Werebeast

Werebeasts, also known as tami'ikeno, beastmen, or vulpinkind, are humanoids with animal traits not native to the planar world. They began appearing in it in small bursts around the year 310, and ending in 766. They exist in scattered groups all over the continent of Maney, but are concentrated in the southern half of the main body of Maney, especially in the nations of Nordmaa, Montase, Ebenland, Ismere, and New Dendarin.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Werebeasts are bipedal humanoids, some with the addition of a tail which responds to their emotions and intent in much the same way that those of cats do. In the skeleton, this manifests itself as roughly a dozen unfused coccygeal vertebrae, where the majority of the races in the world possess only three to five, all of which are fused into two to three individual bones. Only Draco, and by extension certain varieties of Dragonkin, possess more.

Genetics and Reproduction

Female werebeasts experience a heat twice a year, during which they are capable of being fertilized through sexual intercourse between a male and female. Upon conception, which occurs when the egg within the woman's womb is fertilized, the egg becomes a Zygote.
The zygote grows from a simple cell for roughly four cycles, at which point it is birthed. A female werebeast will not immediately be ready for pregnancy again following birth. They will often skip one or two heats before entering one again.

Growth Rate & Stages

A werebeast experiences largely the same growth stages as a human would, with some small differences.

Infant, 0 - 2 Years of Age

Shortly after birth a werebeast is totally helpless and incapable of taking care of itself, even more so than a human, as their pregnancy cycle is only two-thirds as long. It grows fairly quickly from this point, and is usually able to walk and speak simple words by the end of this stage or at the beginning of the next.

Child, 2 - 10 Years of Age

The majority of brain development and important learning happens during this stage of life. Speaking and gross motor skills are refined until they can walk and talk with relative proficiency. Growth spurts are common during this stage, gaining several centimeters in height.

Adolescence, 11 - 14 Years of Age

During adolescence, a stage of maturation occurs known as Puberty. Females will experience their first heats, but as they often come as early as the age of 12, they are not encouraged to indulge in them. Males will become sensitive to female hormones, becoming aroused in the presence of females in heat.

Adulthood, 15+ Years of Age

A werebeast physically grows and matures faster than most other races. Growing ceases at some point shortly after this phase begins, only gaining inconsequential amounts of height before reaching the age of twenty.

Senescence, 40+ Years of Age

This stage of life is characterized by growing weakness and illness simply due to age. Women will gradually slow their heat cycle until it no longer occurs, becoming unable to produce children. Both sexes become weaker over time until their end comes, whether from complications caused due to their age, other diseases, or unnatural causes.

Biological Cycle

Twice per year, most often during the seasons of summer and winter, female werebeasts enter a sort of pseudo-heat. While it is often referred to as a "heat", as this is the only time that they are fertile, they do in fact menstruate if not fertilized. Their reproductive cycle has been described as "A dry menstrual cycle" as they're only capable of conceiving for roughly one-sixteenth of a year. They can still engage in sexual activity, but they will not conceive a child.
Males are affected secondhand by the females, as they become aroused when they sense the pheromones that surround a woman in heat. As they are adapted for a twice-yearly intense heat, this has given werebeast males a negative stereotype of being sex-driven creatures. This is due to the pheromone output of menfolk females being nearly constant with spikes every four weeks rather than two weeks every six months out of the entire year. This causes them a state of near constant low-level arousal not found in humans and their kind.

Additional Information

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Wrebeasts possess the ability to orient their ears independently from both their head and one another. This combined with the size of their ears and their position atop their heads makes their hearing very precise. Their sense of smell is strong as well.
Their animal-like physiology comes at a detriment to the senses of touch and vision. The thin coat of flat fur that covers their bodies functions more as a defense against the cold than anything else, and acts more as a pad than any defensive mechanism. Their eyes, while not colorblind in any particular shade, are less sensitive to saturation than would be considered "normal".
When asked to organize twenty swatches of color from white to the brightest shade of red, blue, and green, male werebeasts were accurate up until the 13th shade of red, and the 15th of green and blue on average. At that point they either left them out of the list entirely, claimed they were all the same, or organized them to the best of their ability, placing them in a seemingly random order.
Women averaged slightly higher, able to accurately match the 16th shade of blue and green, and fairly higher in red, at the 15th shade on average.
Their sense of taste is also less sensitive as a result of being a primarily carnivorous species.

Civilization and Culture

Relationship Ideals

The typical werebeast clan might best be described as a large polycule, as the concept of monogamy is foreign to their culture. Individuals may or may not be intimate with more than one individual at a time, though will typically stick to a maximum of two partners at once, and the males will compete for the attention of females when it is a heat season. Werebeasts that have been raised among menfolk are far more likely to engage in monogamous relationships, though their very hormone-driven biology often causes their eyes to wander. 
This stems from a mindset that very much embodies the ideal of "it takes a village to raise a child". No one couple has complete control of their children, and while their parents are the most involved in their child's learning, the community's input is welcomed openly.
Non-monogamous werebeasts among the other races have a stereotype for being untrustworthy and manipulative, as well as promiscuous. This is due to the fact that members of the other races are likely to be kept unaware of the polyamorous nature of their relationship.

History

Werebeasts, unlike every other race living on the continent of Maney, have no real history in the world. They spontaneously began appearing in the forests of northern Exia in 310. After learning some denic, they claimed to have no recollection of where they came from. They formed their own migrating groups, subsiding on the proceeds generated by trading handcrafted goods and food harvested from the land around them. More werebeasts sporadically appeared until, in AC766, the last known clan of werebeasts appeared in the world. No more have come from outside the world since.
During this period, werebeasts were treated similarly to demons, as foreign invaders that intended to leech resources from their world and take them home, so they were barred from the interior districts of most major cities fairly quickly. This forced them to remain in the villages and slums surrounding them instead, or return to their caravans.
It was during the ghoul outbreaks that they began to earn the respect of the humans and elves, as they were experienced in hunting, farming, and staying on the move while doing those things. This allowed them to find a place as providers to groups of survivors that compensated them adequately to make up for the mistreatment of their clans. As the world recovered, they found themselves assimilated into the new nations and cultures that formed from the ashes of old civilizations.

Lifespan

50 - 70 years

Average Height

Males: 5' 7" / 1.7 m Females: 5' 2" / 1.57 m

Average Weight

Males: 140 lbs / 63 kg Females: 110 lbs / 50 kg