IFAQ: Moons and Lycanthropes

I’m still working on the article about Riedra in Fifth Edition. It’s a very long article and I still have a ways to go with it, so I wanted to break things up with a quick question from one of my Patreon supporters.

How do the multiple moons of Eberron affect lycanthropes?

The canon answer is simple: lycanthropes are affected by all of the moons equally, and this is one reason the Lycanthropic Surge was such a threat; it’s common to there to be at least one full moon at any time.

Now, that’s the canon answer. Personally, I say that the answer is more complicated and tied to the fact that we’ve never provided a canon explanation for the cause of lycanthropy. After all, if lycanthropy was created by an overlord, why are there ANY good lycanthropes? So my answer is that there are multiple forms of lycanthropy, each with a different relationship to the moons.

The most benign form of lycanthropy is Olarune’s Blessing. This is a condition that spontaneously manifests: it’s not hereditary and it cannot be transmitted by bite (or any other method). It’s primarily been observed among shifters of the Towering Wood, who believe that it is a sign of being called to service by Olarune, charged to protect innocents from the threats of the wild and to protect the wild itself from threats. Just as vampirism tends to pull someone toward an evil alignment, Olarune’s blessing draws a person toward good alignment; they feel a drive to embody the most positive aspects mortals associate with their animal form. However, this is not the absolute eradication of personality that can be seen in other strains, and those carrying Olarune’s blessing can choose their own paths. A lycanthrope carrying Olarune’s blessing is only affected by the moon Olarune. In my Eberron, most werebears are the result of Olarune’s blessing—but the blessing can be tied to any form.

The second would be Dyrrn’s Corruption. The daelkyr Dyrrn took twisted Olarune’s blessing to create this form of lycanthropy, which is both hereditary and infectious. Each strain of Dyrrn’s corruption associates an alignment (typically neutral or evil), a form, and a moon—neutral tigers tied to Rhaan—and overwrites the personality of the victim. So there may be neutral werewolves, and they will create new neutral werewolves when they spread the affliction. While Dyrrn’s corruption is infectious, it can only spread one step; natural lycanthropes can infect new people, but victims of the affliction can’t spread it themselves. So can spread, but not rapidly. When Dyrrn’s corruption fully takes hold, it destroys the personality and many of the memories of the victim; while there are neutral strains, they are alien in their outlook, and a player character overtaken by Dyrrn’s affliction would likely become an NPC. Each strain of corrupted lycanthropy is driven by its own inscrutable (and unnatural) instincts. Some pursue dangerous activities, acting as Cults of the Dragon Below; others are simply enigmatic, creating strange monuments in the wild or howling in eerie choirs. It’s also the case that Dyrrn’s while Dyrrn’s lycanthropes could be physically indistinguishable from other lycanthropes, they could be more alien in appearance or horrific in their transformations. Perhaps the corrupted werewolf transforms into a skinless wolf. Maybe only Dyrrn produces werespiders, and they aren’t actually natural spiders but rather alien, chitinous horrors. Or maybe the lycanthrope appears to take the form of a mundane wolf, but when you cut it tentacles reach out from the wound, or its blood has a life of its own!

The final form is The Curse of the Wild Heart. The Wild Heart is an archfiend, an overlord of the first age who embodies mortal fears of the wild. This is both hereditary and infectious. Regardless of the form, it enforces an evil alignment upon its victim, driving them to become predators; this is the infamous curse that will cause a werewolf to prey upon their own family and loved ones. Victims of the curse don’t embody any actual traits of their associated animal, but rather are driven to embody the darkest fears and superstitions associated with them. Victims of the curse of the Wild Heart are affected by ALL moons equally. The trick of the curse of the Wild Heart is that it fluctuates in power based on the current status of the Wild Heart itself. When the Wild Heart is dormant or distant, the curse only has the one-step affliction of Dyrrn’s corruption (natural lycanthropes can pass it, but afflicted victims can’t). When the Wild Heart is stirring—or if someone is near to its prison—the curse grows stronger. Under these circumstances any lycanthrope can spread the curse and the drive toward cruel and predatory behavior is amplified.

