like wolves and have a coherent common design while also having unique and characterized features and builds. I really love that. You may not have even noticed it a whole lot in the movie itself (I did, though), but it really makes them feel more like an individual turning into a monster instead of just someone turning into a standardized creature like a transform ability in a video game.I'd say they're a good starting point for any werewolf concepts that want to go for the big wolfish humanoid look while still being scary and characterized!Designing werewolves after folklore can be tricky and even odd, given folklore varied very widely and also wasn't always very specific. Most werewolves in folklore turn into wolves, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Some also had paws they used as hands (does that mean they had hands? etc) and other variations. Some even looked quite ridiculous and not even very wolfish, with things like a tufted lion tail and red hindquarters! It got wild in folklore.Personally, I wouldn't restrict yourself to trying to stick too closely to folklore specifically. Design something cool, and most importantly, have fun with it and make it yours. My recommendation is just to stick with what you like and think looks cool and things that look wolfish in some way. Don't do like a lot of designers and tell yourself that a wolf is the last thing you should be drawing reference from; that's just silly. They're still werewolves. Granted, since you're interested in folklore and enjoy my blog, I doubt I need to say that, lol. I have other personal preferences, but at the end of the day, that's my advice to others.My advice might also sound a little bit canned, but that's how I feel. My werewolves in Wulfgard have a variety of designs per individual and other factors in the story/world itself and many other elements; their designs are something I have hashed out over the course of literally my entire life, so it isn't something to rush. I like a variety of designs, and curses are complicated in my world, and I've adapted that into the entirety of werewolf designs themselves. I'm really proud of what I came up with - be sure to check back to my blog in November for some big news in terms of my own werewolves and their designs... Sorry - shameless plug! I've got a big thing coming.Hope this helps, and hope you're having a great day! :)#asks#ask#anonymous#werewolf#werewolves#designs#Wulfgard#folklore#van helsing#movies#werewolf movies
maverick-werewolfRebloggedmaverick-werewolfFollowOn Werewolf Antagonists/Evil WerewolvesIt’s that time of year when the things I love the most get noticed and celebrated at least a little by everybody else (even though corporations still hate creating typical Halloween products that actually include werewolves; seriously go check your local department store, it’s been this way since I was a tiny tiny child)…Happy Howl-o-ween! Time for a special Halloween post!GIF by jacensolodjo(finally grabbed this game in a sale. Guess I’ll play it soon)First off - welcome (again), new followers! I had a big ol’ followers flux, in part because my werewolf masterlist made the rounds and in part because of Overly Sarcastic Productions’ new video on werewolves! I communicated a lot with Red about research for it; be sure to check it out. You’ll recognize pretty much everything in there, if you’ve spent a lot of time on this blog (and if you’ve read my latest book, too)!For a while now, I’ve been getting lots of messages and asks about werewolf stories and character concepts (and I always enjoy those!), but a lot of them have a something in common… an antagonistic or generally evil werewolf/werewolves or discussions thereof - or asking how to make a werewolf who isn’t an antagonist.While villain werewolves are great and can be totally awesome, they are generally terrible, and on average, we do not like those or support or encourage them here on this blog. My goal with werewolf (and wolf) education is to encourage the creation of sympathetic and not evil werewolves and wolf-related characters. This doesn’t mean they have to be “cuddly” by any means (I’m not a fan of that, either), but it would be great to see werewolf characters that aren’t one-note villains. Using them as villains is great, but I would so much rather see werewolf and wolf villains be done sparingly instead of the overwhelmingly “almost always” that you see today and have always seen throughout the history of entertainment.Historically, werewolves (and wolves in general) are always cast in a bad light and as villains, often being pure evil and menaces that must be stopped (read: killed), and that needs to stop for so many reasons. If you want to hear more about that, though, you should read my book on how werewolves in folklore are not what they are in pop culture, how werewolves are nothing but misconceptions today, and why that isn’t a good thing.All that being said, let’s move on to the meat of this post…How do you make werewolves not evil?There are many characters in stories. Not all of them have to be protagonists or antagonists. They do not have to be good or evil. Werewolves fit perfectly into shades of grey, whether they are directly cast as heroes or villains or not.I want to emphasize something here: Werewolves are characters first and werewolves second. Essentially, werewolves are people, too.It’s like any other character creation. If you create a character specifically to be “a female character” or “the love interest” or whatever, they are inherently going to suffer from that. If you make “the werewolf character” instead of making a character and then making that character happen to be a werewolf (or whatever other template you are applying), your character will never be as good as that character who was created as a character first and then the other element second. Do not let “being a werewolf” (or whatever other element is at play) dictate the character.Almost all werewolf characters in media are werewolves first and characters second. They suffer for that. They aren’t really people - they’re just plot elements.Werewolves are so much deeper than throwaway villains. At their core, werewolves are sill human, and they have problems and motivations and hopes and dreams like everyone else. Their lycanthropy affects that, not destroys it.If you do not want the werewolf to be a primary hero or working with the primary hero, they do not necessarily have to be the villain, either. Werewolf characters can come and go like any other characters. Their motivations can be a mystery - they themselves can be part of that mystery. They do not necessarily have to be good or evil, but characters with their own motivations.Being a werewolf does not have to impact them being good or evil at all. They could help the hero(es) directly or indirectly or only now and then, or they can be a looming threat the heroes hope they never have to face. They can be something that only helps the hero in their greatest moment of need due to the potential risks of doing so.Werewolves can be a mysterious hermit, the wandering loner, the person who never lets anyone get close. They can drift in and out of a story and help the protagonists in only minor ways. They can be the Gandalf.They can be literally anything in any story, if only horizons would be expanded. Werewolves are not a villain or antagonist, throwaway or not, by nature. They are characters, like everyone else. They just happen to also be werewolves, which only adds yet another very interesting layer to their characters - a layer that offers endless possibility and exploration, with so much character growth and development.Werewolves are generally assumed to be villains. The natural line of thought is to make them such. That is exactly what I want to change.The uncontrollable werewolves do not necessarily have to be the type to come charging out of nowhere, wanting to kill the protagonist and their friends for no reason at all. Give their animal side more depth, too. Why would it behave in such a way? What motivates it? Do you really want your readers to se your protagonist thinking that anything animalistic is an evil plague that must be