Our Werebeasts Are Different / Tabletop Games

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• Ars Magica includes were-bears and were-lynxes.
• Bleak World has the werebeast as one of it's PC races. In addition to the standard werewolf, they also have Were Cats (Which are stuck as half cat/half human hybrids) at all times, were-cockroaches, and were-fish (which are the hardest to play as)
• Chaosium: Supplement All the Worlds' Monsters:
  • Volume I has two of these: the were eagle and the were hellhound.
  • Volume III has a few non-werewolf werebeasts: the weregriffin, were pard (leopard), were platypus, were skunk, were walrus and were wolverine.
• The Dresden Files: A shapeshifter template is available for making characters. Shapeshifters have a normal human form and any animal the player and GM can decide on. The "standard" example is a werewolf (because one of the editors is a werewolf), but were-ravens and other exotic examples are discussed in some detail. Bob takes exception to calling them all "lycanthropes" (claiming that "theriomorph" is a more accurate word), but Dresden shoots him down on the grounds that people understand "lycanthrope".
• Dungeons & Dragons, as a big Fantasy Kitchen Sink, collected a lot of variants. Generally, there are were-beasts and beast-weres (default form is humanoid and beast respectively) who don't like each other. Many of them even have their own gods.
  • D&D uses the term lycanthrope to refer to any sort of werecreature (though the second edition Monstrous Manual acknowledges the misnomer, and suggests "therianthrope" as an alternate name). There are multiple varieties of lycanthrope aside from the usual werewolves, werebears, wererats, weretigers, wereboars, and dire wereboars (hill giants that turn into dire boars). The 3.5 edition monster manual even has a template for any animal. They've always been able to take on the normal animal form and infect with a bite, but other details have cropped up with the evolution of the game, including the addition of a "hybrid" form equivalent to the Man-Wolf, the existence of natural lycanthropes in addition to infected ones, and the imposition of a whole new alignment (and personality) not just on the nonhuman forms but on the human(oid) as well. The most recent edition has the Lycanthrope template, allowing one to make were-anything characters. Recent publications introduced the Shifter player race, descendants of humans and lycanthropes, who were effectively "lycanthrope-lite".
  • Mystara has Chevall. The centaurs who turn into full horses at will and can be hurt only by silver or magical weapons and... that's all.
  • Van Richten's Guide to Werebeasts is an AD&D 2nd Edition, Ravenloft book with a host of rules on werebeasts. Unlike most settings, lycanthropes in Ravenloft are almost universally evil, except for the Lawful Good wereravens.
  • The tibbits, introduced originally in Dragon magazine and reprinted in the Dragon Compendium book, qualify. Their humanoid form is small, with Pointy Ears and cat eyes, somewhat resembling halflings. They can turn cats at will.
  • Dragon magazine also included a sillier variant in the form of the werehare. Among other things, the creature could only be harmed by magic weapons and holy hand grenades.
  • The old Night Howlers supplement for the boxed set/Rules Cyclopedia edition of D&D actually presented rules for weres as player characters in the Known World (Mystara). Notably, actually acquiring the full powers and immunities of "normal monster" weres took time and experience points and the ability to transform into a hybrid "beast-man" form only came at fairly high level after that. The book also explained the ultimate cause of lycanthropy in the setting as a magical virus that escaped from an Alphatian lab in ancient times — a literal case of A Wizard Did It.
  • Werewolves in 2e had three sub-varieties; the Loup-Garou was a more powerful werewolf (itself divided into two strains, lowlands and mountains) from the Ravenloft setting, the Seawolf is an amphibious werewolf that has a beast-form of a wolf-headed seal, acting as an evil counterpart to the system's Selkies and Wereseals, and the Loup de Noir is a "skinchanger" werewolf (puts on a wolfskin to transform and takes it off to become human).