The behavior of creatures afflicted by the curse of the Wild Heart is extreme and predatory; this is the source of the terrifying tales of lycanthropic bloodshed. Natural-born cursed lycanthropes are still driven toward predatory cruelty, but they can learn to control these impulses. A key example of this is cursed werewolf Zaeurl, the leader of the Dark Pack of Droaam. She is a born predator and a ruthless hunter, but she isn’t controlled by the curse and doesn’t serve the Wild Heart; she chooses her own path.

The final catch is that the power of the Wild Heart trumps that of Dyrrn or Olarune. During the Lycanthropic Surge, the Wild Heart was close to breaking its bonds. And at that time, it co-opted ALL lycanthropes as its thralls. Even good-aligned champions of Olarune and neutral carriers of Dyrrn’s corruption became cruel predators bound to serve the Wild Heart. These lycanthropes returned to their previous states when the power of the Wild Heart was broken, but the threat remains.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to identify the form of lycanthropy you’re dealing with when you meet a lycanthope, aside from letting them bite you and see if you become infected. The short form is that if a lycanthrope seems to embody the noble aspects of the beast it’s bound to it is likely one of Olarune’s blessed; if it embodies the worst superstitions and acts in a predatory manner it carries the curse; and if it just acts in an unpredictable manner, it’s one of Dyrrn’s. Olarune’s blessed do not spread the curse of lycanthropy. Those cursed by the Wild Heart can currently spread it freely (using the standard 5E rules for lycanthropes!)… which suggests the power of the Wild Heart is again on the rise! Only natural-born corrupted lycanthropes can spread the curse.

Can shifters contract lycanthropy?

Yes, shifters can contract any of the forms of lycanthropy described above. The Towering Wood is a nexus for all forms of lycanthropy, and one reason it was so easy for the servants of the Wild Heart to turn the templars against the shifters during the Silver Crusade is because the vast majority of the lycanthropes in the first wave of the surge were cursed shifters. The shifters had been fighting the cursed lycanthropes well before the templars even knew of the danger. With the arrival of the templars, the servants of the Wild Heart knew they couldn’t allow shifters and templars to become allies, so they staged events and spread lies. Imagine that a werewolf leaps into a village and starts slaughtering people. When it’s finally brought down by templars, it reverts to its natural form—the form of a shifter. A local hunter swears that she’s seen whole villages of these things roasting farmers and howling at the moons. The hunter’s a wererat or a rakshasa, and the story is entirely untrue—but this was a time of sheer terror, when ANYONE you knew could secretly be a murderous lycanthrope waiting to strike, and it was all too easy for fiends to sow fear and hate. This in no way excuses the deaths of innocents; but it’s an example of the fact that in Eberron stories aren’t supposed to be simple. Innocents suffer. Stories end badly. If not for the Silver Crusade, the Wild Heart would have risen and destroyed civilization; but that’s cold comfort to the innocents who suffered and died.

So which type of lycanthropes escaped to Lamannia?

You could find any of the three forms of lycanthrope as refugees, though I’d say that it would be Olarune’s blessed who would have been most keen to find a sanctuary that would keep them from having to fight or kill innocents. I’ve said here that Olarune’s blessing is NOT hereditary; one interesting possibility would be to say that it IS hereditary in Lamannia, so that there are communities of blessed lycanthropes in the Twilight Forest.

Is there any geographic basis for the different forms of lycanthropy?

Any form of lycanthrope could be found anywhere in Eberron. Olarune’s blessing is the rarest of the three but could manifest in any place where primal magic is especially strong; this is often tied to manifest zones connected to Lamannia. Again, though, even in such regions the blessing rarely occurs. Dyrrn’s corruption typically spreads from a passage to Khyber connected to Dyrrn’s realm (while we haven’t suggested it, it might well be an issue in the Mror Holds!). Because of the nature of Khyber and demiplanes, this could be found anywhere. Likewise, while creatures afflicted with Dyrrn’s corruption can’t spread the curse, a natural-born lycanthrope can start a cult and spread the corruption to their followers. The curse of the Wild Heart is strongest above the Wild Heart’s prison—which is presumably in the Towering Wood of the Eldeen Reaches—but it is the most contagious curse and could easily spread. The Wild Heart also has rakshasa and other fiendish servants, and its more powerful servants may have the power to spread its curse. So all three forms are especially prevalent in the Towering Wood of Khorvaire, but lycanthropes can be found anywhere.