destroyed, instead of just a part of nature that is trying to keep to itself? Or what if that werewolf was a hero, whether a hero or an anti-hero, instead of a villain - like all those other werewolves?There are so many things one can do with werewolves. They can be enigmatic heroes, they can be the shades of grey. They could be a force of nature, they can be guardians, healers, sages, seers, shamans - they can be the thing that goes bump in the night, the thing you never see but know is there. They can be knights in shining armor with a dark side (my favorite and also my primary werewolf protagonist), they can be the absolute perfect anti-heroes - the possibilities are endless!Werewolves do not inherently represent a force of evil or something to oppose the protagonists. They can take up any role in a story. Turn to folklore for ideas and inspiration! Read about them as great warriors, as heroes, healers, as simple wandering travelers - and as that friend you never expected could turn into a wolf and bring you a deer to eat when you got too hungry on the road.Werewolves are not something that always has to be “fought” in a story. They can simply be a part of the world and part of the environment, a character someone sees in passing. They don’t have to be at the forefront as heroes and villains. They don’t have to be “faced” and “dealt with” in some way every time they are encountered. The fact that so many people write stories in which the werewolf must be immediately dealt with and is “evil” only highlights further the fact that werewolves have been put in this evil light because humanity feels it must destroy and restrain the forces of nature instead of letting the wild be free.And if you want to have a werewolf who isn’t a hero (not all stories need werewolf heroes, either, after all), a great role for a werewolf is a red herring, since everyone does naturally assume a werewolf will be evil - but maybe that werewolf just wants to be left alone instead.Werewolves are often at their best when they are only under suspicion - when the characters are wondering and worrying about it. Wonder if that thing behind them is the werewolf. Is the werewolf evil? Is it going to kill me? Are they even a werewolf? Like any horrific creature, werewolves are at their strongest when they are not front and center and tearing up everything, but when they are mysterious and a source of fear - when they are more characterized and less a monster encounter action scene that comes and goes in a hurry. When they are too powerful to be fought directly and are best just avoided.This is why werewolves make for such great horror and mystery - and that can also help characterize them.Maybe the protagonists cannot be sure if the person is a werewolf or not - and if that person is on their side or not. Maybe the werewolf doesn’t specifically help or fight them. And maybe ,at some crucial moment, the werewolf will appear and offer aid. Werewolves make for great enigmatic characters, especially when they are trying to hide their nature.Most folklore werewolves are not necessarily heroes or villains (though they often came in a more heroic variety before the Renaissance, of course). Werewolves can take so many different roles, depending on what story you want to tell.My favorite werewolves will always be those that have a dark side, not those that are sweet and cuddly. To me, if a werewolf is not in some way dark, it isn’t actually a werewolf (especially if they are just dog-people, which isn’t werewolves at all, but you’ve all heard me rant about that before). But that absolutely does not make them inherently villains - it makes them extremely interesting characters with endless depths to explore. Giving a character lycanthropy only gives them that much more substance. It should never take substance away - which is what tends to happen with a lot of werewolves in media, especially those one-note villain ones or the simplistic ones that are just a plot point in a mystery (and then are generally killed anyway).So do not fall into that trap of making werewolves the villain(s) in your story/setting/etc. Think of them as you would both individuals and a force of nature - the most dangerous wild animal of them all… but not in any way inherently “evil.”I hope this provides food for thought about making a character first and putting the werewolf element second - having that character you created react to being a werewolf the way a real person would, instead of existing solely as a plot element and/or a villain.Expect more in-depth writing advice posts on this topic in the future!And in conclusion… Happy Halloween!(If you like my werewolf blog, be sure to check out my other stuff!Patreon — Wulfgard — Werewolf Fact Masterlist — Twitter)
maverick-werewolfAnonymous asked:omg hi! i just came across your fortnite's Dire's werewolf review while googling fortnite werewolves skins. have u seen the most recent werewolf skin they came up with? his name is Wendell and he's just straight up a cartoon werewolf 😭 he's still cool but very silly lookinghttps://fortnite.fandom.com/wiki/Wendelland there's this other character named Lucien West who's implied to be a vampire hunter werewolf, but we don't have a wolf form skin for him 😞https://fortnite.fandom.com/wiki/Lucien_WestVERY late replying to this because I straight-up forgot asks existed, sorry about that-I don't actually play Fortnite - I played it briefly one Halloween when I could get Dire in the co-op mode and do his quests, hence the review - but I was sent Wendell when he released. He's much more a cartoon wolf-person than a werewolf, but he's neat. Dire is my thing, though, rather than Wendell. Dire is a werewolf rather than a cartoon wolf walking upright, as is Wendell, haha.I also heard there's a werewolf that has no werewolf skin. They really need to fix that. I'd also be curious to see Dire's werewolf form in LEGO...But yeah, I may not play Fortnite save for my one brief fling with it to do Dire's questline, but I definitely appreciate Dire either way. Have some action figures of him and stuff since he's a cool werewolf, and I like all of his forms: human, wolf-man forms, and werewolf form. I also love they actually did include the multiple forms and torn-up clothing for him - makes him so much more werewolfish!#asks#anonymous#werewolf#werewolves#fortnite#dire#fortnite skins#video games
maverick-werewolfRebloggedmaverick-werewolfFollowWerewolf Article - (Play As A) Werewolf Video GamesThe results of the poll for this month on my Patreon are in, and the winner is an opinionated article on werewolf video games! Apologies in advance if any of my opinions here anger you. I was asked for opinionated, so I went opinionated and did not hold back.For clarity's sake: this will be a relatively concise list of SOME video games in which you can or do play as a werewolf. It will NOT include every single game in which you can or do play as a werewolf, nor will it include certain kinds of playable werewolves that exist in gaming, for the sake of brevity. You'll notice some missing and then want to be first to tell me I left out [thing], but I assure you I am aware of those too. I am also not going to list games in which you can play as a werewolf but it requires either user-made mods or else playing in a custom campaign/tileset/server (like Neverwinter Nights <3), only games wherein you can play as a werewolf as part of base game or expansion pack mechanics.This IS a tiered list. It is tiered based on the werewolf gameplay mechanics and elements in the game.Let's get started. I will begin at #9, go to #1, and then I will close with some words on some other games that didn't make the numbered list.9. World of Warcraft: CataclysmNote: your player character will never have torn-up clothing or use his claws like in this artwork/like the enemy worgen doI'm just going to list Cataclysm here because, frankly, I don't even want to discuss WoW at Shadowlands and beyond... even if discussing the model update will reach into that era of content. Obviously, I don't play WoW anymore and haven't in quite a while, but yeah, I used to really enjoy it. Played it for many, many years. Probably too