test content
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc

Lycantrhopy in Champions

I'm planning to create a werewolf hero, but before I want to know more about how the CU treats lycans, I know about the dogz and whitewolf but I want to know if there others ones or if even exits lycan heroes .

That's all and thanks in advance

Comments

  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited October 2020
    Therianthropy (the general condition of transforming from human to animal, or humanoid-animal, forms) is well established in the PnP game, and extends around the world, with several official "super" representatives. The range of possible forms the condition can take goes well beyond just "lycans." One example who's also a hero is Tiger-Man of Hong Kong. While all therianthropes tend to have bestial instincts and impulses, especially in their transformed state, in some those instincts are stronger than others, while some therianthropes are better at controlling themselves.

    CU supernatural therianthropy can have different features. Certain family lines can inherit the condition, but it can also be deliberately inflicted on someone through magic. White Wolf whom you mentioned above is one of the latter, as are the Basilisk and Vesper (in Champions Villains Volume Three). Some therianthropes are contagious, spreading the condition through bites, while others are not.

    There isn't much of a therianthrope sub-culture in the CU. Most of these shape-changers are solitary, or form small "packs." One notable exception is the long-established Chunhu clan in China, to which Tiger-Man belongs, which overall seeks to gain power by bringing more Oriental shape-shifters within their extended "family." Most Chunhu are recipients of the "inherited" version of the condition. (The Chunhu are briefly described in The Mystic World, while Tiger-Man is given more detail in The Ultimate Mystic.)

    This type of shape-changing can also have a scientific basis. Some therianthopes are genetic mutants, like the supervillains Menagerie (written up in Champions Villains Volume Three) and El Sauriano (found in Champions Worldwide). Other animalistic characters have been genetically modified either deliberately or accidentally, and some can shift between human and bestial forms, e.g. the supervillain Hornet (CV3).

    Because supers on Champions Earth can have such diverse appearances, origins, and behaviors, there's no particular bias among the public either for or against therianthropes, aside from the majority of people not believing in a supernatural explanation for them. Individuals are typically judged on their conduct -- heroic, villainous, or just trying to make a living.
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    Perhaps I should add that in the Vibora Bay source book the Dogz are mostly just a fairly typical street gang, and Guy Sweetland is a clever but otherwise normal organized criminal. CO makes the supernatural in VB more widespread and higher-profile, presumably to provide rotating random players with readily identifiable bad guys to punch. ;)
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    The cultists who serve the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca learn to utilize an interesting variation on therianthropy. They can project their astral selves in the form of a nagual, an animal-shaped spirit from Aztec mythology. A nagual on the Astral Plane is normally invisible and intangible to beings in the physical world, but can itself perceive that world, making naguals excellent spies. However, when the nagual desires it can manifest visibly as a jaguar (an animal sacred to Tezcatlipoca), and in that state can affect physical objects, including attacking people with teeth and claws. This precedent opens the door to PCs projecting other types of tangible spirit constructs while leaving their bodies behind, rather than physically changing their bodies.

    OTOH Tezcatlipoca's most favored servant on Earth is called El Jaguar, whom the god has gifted with superhuman physical prowess, but also the ability to transform into either a jaguar or a man-jaguar hybrid. All the above characters are written up in Champions Villains Volume One: Master Villains.
  • spinnefuchsspinnefuchs Posts: 10 Arc User
    Jaguar, 4th edition Champion, was from a cursed family line. Eldest person in line would turn into an uncontrollable beast. As generations passed, the beastform became controllable; though it still reduced the person's intellect.
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    Thank you, spinnefuchs. :) While that Jaguar isn't a character in the current official setting, the idea of a shape-shifting curse becoming more dilute over time, and therefore controllable, is a solid rationale for an origin, especially if you'd enjoy mixing in some tragic family history.

    There's also another applicable CU precedent supporting the concept. The supernatural assassin-for-hire called The Curse (Champions Villains Volume Three) was a modern archaeologist who discovered the long-lost tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh, but in opening it triggered an ancient curse transforming him into an undead mummy-like creature with the literal power of Death in its touch. The curse had been intended to compel its recipient to guard the tomb, but because its magic had been corrupted over millennia the man's intellect was able to gain control of its new form.
Sign In or Register to comment.