  • Another 2e lycanthrope were Lythari, who are what happens when this trope crosses with Our Elves Are Different; they're Chaotic Good silver-hued planar elves who can naturally shapeshift into silver-furred wolves and back, who dwell in hidden pocket planes and forests that lie between worlds. They were introduced in Planescape, but are more associated with the Forgotten Realms.
  • Werefoxes, also known as foxwomen and werevixens, are a 2e edition One-Gender Race lycanthrope who appear as elven or half-elven women with silver hair in their humanoid form and silver-furred humanoid vixens in their true form. They're an evil, selfish, hedonistic race who are sterile, and reproduce by infecting human, half-elven or elven girl-children with their disease, causing them to become werefoxes upon adolescence; non-elfin "daughters" become increasingly elf-like after the infection takes hold, until eventually they are pureblooded elves, in terms of looks. They returned in 3rd edition, no longer restricted to which races they can infect, but still transforming them into elf-maids as part of the infection. They debuted in the Forgotten Realms, but are also highly associated with Ravenloft, receiving their 3e update in that setting.
  • Mystara has its own take on werefoxes, who are a gender-neutral race who are basically Chaotic Neutral vulpine counterparts to werewolves — their primary defining trait is literally that they feel a compulsion to be mischievous, play tricks and make a nuisance of themselves when transformed rather than going on homicidal rampages.
  • Ravenloft is home to Red Widows, which are an all-female species of giant spiders that can assume partially or wholly humanoid form. They get their name because they both look like color inverted black widows (red chitin, black hourglass) and because they seduce humanoid males to serve as sires and then food for their offspring, if not just food for the red widow herself.
  • As if the wereboars of common 2e weren't enough hog-shifters, Mystara included wereswine — Chaotic Evil gluttonous shapeshifters who alternated between the forms of indulgence-fattened humans and huge common pigs with a massive appetite for human flesh. And they didn't replace wereboars in Mystara, either; both species coexisted... and hated each other, striving to hunt, kill and eat one another wherever possible. Fun fact; the most ancient lore for the legendary Demon Prince Orcus actually declares he was a wereswine in his mortal life, before he died, went to the Abyss, and clawed his way to the throne of Demon Prince of the Undead.
  • The incredibly large array of 2e lycanthropes after the aforementioned consists of: werebears (iconic for being one of the only good lycanthrope strains), wereboars, werecrocodiles, werehyenas, werejackals, three varieties of werejaguar (normal, Mystaran, and Ravenloftian), wereleopards, werelions, werepanthers, wererats (with more powerful "wererat lords" leading them), wereravens (the only other good-aligned lycanthrope), wererays, weresharks (two varieties; normal and Ravenloftian), werespiders and weretigers.
  • Another Dragon article introduced giant lycanthropes. In addition to some giants being susceptible to infected lycanthropy, there were also two natural giant werebeasts; the shadkyn (voadkyn/mobat) and the polarwere (frost giant/polar bear, and unlike the regular werebear, evil).
  • Reverse lycanthropes (intelligent animals with the power to become humans or human-animal hybrids) have also appeared in several editions. The original and most well-known one was the Jackalwere (which also has a hypnotic gaze) but Wolfweres have appeared too.
  • 4th Edition lycanthropes (like many things about 4th Edition) are very different from the depictions by other editions. In most editions, lycanthropes are humans able to turn into beasts or beast-men, but 4e Lycanthopes are beast-men that can turn into humans or their proper animal counterpart. The only way to become a lycanthrope is to be the child of one; being bitten instead gives you a magical disease that varies from type to type. Also, traditionally neutral or good types were evil instead.
  • Fans of Planescape invented four unique planar werebeasts for their setting, which can be found in the netbook "Planescape Creature Codex":
    • Kitsunes are a variant werefox who can take on the form of a fox, an elf, or a hybrid of the two. Mischievous but not malicious (Chaotic Neutral), their most defining characteristic is that they gain multiple tails as they age and increase in power.