many.Cataclysm was a pretty outright bad expansion, but it did add playable worgen (something I obviously wanted from day 1 after seeing the worgen mobs running around), and they can even turn into human form, which is a must for me in terms of actually being a werewolf instead of just a wolf-person, which I wouldn't even roll. That was a nice touch I didn't actually expect from the devs.Unfortunately, the model update turned them into something far "cuter" and more cuddly than I liked, not to mention adding preposterous fur options like stripes and merle, but the human form customization was nice. Still, the model update drove me toward playing different races, like maining my kul'tiran and night elf instead of the worgen I was always ultimately pretty disappointed in, given his wearing fine armor and wielding giant weapons. Anyway, the entire game took a huge nosedive not long after the model change, so it's a moot point for me regardless.As for the deeper worgen lore beyond "they are werewolves with a funny name": I hate it with all my heart. I did my best to ignore every scrap of that and how they are just self-parodies, to delete the Gilneas/worgen starting zone quests from my entire brain, and especially to ignore the fact that they were all preposterously British despite England being one of the last places historically to even have many werewolf legends of its own. I have an article about that here if you are interested in the topic. The game made all of these things very difficult, especially how hard they wanted to drive home that the worgen are silly posh British parody dog-people strutting around in waistcoats and tophats instead of being fearsome cursed werewolves. So I won't bother going into all that.The mechanics are fun except for the fact that you have to wear armor and use weapons, so ultimately you just look like a beast-person instead of a werewolf, especially after the model change making them far more appealing to a certain demographic. If Blizzard had wanted to put in effort, they would have made your gear look tattered and would have made you swap to claws when you turn, but that would've been a lot of work. They could have at least added a specialized class or something and then also given it to some Horde races to make the precious Horde players happy. I don't know. I just think werewolves wearing fine clothes and armor and wielding weapons is immensely silly. They're supposed to be werewolves.So while they are extremely far from perfect, the worgen are at least relatively fun in that, if nothing else, you can go between werewolf and human forms and run on all fours as fast as the fastest ground mount, and I am deeply surprised they did either. I immensely enjoyed both of those things during my time playing a worgen, and they helped mitigate the great disappointment otherwise in many other regards - though not enough to keep me from maining other races, especially later on. But, in the end, WoW sucks now and it's unrecoverable, and WoW Classic is a joke, so I'll never be playing a worgen again anyway.8. Diablo III'm sure you were looking for this one - the werewolf druid in Diablo II (preemptive sidebar: I am not going to talk about Diablo IV). I love his design and gameplay mechanics. He's fantastic. However, he is of course yet another instance of "the werewolf must be a druid," which I personally find a little tiresome after so much of it. But hey, this was one of the earlier games to do that, so it predated a lot of the craze.At any rate, the Druid class in Diablo II obviously gets a werewolf form. It also gets a requisite werebear because werewolves can almost never just be werewolves, but at least the werewolf does not completely suck. You can also summon wolves, which is a bonus.While I'm not really that big on Diablo-type gameplay - I prefer either third-person or else a proper isometric, party-based RPG - so Diablo II didn't really hold my interest a lot, the werewolf druid is very fun and a very cool werewolf, the setting is great, and the werewolf suits the dark Gothic feeling and look of the game that is enjoyable and well conveyed in the first place. The werewolf druid is a great addition that I am glad they added.7. Baldur's Gate IILet me make something perfectly clear: Baldur's Gate II is, in my opinion, the best game ever made (only Uncharted 2: Among Thieves also makes this rank for me). Combined with BG1 to create the Baldur's Gate Saga, it is one of the best stories ever told and also my favorite game mechanics-wise, again alongside Uncharted 2 even if yes, I know that those games could almost not be farther apart in terms of mechanics. I absolutely love BG2 beyond words. Please note I am talking about the original Baldur's Gate II, as released in 2000, not the "Enhanced Edition," which is a disgrace to the game, the entire series, and a piece of garbage. It's shamefully difficult to find the original game anymore, but it's worth it over playing the EE; trust me. I'll try to spare you any further ranting on this topic, as the original Baldur's Gate Saga is something very close to my heart.Anyway, the werewolf in BG2 is - once again - a druid, specifically a druid subclass called Shapeshifter. It doesn't really have any werewolf gameplay mechanics in that you are not treated differently for it, nor do you transform out of your own control. In fact you will be spending the majority of your time in werewolf form, which can get quite tiresome. I'm not the biggest fan of a werewolf holding normal conversations with NPCs, etc. But regardless, it's there, and I love it, and it looks awesome, and that's more than I can say for so many games. Plus, you get cool bonuses and stuff. The power of it varies over time and with the progression of your character. I will not go too deeply into it, as I am actually an insane D&D video game nerd and even today I can spend far too much time building characters and tweaking numbers and doing ridiculous tricks in D&D games to powergame. If you want just one of my credentials I beat BG2 on the hardest difficulty with Ascension and no other gameplay mods. Long story short, the Greater Werewolf is quite powerful, and it shouldn't be a detriment to your party to either be one or bring along Cernd, one of my favorite companions.So don't listen to the people down on the Shapeshifter in BG2. You can get mods that make them overpowered, anyway. Also don't listen to my complaints about it not feeling werewolfish enough because that's nearly impossible to come by anyway if you're not playing the #1 game on this list. Go try one out. It's fun! Plus, BG2 is the best game ever made.6. Altered BeastWhat are some of Mav's favorite things? Ancient Greece, hoplites, hot men, werewolves, dragons, tigers...When I found out Altered Beast exists and is a game wherein you play as an awesome hoplite dude and turn into a werewolf, a green dragon, a tiger-man, and ultimately a werewolf is still the most powerful of all his forms, I was ecstatic. I had to play it immediately.I wasn't disappointed. It's a fun, unforgiving game, because it was made before video games started becoming what I think we're supposed to call accessible today. I don't know what else there is to say about the game if what I've already said hasn't convinced you to play it. The werewolf form is your first transformation, and your most powerful is a golden werewolf. Me being me, I appreciate that a werewolf form is still the best in the end instead of being outshone by other creatures, and even the other forms available are all very cool.As I said, I really don't know what more one could ask for of this setting and gameplay. I've never been picky about genre; I play a very wide variety of video games and have plenty of fun, and I certainly had fun with this one.