Do you see these as the only forms of lycanthropy?

Not at all. Of the top of my head, I can immediately imagine two more forms. I could see a form of lycanthropy tied to Thelanis, literally based on the STORIES of people becoming beasts. Beyond that, we’ve called out the existence of a cabal in House Vadalis called the Feral Heart (no relation to the Wild Heart!) that strives to create living weapons; I could easily see them developing their own strain of lycanthropy. In each case, I’d probably add a unique twist based on the strain. It could be that Thelanian lycanthropes are vulnerable to cold iron instead of silver, or that Vadalis lycanthropes aren’t tied to the moons at all. And that’s just what I came up with now; I’m sure I could develop other interesting options if I put my mind to it. Perhaps House Ghallanda has a secret line of lycanthropic blink dogs! Don’t be limited by the idea that all lycanthropes have to share a common origin and identical abilities; if you have an interesting story, change the rules to match it!

And to be clear: none of these ideas are canon. Within a particular campaign you might decide that it is only the Wild Heart who is responsible for lycanthropes, or only the daelkyr. I like having both out in the world, but there no reason not to just pick one form of lycanthropy and leave it at that.

That’s all for now! Next up: Riedra! Thanks again to my Patreon supporters, who make this blog possible!

39 thoughts on “IFAQ: Moons and Lycanthropes

  1. Neat!

    “The final catch is that the power of the Wild Heart trumps that of Dyrrn or Olarune.”

    I wonder if theres any way for the opposite to ever happen?
    The More Hostile Lycanthropic strains becoming less hostile?

  2. Dyrrn’s blessing made me think of the mutated werewolves in Shadows over Innistrad – Werewolf on the outside, horrifying tentacles on the inside.

    • Certainly. There’s no reason to think that you couldn’t have strains of Dyrrn’s corruption that get very strange. At the least, you could have hybrids with symbionts.

  3. Does the Tashana Tundra have lycanthropes? I could see Olarune’s blessing, and you could add Dyrrn’s corruption, but it also seems like a place you could stick a new type like you mentioned.

    • I could easily see a unique form of lycanthropy in the Tundra that’s tied to the influence of wild zones and reality storms.

  4. One source calls out that Dhakaani called the Zil gnomes hybrid wererats, is there history of actual wererats in the region or is that purely derisive conjecture on the part of the dar?

    • It’s largely derisive conjecture based on the facts that the Zil were small, clever, and could speak with burrowing mammals. But it’s entirely possible that there could be a clan of cursed wererats tied to it.

  5. Does this mean the Dyrrn strain might be possible in the Realm Below in the Mror Holds? Would Soldorak make use of this aberrant lycanthropy the same way they repurpose the symbionts?

    • Yes, I suggest that as a possibility at the end of the article. However, “possible” doesn’t mean “for sure.” Dyrrn has created a LOT of strange things over the course of thousands of years and doesn’t put all his eggs in the same corpse. And there’s not a lot of natural animals IN the Realm Below; it seems generally likely to me that Dyrrn would create lycanthropes using animals that happen to be around.

      I could imagine Soldorak and Narathun studying lycanthropy if they encountered it. But it’s not the same as making use of symbionts. Symbionts are just tools; they don’t control the user. Dyrrn’s corruption reshapes the personality of the victim; so Solodrak would quickly realize that afflicting someone with the corruption changes their loyalties and desires; they wouldn’t WANT to spread it widely, because it would turn their people into an alien threat. I can imagine them studying it and trying to figure out a way to use it safely, but this is a dwarf clan, not House Jorasco or House Vadalis; I’d think this research would be more likely to end in a terrible outbreak as opposed to them perfecting some sort of sanitized strain.

      • “there’s not a lot of natural animals IN the Realm Below; it seems generally likely to me that Dyrrn would create lycanthropes using animals that happen to be around.”
        Were-oozes. Were-ropers. Yes. This is good.

  6. I love the Eberron take on Lycanthropy, but I’ll never be able to explore it until my players ask for it.., it’s just such a big barrel to tap!

  7. Hey, Keith!

    Short question: How do you see the current vision and knowledge about lycanthropy? Since the Silver Crusades is there a best knowledge about origens and types of it? Do you see something as commoners still blaming shifters and authorities understanding this better or is still a mistery for almost everyone?