    • Peganthropes are a benevolent (Neutral Good) werebeast who are humanoids who can assume the form of a pegasus or a hybrid form. They are mostly male, and noted to be exceptionally charming and charismatic to women — however, their sense of freedom makes it impossible for them to sustain relationships, as inevitably they wander off again after several years spent in one place.
    • Werebunnies are an also-benevolent (Neutral Good) werebeast strain that consist entirely of humanoid women who can transform into rabbits and very literal Bunny Girls as their hybrid forms; they rely on mating with other races to procreate, always giving birth to mixed-gender fraternal twins; a son of the father's race and a werebunny daughter, which is born in hybrid form and remains in that shape until they reach the age of 7. They are characterized by being dimwitted but highly empathic^note Intelligence for a werebunny averages 5-7 — the normal human average for Intelligence in 2e is 9-10, contrasting Wisdom 13-14 and having extremely strong libidos which are bent in service to their overwhelming maternal instincts; their lore reads It is thought that werebunnies exist for motherhood, they live to bear and raise children; their character is totally structured around family and being nurturing and supportive. Because of this, werebunnies gravitate towards acting as barmaids, wet-nurses, and other roles where their maternal desires can be put to a productive use. It's considered an evil act to attack a werebunny, but there is one element of danger to them, however; werebunnies can infect others with the werebunny condition by biting them. Infected werebunnies transform into the Bunny Girl form (even if they were originally male) on the nights of the full moon, and are compelled to seek out male sexual partners, often targeting a specific man for whom the infected werebunny felt strong emotions (positive or negative) in their normal phase. The infected werebunny retains only hazy memories of performing carnal acts once their Involuntary Shapeshifting wears off.
    • Werestags are yet another Neutral Good werebeast strain who can assume the forms of deer, humans, or humanoid deer — unlike werebunnies, they are not a One-Gender Race and there are both male and female werestags. They are powerful ranger-clerics who seek to defend the wilderness, with males as the warriors and females as healers. A rarer more powerful variant is the Ro'we, which has white fur and blue eyes; these werestags often become adventurers.
  • The Tome of Beasts II sourcebook for 5th edition has the Aniwye, a grizzly-sized skunk with wolverine-like fangs and claws in its base form, but which can turn into both an ogre form and a hill giant form.
• Exalted features the Lunars, who are technically werebeasts in that they have one totem animal they strongly identify with and can easily shift to — but then again, they can shift into anything if they drink its heart's blood. Two of the signature Lunars (Red Jaws and Ma-Ha-Suchi) are technically werewolves, but if you go by signature characters alone, you've got wereowls, werecats, werebulls, wereorcas...
• GURPS:
  • GURPS Supers: In the Wild Cards supplement, Sewer Jack is a were-alligator.
  • GURPS Shapeshifters includes Kitsune, Selkies, Mayincatec Jaguar Warriors, and the Jayagat Tendrab (divinely touched were-lions defending India from the British).
  • Banestorm has were-eagles, were-snakes and were-bears.
  • GURPS Monster Hunters has all the Banestorm weres, plus were-tigers.
  • Discworld Roleplaying Game speculates about other werebeasts on the Disc besides the werewolves of Uberwald in the books, including island weresharks, jungle werecats, and Hubland wereboars and werebears. In the Port Duck setting, the old girlfriend of the owner of Brick's Cafe Ankh-Morporkian turns out to be a wereleopardess.
• Magic: The Gathering:
  • Werewolves have been present in the game since Greater Werwolf from 1995's Homelands set, but rose as a prominent type of in-game creatures with Innistrad and its accompanying marinade of Hammer Horror tropes.
  • Other, one-shot werecreatures include wererats, werebears and werefoxes. Another werebear, specifically a polar one, appears in the Forgotten Realms crossover set. In general, these are typed as being both Humans (or Elves or Giants or whatever) and the animal that they turn into.
• Munchkin has a werepenguin, a werehamster and a weremuskrat. They are all oversized and sharp-toothed — even the penguin has fangs.