(Note: I'm not going to talk about that 2005 Altered Beast remake, I like to pretend it never happened)5. Werewolf the Apocalypse: EarthbloodI'll be the first to admit I'm far from the biggest World of Darkness fan ever, as has brought many insults my way already, but I was pleasantly surprised by the mechanics of the werewolf form in Earthblood. I will not call it the "crinos form," as that terminology is so immensely silly that I could no longer take it seriously if I did. So anyway, the gameplay actually lets you feel like a werewolf, and you even get two stances you can swap between for different combat styles instead of anchoring werewolves down to just doing one thing. I'm not going to wax on about the lore, the story, etc. - but man the werewolf mechanics really are fun. It is, of course, the main draw of the whole deal, and they didn't slouch on that element.It's important to me that a werewolf feel powerful and also violent. Werewolves should not be cuddly, or else they are no longer werewolves. Painting hallways with the blood of my enemies as if I'm recreating the Ninja lead-up in Metal Gear Solid while in werewolf form is cathartic and a good way to give the player a sense of being a werewolf instead of just an animal-headed person. This is a very solid "play as a werewolf" game, and one of the few games that exist with the primary purpose of letting you really play as a werewolf, whether you are a predetermined character or not. Be warned, the game is notoriously janky, but if you're like me, you're enjoying the werewolf mechanics enough that you don't care - or you can be even more like me and not give a toss about "jankiness" in a game in the first place.4. The Elder Scrolls V: SkyrimWhile a significant and crushing downgrade from the werewolves in certain other Elder Scrolls entries - more on that momentarily - at least Skyrim let you become a werewolf in the base game. No waiting for an expansion pack and no waiting forever until you move on (thanks, Oblivion). However, the differences between the mechanics of werewolves in past entries and the Skyrim werewolves are many and tragic. I confess I did not play Skyrim much, partially as a result of these exact elements, and partially because I just don't spend much time playing video games anymore, among other things.In Skyrim, being a werewolf becomes what is colloquially called an "awesome button," letting you turn into a big, strong, cool werewolf that can eat people to extend your werewolf timer. It's great and enjoyable, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't actually feel as if you are truly cursed with lycanthropy or smelly lupus or whatever silly name Elder Scrolls gave it (yes, I know the name, but that doesn't make it less silly). You have no real disadvantages to being a werewolf, such as having to worry about when you will transform outside your own control - because you never will, which is an immense downgrade in terms of feeling werewolfish and adding appropriate challenge and downside to being a werewolf. You also don't have to worry about being forced to devour a civilized race in order to sate your accursed hunger. Instead, you're doing that on purpose to turn out of werewolf form again, because the more you eat, the longer you stay transformed. Still, the werewolves in Skyrim are good - they just don't compare to previous entries. But I certainly appreciate them and the fact that they are present in the base game.3. The Sims 3Trust me, they do look better in game, but I couldn't find any of my own screenshots because it's been a hot minute since I played this.You probably think I'm trolling you, but the werewolves in The Sims have always been pretty fun; I remember when the ones in 2 first came out, I enjoyed them like crazy. The ones in 3 rocked and were easily the best variant; too bad the game is relatively difficult to get running properly, and many aspects of the werewolves are delicate and easy to glitch, including your entire Sim's werewolf form design. I am not going to talk about those abominations that were added to The Sims 4, because they are some of the worst things I have ever had the misfortune of seeing and are not werewolves by any metric.Sims 3 changed the aspects of Sims 2 werewolves that I didn't like, such as how being a werewolf altered your sim's entire personality over time and how the werewolf form always looked the same. They made the system much more robust. Frankly, the Sims 3 werewolves are some of the better werewolves in gaming, especially for the kind of game that The Sims is (expect assorted dog jokes, for example, given it's The Sims, yet it still isn't half as bad as it could be). I also love the wolf-man design; it works much better with Sims than something bigger and more wolfish. Certainly far better than whatever the hell is in Sims 4, which again, I will try my best not to talk about.Anyway, I absolutely recommend Sims 3 if you enjoy Sims games and werewolves and want to have some werewolf fun. I'd probably still be occasionally blowing my finite amount of time on this earth playing it if I had it properly running on my current PC.2. The Elder Scrolls II: DaggerfallBet you didn't expect to see this one, did you? You thought I was gonna say Skyrim as #2, right? Actually, I bet you thought I was going to say that one as #1.The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall is a game many would consider unapproachable today. I enjoyed it. Obviously, I played it for the playable werewolf, and I had fun! They work similarly to the ones in Bloodmoon, but, in my opinion, they still aren't as fantastic as the Bloodmoon ones. But the game does force you to actually live and behave as a werewolf - I love the werewolf hunter[s] mechanic - which, again... it's almost the only one of its kind other than Bloodmoon. For that, it gets #2 on this list.And that means you know what makes #1, untouched in its glory, undimmed by time...1. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - BloodmoonAlright. Have I ever talked about how this is the single greatest werewolf game ever made? I think I have, but let's get into it again.I like Morrowind in the first place. I think it's hands down the best of the Elder Scrolls series and, frankly, the only one really worth dedicating much time to (forgive me). I played it when it first came out, and while I have never been the kind of person to pour hours into any ES or even any other open world game, Morrowind held my attention even as a kid - before I knew about "open world" and before it was such a buzzword - whereas other games before and after it struggled to do so or else failed entirely. Morrowind was groundbreaking for its time in many ways. And then they announced the expansion pack called Bloodmoon that would let you play as a werewolf. I was so excited I could hardly stand it, and even with my extreme werewolf pickiness, I was not disappointed. At all.This is a game wherein the werewolves are treated as a serious threat, they are insanely rare to encounter in the wild in any capacity (I actually became a werewolf through a random encounter because I ran around on Solstheim obsessively every night rather than just becoming one through the story - it took me many nights, IRL, to encounter one), and when you do run into them, they are likely to destroy you. You are insanely, over the top powerful when you turn into a werewolf, yourself. Some would even call it stupid. I would not. You run at the speed of light and your jump turns into borderline flight. It's basically gliding. You're also preposterously powerful in general. I love it.Most importantly of all, however, is that you are actually forced to roleplay as a werewolf. You will turn each night, and you must consume 1 victim NPC of any of the playable races. Solstheim is full of assorted enemies that will work for this, but when you go back to Vvardenfell, it can be harder to find a nightly meal while avoiding devouring any quest NPCs. Plus, you have to manage your gear before and after transformations, and you have to be sure you are never witnessed transforming. The entire system is in-depth and very awesome, making you actually feel like a cursed being that has to worry when the sun starts to set, forcing you to run far from civilization.I cannot put into words how much I adore this game's werewolf system. Nothing compares. This is a real werewolf system, instead of "play as a wolf-person" or "hit the awesome button to become a werewolf for a little while with 0 consequences" like basically every other werewolf game out there.So long