    • COMMON knowledge is still very poor. Remember that lycanthropes have almost been completely wiped out… and consider that even in the manuals shifters are called “weretouched” and “thin-blooded lycanthropes.” Certainly, knowledge of the difference between the Curse of the Wild Heart and Olarune’s blessing would be VERY obscure, in part because Olarune’s blessing is almost unheard of; the Moonspeaker druids know that it’s possible to have these blessed lycanthropes, but given that their power is rarely granted and can’t be transmitted to others, they’re extraordinarily obscure.

      We’ve called out that the CHURCH OF THE SILVER FLAME now knows better and is trying to help lycanthropes that can be helped. But even there, I’d tie this knowledge to a skill roll; the peasant likely still lumps them together, and it’s the friar whose studies allow them to know the truth.

  8. What does Jorasco know about Lycanthropy, seeing as how it’s mechanically a disease?

    “Any form of lycanthrope could be found anywhere in Eberron.”

    That kinda implies the outbreak that prompted the Silver Flame’s inquisition wasn’t limited to Khorvaire. What happened on Riedra during this time?

    In particular: If a Quori is in an empty vessel that gets inflicted with a strain that pulls the victim toward a non-evil alignment, does anything special happen to the Quori?

    • Secrets of Sarlona seems to briefly imply that the Edgewalkers and Savage Legion briefly and brutally dealt with it.

      So shifters, ogres/ogre magi and the Riedra equivalent of the Night’s Watch are the ones who were put in danger of contracting the disease, the Chosen would have been protected.

      It would be interesting to know if this was blamed on the altavar spirits or swept under the rug quickly to “return to regularly scheduled programming”

      I am just expanding from some very small part of one section of one book though

    • That kinda implies the outbreak that prompted the Silver Flame’s inquisition wasn’t limited to Khorvaire…

      Actually, I disagree. We’ve stated before that the power of an overlord has a limited sphere. Bel Shalor corrupted THRANE, not all of Galifar. And in the case of the Wild Heart, the threat was clearly centered on the Towering Wood, with the templars fighting on the borders of Breland and Aundair. Left unchecked it would have SPREAD, carrying the influence of the Wild Heart with it. But the surge was certainly concentrated in the Towering Wood, and wouldn’t have reaches Sarlona. It is possible that the lesser effects of it would – that any lycanthropes carrying the Curse of the Wild Heart who were in Sarlona would be more infectious — but it wouldn’t be as intense as it was in the Towering Wood.

      As Matthew Brady calls out, Secrets of Sarlona does acknowledge that there are lycanthropes in Sarlona, but they are mostly confined to the Tashana Tundra and to Lamannian wild zones. Tundra lycanthropes have no contact with the Inspired, and wild zones are closely patrolled by the Edgewalkers to prevent any outbreaks.

      In particular: If a Quori is in an empty vessel that gets inflicted with a strain that pulls the victim toward a non-evil alignment, does anything special happen to the Quori?

      It’s an interesting question. In my opinion, the answer is “no.” The vessel and the quori are two separate entities. Lycanthropy reshapes the mind and personality of the host. But the quori spirit entirely overrides the mind of the host. My inclination is that it would just mean that when the quori ISN’T in control the vessel reverts to the lycanthropic alignment. But it’s certainly a valid question and I can imagine an interesting story that goes the other way with it.

    • What does Jorasco know about Lycanthropy, seeing as how it’s mechanically a disease?

      Missed this one. I think Jorasco is quite familiar with lycanthropy and the possible treatments for it. However, they may not have any simple way to tell the difference between Dyrrn’s corruption and the curse of the Wild Heart. And they may never have encountered Olarune’s blessing, which after all doesn’t behave like a disease.

  9. I have a somewhat technical question.
    In my campaign, the PCs have been to Lamannia. One of them (shifter) received the Blessing from Olarune and is a lycan (which made him super enthusiastic).
    In the final events I have planned, they will face Dyrrn in person.
    Is the PC somehow “resistant” to its corruption? Or, as I understand from what you wrote, that Dyrnn is more powerful (but less powerful than Wild Heart)?