• Pathfinder includes the iconic lycanthropes in its lineup; werebears, wereboars, werewolves, wererats and weretigers, along with the lesser seen werebat, wereshark, and werecrocodile. Bestiary 6 introduces entothropes, which are lycanthropes based on insects and arachnids, such as the weremantis, the werespider, and the werewasp; entothropes function in largely the same manner as lycanthropes, but are vulnerable to belladonna instead of wolfsbane and can transmit their curse through their stings in addition to their bite. In second edition, they correct the terminology, referring to them as "werecreatures" and pointing out that "lycanthrope" only properly refers to wolves.
• Rifts and other games in Palladium's Megaverse have them as multiple species, ranging from Wolves to Bears, and some of the big cats such as Werepanthers and Werejaguars.
• Shadowrun has Shifters, which are Awakened animals that can adopt human form (or, more rarely, the form of another metahuman).
• The Splinter: All playable races can all shift between three forms at will. In fact, the ability to shape shift is treated as a sign of sentience in the Realm.
• The Toon setting World of Obsessive Gloominess, as a parody of The World of Darkness, has werecows, also known as the Dairie or the Moopines. They are the sworn enemies of the hampires (vampire pigs), and regard their lips as a delicacy. Hence the name of their subsetting: Werecow: Ah, Pork Lips.
• Warhammer: There are quite a few werewolves and werebears living in the Northlands — in fact, lycanthropy (in the "turn into an animal/man-animal hybrid at will" sense) is one of the older Chaos Gifts, given by the Dark Gods to particularly ferocious warriors; in a particularly Grimdark twist, the transformation is no clean metamorphosis — the beast literally tears its way out of the human's skin, and the human then has to claw free of the beast's body. A distinct variant is the "Chaos Were", a mutant who can assume a human form, but then revert to their usually far gribblier true form when danger threatens. Particular examples include the skin wolves available as a tabletop unit for the Warriors of Chaos and a werebear named Beorn Bearstruck, who leads a marauding band of partial werebears as a savage mercenary company.
• The World of Darkness:
  • Werewolf: The Apocalypse, in addition to the titular werewolves, has eleven other breeds of shapeshifters called "Fera" or "Changing Breeds", described in their own Splat books. These are: the Ajaba (were-hyenas), Ananasi (were-spiders), Bastet (were-felines), Corax (were-ravens), Gurahl (were-bears), Kitsune (were-foxes), Mokolé (were-crocodiles, were-monitors and were-reptiles in general), Nagah (were-snakes), Nuwisha (were-coyote), Ratkin (were-rats), and Rokea (were-sharks).
    • There are also three extinct groups: the Apis (were-aurochs), Camazotz (were-bats), and Grondr (were-boars). There are also three extinct subtypes: the Ao of the Mokolé (were-tortoises), the Khara of the Bastet (were-sabertooth cats), and the Okuma of the Gurahl (were-sunbears and were-pandas), all of whom were fleshed out in the 20th edition books.
    • And on top of all this are the corrupted shapeshifters created by the enemy groups: the Anurana (were-frogs), Kerasi (were-rhinoceros), Samsa (were-cockroaches), and Yeren (were-apes).
  • Werewolf: The Forsaken:
    • In addition to werewolves, there are tools provided to build just about any wereanimal you can think of (in Skinchangers, Changing Breeds and War Against The Pure). Numerous other types of non-playable werecreatures are also present, such as the Balam-Colop werejaguars, the Suthanu-Sua werecats, the Surthu Athilal werefalcons, the Bith Balag werefishes, the Nidmuzug wereroaches and the Gudthabak werebulls.
    • Changing Breeds also explicitly gives us All in the Manual mentions of the Insect Races (were-insects), were-ammonites, were-bristlecreepers (ancient mammals), were-megatheriums, were-freshwater fishes, were-falcons, were-otters, were-eagles, and were-orangutans.

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