story short, if you claim to love werewolves and want to play as one in a video game, and you haven't played Bloodmoon, then you're lying to yourself and the whole world. Shame on you.And now for things that didn't make the list...10. Assorted AcknowledgementsThis category is for ones I don't even really have a lot to say about, but I figured I would mention them.Terraria - You can get an item that lets you turn into a werewolf when night falls. It's pretty fun! I like the mechanics of it, plus it has a neat werewolf design, to boot. I dock serious points in this game for straight-up replacing the zombies with hordes of werewolves in hard mode, though. "Werewolf infestations" and werewolves being zombie stand-ins these days is preposterous and overdone. But I had a lot of fun running around as a werewolf and exploring, so it's absolutely top of the non-tiered list especially as far as werewolf mechanics go.Pillars of Eternity - The "werewolf" in this game is one of several animal-person forms the druid can get, continuing the common theme in gaming of druid werewolves. The wolf is decidedly the worst of the lot, less useful even than the prey animals available. Put bluntly: they are basically terrible, and you're an idiot to ever use this form when there are so many build options available. There are also lots of other RPG options available. As in other games out there in the world. You should play those instead.Guild Wars 2 - You cannot actually play as a werewolf in Guild Wars 2, but I figured I would mention it because lots of people do. If you want to roll one of the Norn giant race, either as a pretty giant woman who is the mommy stepping on you from some men's dreams or as the ugly tiny-headed cartoon men, you can get an ability to turn into a werewolf for like 30 seconds; it's far from exciting. And like so many werewolf abilities today, it comes with the option to also turn into other humanoid animals with different abilities. I've heard that, of them, only the cat and bear are useful, which is not a shocker as video game logic goes (game devs think wolves straight up suck at everything lol). I didn't play a Norn during my stint with Guild Wars 2 - I played a male human. He's Nolan North, so he's obviously the only choice and also why I played the game as much as I did.The Elder Scrolls Online - This disgraceful abomination of a "game" is terrible in every way and could not have been a bigger disappointment on the promise of an "Elder Scrolls but MMORPG" concept even from the very beginning. It was never good, it only ever got worse, and I am happy to say I abandoned it long ago (I am not happy to say I was playing it in early closed beta because of the promise of werewolves - and I played it far more than I should have, so I am not coming at this from ignorance). It is a game with designs so ugly and unremarkable that you want to quit and walk through the woods just to remind yourself beauty still exists in the world. ESO clearly had no idea what direction to take itself in from the moment it dropped, and it certainly was never created with the pretense of playing like an Elder Scrolls game but being massively multiplayer. It has no sense of mood or atmosphere whatsoever and possesses writing that will make you long for the riveting tales in other low-rent, low-thought MMORPGs. You can play as a hideous weird sad werewolf model that is absurdly small (most likely smaller than the race you are playing as, which means you actually shrink when you transform) and should have been left in beta, which functions like a worse awesome button werewolf than the ones in Skyrim, because you also suck gameplay-wise especially depending on the dev's mood with the meta. It is terrible, as is everything about the game. ESO also went out of its way to completely wreck all previous Elder Scrolls werewolf lore that was actually really good. Anyway, don't play this. Your time is worth more than that, even if you don't think it is.That covers some of the best! Requisite apologies if I didn't include your favorite.( Free Newsletter — Patreon — Wulfgard — Werewolf Fact Masterlist — Twitter — Vampire Fact Masterlist — Amazon Author page )
maverick-werewolfWerewolf Article - (Play As A) Werewolf Video GamesThe results of the poll for this month on my Patreon are in, and the winner is an opinionated article on werewolf video games! Apologies in advance if any of my opinions here anger you. I was asked for opinionated, so I went opinionated and did not hold back.For clarity's sake: this will be a relatively concise list of SOME video games in which you can or do play as a werewolf. It will NOT include every single game in which you can or do play as a werewolf, nor will it include certain kinds of playable werewolves that exist in gaming, for the sake of brevity. You'll notice some missing and then want to be first to tell me I left out [thing], but I assure you I am aware of those too. I am also not going to list games in which you can play as a werewolf but it requires either user-made mods or else playing in a custom campaign/tileset/server (like Neverwinter Nights <3), only games wherein you can play as a werewolf as part of base game or expansion pack mechanics.This IS a tiered list. It is tiered based on the werewolf gameplay mechanics and elements in the game.Let's get started. I will begin at #9, go to #1, and then I will close with some words on some other games that didn't make the numbered list.9. World of Warcraft: CataclysmNote: your player character will never have torn-up clothing or use his claws like in this artwork/like the enemy worgen doI'm just going to list Cataclysm here because, frankly, I don't even want to discuss WoW at Shadowlands and beyond... even if discussing the model update will reach into that era of content. Obviously, I don't play WoW anymore and haven't in quite a while, but yeah, I used to really enjoy it. Played it for many, many years. Probably too many.Cataclysm was a pretty outright bad expansion, but it did add playable worgen (something I obviously wanted from day 1 after seeing the worgen mobs running around), and they can even turn into human form, which is a must for me in terms of actually being a werewolf instead of just a wolf-person, which I wouldn't even roll. That was a nice touch I didn't actually expect from the devs.Unfortunately, the model update turned them into something far "cuter" and more cuddly than I liked, not to mention adding preposterous fur options like stripes and merle, but the human form customization was nice. Still, the model update drove me toward playing different races, like maining my kul'tiran and night elf instead of the worgen I was always ultimately pretty disappointed in, given his wearing fine armor and wielding giant weapons. Anyway, the entire game took a huge nosedive not long after the model change, so it's a moot point for me regardless.As for the deeper worgen lore beyond "they are werewolves with a funny name": I hate it with all my heart. I did my best to ignore every scrap of that and how they are just self-parodies, to delete the Gilneas/worgen starting zone quests from my entire brain, and especially to ignore the fact that they were all preposterously British despite England being one of the last places historically to even have many werewolf legends of its own. I have an article about that here if you are interested in the topic. The game made all of these things very difficult, especially how hard they wanted to drive home that the worgen are silly posh British parody dog-people strutting around in waistcoats and tophats instead of being fearsome cursed werewolves. So I won't bother going into all that.The mechanics are fun except for the fact that you have to wear armor and use weapons, so ultimately you just look like a beast-person instead of a werewolf, especially after the model change making them far more appealing to a certain demographic. If Blizzard had wanted to put in effort, they would have made your gear look tattered and would have made you swap to claws when you turn, but that would've been a lot of work. They could have at least added a specialized class or something and then also