    • This is a quote from Exploring Eberron:
      The Moonspeaker druids tell a tale of five shifter champions who ventured too deep into the Towering Woods. They hunted a great evil, but when they caught it, they were overwhelmed; its evil filled their hearts, and it sent them back to prey on their friends and families. If anyone survived their attacks, the evil would seep through the wound and poison their hearts as well. These, they say, were the first lycanthropes.

      To me, this implies that there were five shifter champions who had Olarune’s blessing. They faced Dyrrn, and he defeated them and used them to create the original strains of Dyrrn’s Corruption. So shifter and lycanthropes aren’t inherently immune to Dyrrn’s power.

      HOWEVER…

      … That was the distant past, and PLAYER CHARACTERS CAN CHANGE THE WORLD. There’s two possibilities. The one is that Olraune’s blessing has evolved; that the player character has been adapted and improved to succeed where the previous champions failed. The other option is that the character isn’t AUTOMATICALLY immune to Dyrrn’s corruption, but that doesn’t mean that they are helpless against it; it could be that they are offered a choice, give in to me and you will gain greater power than you can imagine… But that they can CHOOSE to resist where the ancient champions gave in. And if it was MY campaign I might say that they have the opportunity to END Dyrrn’s corruption – that victory in the campaign could shift ALL lycanthropes with Dyrrn’s corruption to Olarune’s blessing.

      • OMG…
        Ty Keith.
        I can’t wait to apply your suggestions…
        OT: When will ExE be released…? 1 week or more? I can not resist anymore…

  10. So in a previous article you talked about good lycanthropes still being cursed and that perhaps the original lycanthropy was a blessing some shifters had and not a curse or transmittable disease, with lycanthropy being corrupted away from that with it all being a curse now.

    Is this a shift away from this idea? Olarune’s Blessing here isn’t really described as curse like and seems like the original form still intact. Of course one could also have a cursed version that pushes good alignments and takes over someone’s life as another strain, but I’m curious on the development of your ideas between that article and this one, what ideas stayed and which shifted (pun intended)?

    • That’s correct, this is an evolution of the previous idea. In the original article I described what I now suggest here as Dyrrn’s Corruption — that alignment and shape are linked, so a strain could be “good weretiger” or “evil werewolf” and would transmit on that path. So I haven’t eliminated that concept; I’ve said that’s one distinct path of it. Here I’m then clarifying that the Curse of the Wild Heart is both more extreme and trumps other forms — which is also in line with the previous article, where I said “Even good lycanthropes were drawn to the darkness.” So essentially, Dyrrn’s Corruption and the Curse of the Wild Heart cover the concepts I’ve presented in the original article; I’m just suggesting that in addition to that, you could have OTHER types of lycanthropes, including Olarune’s Blessing.

      To me, the issue is that the werebear has always been a conceptual outlier in D&D. The basic concept of the lycanthrope in D&D is firmly in the category of the Universal monster: “Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.” It is a curse that wrests control from the victim and turns innocent people into murdering monsters. On the other hand, the werebear is clearly inspired by Beorn from The Hobbit. But Beorn ISN’T cursed, and there’s no indication that he can spread his condition through a bite; his power is a blessing.

      The secondary issue is simple. Lycanthropy grants superhuman powers. If there were no drawbacks to it, why wouldn’t we all become lycanthropes? Under 5E rules, it’s incredibly easy to spread. If you could find a good-aligned strain that literally just makes you a nice person with superhuman powers, WHY WOULDN’T WE ALL DO IT?

      Thus, Olarune’s Blessing: this allows for the character like Beorn for whom lycanthropy IS a blessing, but he can’t give it to you. Meanwhile, Dyrrn’s corruption isn’t necessarily EVIL but WILL destroy your original personality; and the curse of the Wild Heart is the straight-up this-turns-good-people-into-murderers curse.

      • Thanks for the follow up! I definitely understand the whole “wait, if there are no drawbacks, why wouldn’t I want to get this?!” deal with the good aligned lycanthropes.

