Lycanism

I warned Allan that we shouldn't have gone hiking at night, but he didn't listen.
You see, we were travelling between campgrounds in Sequoia National Park when something big and hairy leapt out of the bushes. Thankfully I was carrying a gun and I shot at the thing, sending it scurrying into the bushes. But that wasn't before it took a big bite out of Allan's shoulder. We had to bandage it up with one of my t-shirts...and I liked that t-shirt!

— A statement from Paul Takomi in the Scalegrey Institute

Among the various conditions of the multiverse, very few are as drastic and understudied as Lycanism. Only just beginning to be looked into as something more than just a dangerous plague to be stamped out, this condition marks a radical change in a sophont's appearance and mannerisms. With this condition, every once in a while, the sophont's body transforms into a bestial form driven by pure instinct and hunger. Oftentimes, they attack other sophonts, infecting yet more people and spreading the condition even further.

Infection and Stages

The bite or the scratches of a Lycan transfers the infection onto a sophont; this is well-attested in folklore and in statements gathered by the Scalegrey Institute. It is possible at this stage to use certain herbal or magical remedies to prevent the condition. If not, it will quickly overcome the immune system, rendering the disease incurable.

Allan was woozy and awkward for the rest of our hike; we ended it a couple of days early because his shoulder wasn't healing right. We took him to a hospital back home, and they did their tests and whatnot. Nothing wrong, just a bad scrape, they told me.
It wasn't a couple of weeks later that Allan showed up at my house, pale as a ghost and scratching himself like he'd been eaten alive by mosquitoes. That was my first clue that the mundane doctors had missed something.

If left untreated, the bitten or scratched area will become extremely irritated and inflamed, and the individual suffering from the condition will begin to hallucinate shadows or shapes chasing them. They will also become very irritable, lashing out at anything even remotely threatening. They might become more at home outdoors than indoors, causing them to eschew their usual social practices to be in natural settings.

Time passed, and I noticed that pets and wild animals started turning up dead around Allan's street. I got worried for him, and for his cats. Eventually, I resolved to talk to him in person about it, only to find that Allan was no longer at home. In fact, the pile of newspapers, letters and bills on his doorstep told me that he hadn't been home for over a week.

After about a month since the infection began, the individual Shifts for the first time. They will have no control over their body and any mental abilities they possess will be replaced by a primal, bloodthirsty rage. After a day and a night of constant feasting and hunting, the feeling will subside, and they will Shift back into their usual form, often horrified at what they have done.
At this point, the sophont will often seclude themself in the wilderness, desperately trying to get away from the judgement of civilization or from their loved ones whom they don't want to hurt. As time passes, they will get control over their Shifts, and might even seek out other Lycans to live and hunt with.

(The cameras I set up at Allan's place) only ever picked up birds, squirrels, the occasional raccoon. One day, though, I took out the footage and played it back, and I had to stop myself from shouting about what I found.
The footage showed a long panther-like cat, but much bigger than any cougar I'd ever heard of. It also seemed to slink around intelligently, even scaring something near the trash cans as if to chase it away from its property. It snuck up to the bait, deftly opening the trap with a smooth motion, and ran away with its prize without setting it off.
The part that really got me, though, was the unmistakeable scar pattern on the creature's shoulder, as if some creature about its size had bitten it recently and the wound had never quite healed over...I didn't want to admit it at the time, but it was him, without a doubt.

Type

Supernatural

Origin

Alien

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired

Rarity

Rare

Affected Groups

Any Sophont from any world can be infected with Lycanism

Types of Lycans

No one is quite sure how many varieties of Lycanthrope there are in the multiverse; just as someone claims to have categorized them all, another one is discovered. Some are only attested to in statements from the Scalegrey Institute, such as this one about a supposed "werepanther." Some other types include:

• Werewolf, the most common type;
• Weretiger;
• Wereboar;
• Werelion; and
• Wererat.

A Wererat

Origin

Equally mysterious are the origins of the condition. Some claim that Lycans are the remnants of experiments by the Fay into creating beast servants who could infiltrate sophont societies of the multiverse. Others maintain that it is the result of some magical mishap. All that is known for sure is that the spread of the condition has caused a lot of grief in the centuries and possibly millennia since.

Weretouched

A sophont species native to Renath, it's believed that the intervention of a divine being "cured" a group of Lycans, turning them into the first Weretouched. The bestial aspects of the Lycan still show in their furry bodies, pronounced claws and fangs, and their love of the primal wildernesses of the multiverse, but they are no longer trapped in a cycle of bloodthirsty carnage and can once again interact normally with other sophonts. That doesn't stop some from thinking poorly of them, however, and some Renathian cities forbid them to live there.