given it to some Horde races to make the precious Horde players happy. I don't know. I just think werewolves wearing fine clothes and armor and wielding weapons is immensely silly. They're supposed to be werewolves.So while they are extremely far from perfect, the worgen are at least relatively fun in that, if nothing else, you can go between werewolf and human forms and run on all fours as fast as the fastest ground mount, and I am deeply surprised they did either. I immensely enjoyed both of those things during my time playing a worgen, and they helped mitigate the great disappointment otherwise in many other regards - though not enough to keep me from maining other races, especially later on. But, in the end, WoW sucks now and it's unrecoverable, and WoW Classic is a joke, so I'll never be playing a worgen again anyway.8. Diablo III'm sure you were looking for this one - the werewolf druid in Diablo II (preemptive sidebar: I am not going to talk about Diablo IV). I love his design and gameplay mechanics. He's fantastic. However, he is of course yet another instance of "the werewolf must be a druid," which I personally find a little tiresome after so much of it. But hey, this was one of the earlier games to do that, so it predated a lot of the craze.At any rate, the Druid class in Diablo II obviously gets a werewolf form. It also gets a requisite werebear because werewolves can almost never just be werewolves, but at least the werewolf does not completely suck. You can also summon wolves, which is a bonus.While I'm not really that big on Diablo-type gameplay - I prefer either third-person or else a proper isometric, party-based RPG - so Diablo II didn't really hold my interest a lot, the werewolf druid is very fun and a very cool werewolf, the setting is great, and the werewolf suits the dark Gothic feeling and look of the game that is enjoyable and well conveyed in the first place. The werewolf druid is a great addition that I am glad they added.7. Baldur's Gate IILet me make something perfectly clear: Baldur's Gate II is, in my opinion, the best game ever made (only Uncharted 2: Among Thieves also makes this rank for me). Combined with BG1 to create the Baldur's Gate Saga, it is one of the best stories ever told and also my favorite game mechanics-wise, again alongside Uncharted 2 even if yes, I know that those games could almost not be farther apart in terms of mechanics. I absolutely love BG2 beyond words. Please note I am talking about the original Baldur's Gate II, as released in 2000, not the "Enhanced Edition," which is a disgrace to the game, the entire series, and a piece of garbage. It's shamefully difficult to find the original game anymore, but it's worth it over playing the EE; trust me. I'll try to spare you any further ranting on this topic, as the original Baldur's Gate Saga is something very close to my heart.Anyway, the werewolf in BG2 is - once again - a druid, specifically a druid subclass called Shapeshifter. It doesn't really have any werewolf gameplay mechanics in that you are not treated differently for it, nor do you transform out of your own control. In fact you will be spending the majority of your time in werewolf form, which can get quite tiresome. I'm not the biggest fan of a werewolf holding normal conversations with NPCs, etc. But regardless, it's there, and I love it, and it looks awesome, and that's more than I can say for so many games. Plus, you get cool bonuses and stuff. The power of it varies over time and with the progression of your character. I will not go too deeply into it, as I am actually an insane D&D video game nerd and even today I can spend far too much time building characters and tweaking numbers and doing ridiculous tricks in D&D games to powergame. If you want just one of my credentials I beat BG2 on the hardest difficulty with Ascension and no other gameplay mods. Long story short, the Greater Werewolf is quite powerful, and it shouldn't be a detriment to your party to either be one or bring along Cernd, one of my favorite companions.So don't listen to the people down on the Shapeshifter in BG2. You can get mods that make them overpowered, anyway. Also don't listen to my complaints about it not feeling werewolfish enough because that's nearly impossible to come by anyway if you're not playing the #1 game on this list. Go try one out. It's fun! Plus, BG2 is the best game ever made.6. Altered BeastWhat are some of Mav's favorite things? Ancient Greece, hoplites, hot men, werewolves, dragons, tigers...When I found out Altered Beast exists and is a game wherein you play as an awesome hoplite dude and turn into a werewolf, a green dragon, a tiger-man, and ultimately a werewolf is still the most powerful of all his forms, I was ecstatic. I had to play it immediately.I wasn't disappointed. It's a fun, unforgiving game, because it was made before video games started becoming what I think we're supposed to call accessible today. I don't know what else there is to say about the game if what I've already said hasn't convinced you to play it. The werewolf form is your first transformation, and your most powerful is a golden werewolf. Me being me, I appreciate that a werewolf form is still the best in the end instead of being outshone by other creatures, and even the other forms available are all very cool.As I said, I really don't know what more one could ask for of this setting and gameplay. I've never been picky about genre; I play a very wide variety of video games and have plenty of fun, and I certainly had fun with this one.(Note: I'm not going to talk about that 2005 Altered Beast remake, I like to pretend it never happened)5. Werewolf the Apocalypse: EarthbloodI'll be the first to admit I'm far from the biggest World of Darkness fan ever, as has brought many insults my way already, but I was pleasantly surprised by the mechanics of the werewolf form in Earthblood. I will not call it the "crinos form," as that terminology is so immensely silly that I could no longer take it seriously if I did. So anyway, the gameplay actually lets you feel like a werewolf, and you even get two stances you can swap between for different combat styles instead of anchoring werewolves down to just doing one thing. I'm not going to wax on about the lore, the story, etc. - but man the werewolf mechanics really are fun. It is, of course, the main draw of the whole deal, and they didn't slouch on that element.It's important to me that a werewolf feel powerful and also violent. Werewolves should not be cuddly, or else they are no longer werewolves. Painting hallways with the blood of my enemies as if I'm recreating the Ninja lead-up in Metal Gear Solid while in werewolf form is cathartic and a good way to give the player a sense of being a werewolf instead of just an animal-headed person. This is a very solid "play as a werewolf" game, and one of the few games that exist with the primary purpose of letting you really play as a werewolf, whether you are a predetermined character or not. Be warned, the game is notoriously janky, but if you're like me, you're enjoying the werewolf mechanics enough that you don't care - or you can be even more like me and not give a toss about "jankiness" in a game in the first place.4. The Elder Scrolls V: SkyrimWhile a significant and crushing downgrade from the werewolves in certain other Elder Scrolls entries - more on that momentarily - at least Skyrim let you become a werewolf in the base game. No waiting for an expansion pack and no waiting forever until you move on (thanks, Oblivion). However, the differences between the mechanics of werewolves in past entries and the Skyrim werewolves are many and tragic. I confess I did not play Skyrim much, partially as a result of these exact elements, and partially because I just don't spend much time playing video games anymore, among other things.In Skyrim, being a werewolf becomes what is colloquially called an "awesome button," letting you turn into a big, strong, cool werewolf that can eat people to extend your werewolf timer. It's great and enjoyable, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't actually feel as if you are truly cursed with lycanthropy or