        Tomb of Annihilation spoilers:

        I’ve been running ToA in Eberron (I picked a nice unlabeled eastern peninsula on Xen’drik for Chult, as I didn’t want to remap and rewrite things to start out of Stormreach instead), and my party picked Azaka for their guide, who is a neutral good human weretiger (which is an odd deviation on alignment for a module written for FR), and I’ve been trying to decide on what the nature of her lycanthropy is (which she has been hiding because she has heard about the Silver Crusade that happened on Khorvaire, been one of the reasons she very notably tries to stay out of the action or go into any adventuring hotspots). I figure the Wild Heart version is clearly off the table for how she has been presented. But as a few members of the party spotted her changing form, its going to be a lot more important soon to figure out how to handle that (there was a disaster that nearly wiped the whole party, with two potentially unrecoverable and a third captured, she felt the need to help somehow by going back to scout the area for them. One did not listen to the “Do not follow me.” directive).

  11. Hi, Keith. I have a few questions. (1) Was lycanthropy known in the Dhakaani empire? It would seem to have been a useful weapon for the daelkyr – since Dyrm’s Corruption overwrites the personality, it would disrupt the eusocial bond. And, if it was around, do the dar have any special lore about dealing with lycanthropy?
    2) More generally, are there cures for lycanthropy in Eberron? Presumable, Olarune’s blessing wouldn’t be, nor would the blessed want to be cured. But what about Dyrm and Wild Heart lycanthropes? And, in those cases, would it make a difference if the lycanthrope were cursed by heredity as opposed to being cursed by infection? Would cures by more likely to lie in arcane magic, divine magic or primal magic…or somethign entirley different?
    (3) In your view, do the main lycanthrope clans of Droamm belong to the Rym group or the Wild Heart group, or a mixture of the two? And are they mostly hereditary or infected?
    ISidebar: I have a lot of interest in this because my PC in the old 3.5 campaign had a father who had been infected by a Droamm lycanthrope and risen in the ranks. My PC had as a major goal finding a cure for dear old Dad, but hadn’t had any luck by the time the campaign ended.

    • Was lycanthropy known in the Dhakaani empire?

      Presumably yes, because we’ve said that the Dar thought the gnomes were wererats. And the threat of the Wild Heart is far older than the Empire. However, I haven’t created any special lore associated with it.

      More generally, are there cures for lycanthropy in Eberron?

      Certainly. Most editions have concrete rules for how lycanthropy can be cured. In fifth edition, it can be cured with Remove Curse. 3.5 had a considerably more complicated process: A remove disease or heal spell cast by a cleric of 12th level or higher also cures the affliction, provided the character receives the spell within three days of the lycanthrope’s attack. The only other way to remove the affliction is to cast remove curse or break enchantment on the character during one of the three days of the full moon. After receiving the spell, the character must succeed on a DC 20 Will save to break the curse (the caster knows if the spell works). If the save fails, the process must be repeated.

      What’s said is that only afflicted characters can be cured. This would rule out the blessed and any natural born lycanthrope of the other strains. If you want to make it more complicated than just remove curse—it can only be cast under the full moon!—that’s up to the DM. One point with the 3.5 version was that you can always CHOOSE to fail a Will save, which brings up a point in another comment: by 3.5 rules, you can’t cure a lycanthrope unless they WANT to be cured.

      In your view, do the main lycanthrope clans of Droamm belong to the Rym group or the Wild Heart group, or a mixture of the two? And are they mostly hereditary or infected?

      In my opinion, the Dark Pack is mostly made up of hereditary Wild Heart lycanthropes. Dyrrn’s lycanthropes are more likely to be off pursuing their alien instincts. The novel The Queen of Stone explores the threat that could be posed if the Wild Heart rose again.

  12. I guess Olarune’s Blessing is effectively the same with the Weretouched Master prestige class from the ECS in 3.5E. I mean the Alternate Form ability of a 5th level Weretouched Master effectively let a shifter be their chosen form of therianthrope.

  13. Unless I’m missing out on subtlety, if the Feral Heart cabal in Vadalis is meant to be unrelated to the Wild Heart, then what entity is Mazina d’Vadalis calling on as a cultist of the Dragon Below—Khyber as a general force? Binding fiends to beasts and using the tools of the daelkyr seems like a way to combing both the Blessings of Dyrrn and the Blessings of the Wild Heart, and a way to make creatures like outright evil gnolls in the modern age, which I see as perfectly in line with serving the Wild Heart.

    • There are no absolute rules with CotDBs. ExE goes into them in far more detail — I think there’s something like 12 pages on the CotDBs. I’d call the Feral Heart a transactional cult that is drawing on aspects of both Dyrrn and the Wild Heart… but that they don’t WORSHIP either power. From their perspective, they are pursuing scientific research. It’s simply that this research is leading them down dark and irrational paths, and unwittingly serving the ends of both Dyrrn and the Wild Heart.