smelly lupus or whatever silly name Elder Scrolls gave it (yes, I know the name, but that doesn't make it less silly). You have no real disadvantages to being a werewolf, such as having to worry about when you will transform outside your own control - because you never will, which is an immense downgrade in terms of feeling werewolfish and adding appropriate challenge and downside to being a werewolf. You also don't have to worry about being forced to devour a civilized race in order to sate your accursed hunger. Instead, you're doing that on purpose to turn out of werewolf form again, because the more you eat, the longer you stay transformed. Still, the werewolves in Skyrim are good - they just don't compare to previous entries. But I certainly appreciate them and the fact that they are present in the base game.3. The Sims 3Trust me, they do look better in game, but I couldn't find any of my own screenshots because it's been a hot minute since I played this.You probably think I'm trolling you, but the werewolves in The Sims have always been pretty fun; I remember when the ones in 2 first came out, I enjoyed them like crazy. The ones in 3 rocked and were easily the best variant; too bad the game is relatively difficult to get running properly, and many aspects of the werewolves are delicate and easy to glitch, including your entire Sim's werewolf form design. I am not going to talk about those abominations that were added to The Sims 4, because they are some of the worst things I have ever had the misfortune of seeing and are not werewolves by any metric.Sims 3 changed the aspects of Sims 2 werewolves that I didn't like, such as how being a werewolf altered your sim's entire personality over time and how the werewolf form always looked the same. They made the system much more robust. Frankly, the Sims 3 werewolves are some of the better werewolves in gaming, especially for the kind of game that The Sims is (expect assorted dog jokes, for example, given it's The Sims, yet it still isn't half as bad as it could be). I also love the wolf-man design; it works much better with Sims than something bigger and more wolfish. Certainly far better than whatever the hell is in Sims 4, which again, I will try my best not to talk about.Anyway, I absolutely recommend Sims 3 if you enjoy Sims games and werewolves and want to have some werewolf fun. I'd probably still be occasionally blowing my finite amount of time on this earth playing it if I had it properly running on my current PC.2. The Elder Scrolls II: DaggerfallBet you didn't expect to see this one, did you? You thought I was gonna say Skyrim as #2, right? Actually, I bet you thought I was going to say that one as #1.The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall is a game many would consider unapproachable today. I enjoyed it. Obviously, I played it for the playable werewolf, and I had fun! They work similarly to the ones in Bloodmoon, but, in my opinion, they still aren't as fantastic as the Bloodmoon ones. But the game does force you to actually live and behave as a werewolf - I love the werewolf hunter[s] mechanic - which, again... it's almost the only one of its kind other than Bloodmoon. For that, it gets #2 on this list.And that means you know what makes #1, untouched in its glory, undimmed by time...1. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - BloodmoonAlright. Have I ever talked about how this is the single greatest werewolf game ever made? I think I have, but let's get into it again.I like Morrowind in the first place. I think it's hands down the best of the Elder Scrolls series and, frankly, the only one really worth dedicating much time to (forgive me). I played it when it first came out, and while I have never been the kind of person to pour hours into any ES or even any other open world game, Morrowind held my attention even as a kid - before I knew about "open world" and before it was such a buzzword - whereas other games before and after it struggled to do so or else failed entirely. Morrowind was groundbreaking for its time in many ways. And then they announced the expansion pack called Bloodmoon that would let you play as a werewolf. I was so excited I could hardly stand it, and even with my extreme werewolf pickiness, I was not disappointed. At all.This is a game wherein the werewolves are treated as a serious threat, they are insanely rare to encounter in the wild in any capacity (I actually became a werewolf through a random encounter because I ran around on Solstheim obsessively every night rather than just becoming one through the story - it took me many nights, IRL, to encounter one), and when you do run into them, they are likely to destroy you. You are insanely, over the top powerful when you turn into a werewolf, yourself. Some would even call it stupid. I would not. You run at the speed of light and your jump turns into borderline flight. It's basically gliding. You're also preposterously powerful in general. I love it.Most importantly of all, however, is that you are actually forced to roleplay as a werewolf. You will turn each night, and you must consume 1 victim NPC of any of the playable races. Solstheim is full of assorted enemies that will work for this, but when you go back to Vvardenfell, it can be harder to find a nightly meal while avoiding devouring any quest NPCs. Plus, you have to manage your gear before and after transformations, and you have to be sure you are never witnessed transforming. The entire system is in-depth and very awesome, making you actually feel like a cursed being that has to worry when the sun starts to set, forcing you to run far from civilization.I cannot put into words how much I adore this game's werewolf system. Nothing compares. This is a real werewolf system, instead of "play as a wolf-person" or "hit the awesome button to become a werewolf for a little while with 0 consequences" like basically every other werewolf game out there.So long story short, if you claim to love werewolves and want to play as one in a video game, and you haven't played Bloodmoon, then you're lying to yourself and the whole world. Shame on you.And now for things that didn't make the list...10. Assorted AcknowledgementsThis category is for ones I don't even really have a lot to say about, but I figured I would mention them.Terraria - You can get an item that lets you turn into a werewolf when night falls. It's pretty fun! I like the mechanics of it, plus it has a neat werewolf design, to boot. I dock serious points in this game for straight-up replacing the zombies with hordes of werewolves in hard mode, though. "Werewolf infestations" and werewolves being zombie stand-ins these days is preposterous and overdone. But I had a lot of fun running around as a werewolf and exploring, so it's absolutely top of the non-tiered list especially as far as werewolf mechanics go.Pillars of Eternity - The "werewolf" in this game is one of several animal-person forms the druid can get, continuing the common theme in gaming of druid werewolves. The wolf is decidedly the worst of the lot, less useful even than the prey animals available. Put bluntly: they are basically terrible, and you're an idiot to ever use this form when there are so many build options available. There are also lots of other RPG options available. As in other games out there in the world. You should play those instead.Guild Wars 2 - You cannot actually play as a werewolf in Guild Wars 2, but I figured I would mention it because lots of people do. If you want to roll one of the Norn giant race, either as a pretty giant woman who is the mommy stepping on you from some men's dreams or as the ugly tiny-headed cartoon men, you can get an ability to turn into a werewolf for like 30 seconds; it's far from exciting. And like so many werewolf abilities today, it comes with the option to also turn into other humanoid animals with different abilities. I've heard that, of them, only the cat and bear are useful, which is not a shocker as video game logic goes (game devs think wolves straight up suck at everything lol). I didn't play a Norn during my stint with Guild Wars 2 - I played a male human. He's Nolan North, so he's obviously the only choice and also why I played the game as much as I did.The Elder Scrolls Online - This disgraceful abomination of a "game" is terrible in every way and could not have been a bigger disappointment on the promise of an "Elder Scrolls but MMORPG" concept even from the very beginning. It was never good, it only ever got worse, and I am happy to say I abandoned it long ago (I am not happy to say I was playing it in early closed beta because of the promise of werewolves - and I played it far more than I should have, so I am not coming at this from ignorance). It is a game with designs so ugly and unremarkable that you want to quit and walk through the woods just to remind yourself beauty still exists in the world. ESO clearly had no idea what direction to take itself in from the moment it dropped, and it certainly was never created with the pretense of playing like an Elder Scrolls game but being massively multiplayer. It has no sense of mood or atmosphere whatsoever and possesses writing that will make you long for the riveting tales in other low-rent, low-thought MMORPGs. You can play as a hideous weird sad werewolf model that is absurdly small (most likely smaller than the race you are playing as, which means you actually shrink when you transform) and should have been left in beta, which functions like a worse awesome button werewolf than the ones in Skyrim, because you also suck gameplay-wise especially depending on the dev's mood with the meta. It is terrible, as is everything about the game. ESO also went out of its way to completely wreck all previous Elder Scrolls werewolf lore that was actually really good. Anyway, don't play this. Your time is worth more than that, even if you don't think it is.That covers some of the best! Requisite apologies if I didn't include your favorite.( Free Newsletter — Patreon — Wulfgard — Werewolf Fact Masterlist — Twitter — Vampire Fact Masterlist — Amazon Author page )#werewolf#werewolves#werewolf fact#werewolf facts#werewolf wednesday#werewolfwednesday#werewolf article#video games#video game#lycanthropy#lycanthropes#wolfmen#lycanthrope#shapeshifting#shapeshifters#popular culture#games#wolf#wolves#playable werewolves#elder scrolls#morrowind#skyrim#daggerfall#the elder scrolls#sims#LONG POST#extremely long post
maverick-werewolfRebloggedmaverick-werewolfFollowRandom Werewolf Fact #7 - Berserkers(A Swedish helmet plate from the Vendel Period (550-790) depicting, on the right, a wolf-headed and wolf-tailed berserker)There are certainly countless legends in Scandinavia about shape-shifters of all kinds - wolves, bears, boars, and plenty more, such as those of the eigi einhamir (”not of one skin”), who were hamrammr (”shape strong,” stronger than any ordinary man regardless of what form they took) thanks to their powers. But foremost among those are the berserkers, which are perhaps the most famous and most popular of all.So here’s your werewolf fact for the week: berserkers were much more of werewolves and wolf-warriors than they are bear-warriors, as they are so often portrayed today.First, let’s get a more general overview of berserkers themselves. They were featured in many different sagas, in which we learn that they are warriors who went into battle wearing the skins of wolves or some other animal. They had the ability to enter a superhuman, primal rage that gave them abilities well beyond a normal person’s - and as a result, they were feared warriors all across Scandinavia and even down into Rome.Berserkers could endure impossible amounts of pain and perform inhuman feats of strength when they entered into their enraged – or berserk – state, in which they behaved like maddened animals. It was often specified that no one could possibly hope to stand up to a berserker (and, indeed, terms for “werewolf” and “berserker” were often interchangeable, since it seems most berserkers in accounts were simply taken to be werewolves by the very nature of their rage), as they were simply too impossibly strong when they were berserk.To quote a description of berserkers from an ancient Roman account, “Their eyes glared as though a flame burned in their sockets, they ground their teeth, and frothed at the mouth; they gnawed at their shield rims, and are said to have sometimes bitten them through, and as they rushed into conflict they … howled as wolves.”So now for some etymology on this bear warrior thing: for years, scholars of all kinds have debated the meaning and origin of the word “berserker.” Some say it comes from words meaning “bare of shirt,” and others say it means “bear-shirt,” implying that they wear bear skins. All my research into the matter and discussion with other scholars, though, has made me take sides with Snorri Sturluson in that it seems the name “berserker” was meant to imply that these warriors often (but not always, as we see in the sagas) wore no shirt.The idea that they’re “bear-warriors” doesn’t really make much sense, given both the etymology of “berserker” and that the majority of surviving depictions and mentions of berserkers in writing and imagery shows them wearing wolf skins and exhibiting wolf behavior in their rages. There were mentions of bear warriors here and there, too, and certainly bear transformations in Scandinavian folklore, but the berserkers overall seem more closely connected to wolves than bears, both in the stories and etymologically.So what kind of sagas did they appear in? Well, in the Vatnsdæla Saga, we specifically hear about a commonly mentioned “type” of berserker - the ulfheðnir, or “wolf-shirts.” Then, another example appears in the Holmverja Saga, in which one character is described as being “son of Ulfheðin, wolfskin coat, son of Ulfhamr, wolf-shaped, son of Ulf, wolf, son of Ulfhamr, wolf-shaped, who could change forms.” Long story short, berserkers were very often associated with wolf shapeshifters.Then, of course, there’s a personal favorite of mine that I’ve mentioned before: the kveldúlfr or kveldúlf, the evening-wolf (which was later used as a term to generally mean “werewolves” in some writings). The namesake for these evening-wolves was a man simply named Ulf (meaning wolf), who went on numerous Viking expeditions. He was sought after for his great intelligence, so people frequently came to him for advice. But every day, around dusk, “he became so savage that few dared exchange a word with him … People said that he was much given to changing form, so he was called the evening-wolf, kveldúlfr.”So, next time you pick a Berserker class or subclass in a video game, just remember - that should mean it’s a package deal that they’re also letting you play as a werewolf! ;)(If you like my werewolf blog, be sure to check out my other stuff!Patreon — YouTube — Wulfgard — Werewolf Fact Masterlist — Twitter)maverick-werewolfThis week, a friendly recap of berserkers and how they aren’t actually associated directly with bears in any way and are much more associated with wolves!To refer to berserkers as “the bear ones” and ulfhednar as “the wolf ones” is entirely inaccurate, as ulfhednar are also berserkers - and are, in fact, one of the only “kinds” of berserkers for which we actually have surviving details.So berserker can refer to many different kinds of animal warriors, but from what we have that still survives, it was almost always - if it specifically referred to any kind of animal associated with a warrior - referred to a wolf warrior. And, in fact, did not ever really refer to a bear warrior.Berserker means “bare of shirt,” as in shirtless, not “bear” of shirt. Berserker has no direct connotations to “bear” at all - that is 100% popular culture, misconceptions, and academic nitpicking. Mostly it traces back to a lot of in-fighting and weird arguments, including some falsified sources, disagreements with one of our best and most reliable sources, and in general tons of other academic silliness. Berserker does not mean “bear” at all.For more on things that do have connections to bears, see my post on werebears!P.S.: Haven’t been feeling my best lately, but I have gotten your asks, and I promise I will answer them very soon! <3 Thank you for continuing to follow me. See you soon! :D