      • Thanks for clarifying—that’s way better than what I was picturing. Lots of room for things to go wrong with a group considering themselves too enlightened to serve a daelkyr or Overlord directly!

  14. So I remember reading somewhere that during the Silver Crusade, some identified lycanthropes were offered exile to Lamannia as a way to deal with the curse. With these lycanthropic strains and variations in mind, how do you see lycanthropy functioning on Lamannia? It feels like this would have removed them from the influence of the Wild Heart largely (such as those of Olarune’s Blessing and Dyrrn’s Corruption no longer falling under the sway of the Wild Heart at the time), but would this be because something like Lamannia asserting more fully the primal connection or just simply distance from the Overlord? Would Dyrrn lycanthropes still be as cursed because it isn’t based on proximity to Dyrrn so much as something Dyrrn altered? Would Wild Heart lycanthropes still be cursed at all there?

    Whatever the case, it seemed like banishing them to Lamannia specifically seemed like a humane solution that was offered to those afflicted, and not just any other potentially hospitable plane.

    Another thought: What happened to those infected by those of Olarune’s blessing after the Silver Crusade and the waning of the Wild Heart’s influence that might have survived? Would they be Wild Heart lycanthropes, Olarune’s blessed, or something else entirely?

    • Another thought: What happened to those infected by those of Olarune’s blessing after the Silver Crusade and the waning of the Wild Heart’s influence that might have survived? Would they be Wild Heart lycanthropes, Olarune’s blessed, or something else entirely?

      My thought is that they’d revert to their original state, so if they were originally Olarune’s blessed, they’d be so again.

      So I remember reading somewhere that during the Silver Crusade, some identified lycanthropes were offered exile to Lamannia as a way to deal with the curse.

      They weren’t OFFERED exile; what’s stated (initially on page 97 of the ECS) is that they FLED to Lamannia. GOOD lycanthropes—so, Olarune’s blessed—may have been helped by sympathetic friars or shifters. Evil lycanthropes may have simply fled when the tide turned against them: they weren’t GRANTED sanctuary in Lamannia, they just found a manifest zone that allowed them to escape pursuit. Others escaped to other planes, but the point is that most other planes aren’t actually hospitable; what we’ve called out is that there’s a population of lycanthropes that has managed to thrive in Lamannia.

      Tied to the first question, when the power of the Wild Heart was broken, other lycanthropes reverted to their original strain. And yes, in Lamannia cursed lycanthropes would be severed from the Wild Heart. Among other things, I’d expect this to prevent them from SPREADING the curse. However, this wouldn’t change their basic nature; they are still fundamentally embodying mortal FEARS of predators and would be driven toward evil alignment. So I think you could find both Olarune ‘thropes (embodying our idealized ideas of the animal form) and Wild Heart ‘thropes (embodying fears of predators) in Lamannia; but neither would spread lycanthropy as an affliction while in Lamannia.

      • “My thought is that they’d revert to their original state, so if they were originally Olarune’s blessed, they’d be so again.”

        No, I don’t mean the ones that were *originally* Olarune’s blessed. During the Silver Crusade, you said all the lycanthropes types were co-opted by the Wild Heart. So my question relates to this scenario:

        -Olarune’s Blessed is under the influence of the Wild Heart.
        -This Olarune’s Blessed now infects another humanoid, while under the influence of the Wild Heart.
        -This second infected person is an afflicted lycanthrope, presumably behaving in the manner of the Wild Heart ones before the Wild Heart’s power was broken.

        My question is after the Wild Heart’s power was broken, what would happen to this second person if they had managed to survive the purge? What kind of lycanthrope, if any, would they be? They were infected, under unusual circumstances, by a lycanthrope of Olarune’s Blessing, who can not normally pass on lycanthropy at all, but did so because of the surge in the Wild Heart’s influence during the time of the Silver Crusade. But they weren’t originally one of Olarune’s blessed themselves, they wouldn’t have been a lycanthrope prior to this event.

        • My question is after the Wild Heart’s power was broken, what would happen to this second person if they had managed to survive the purge? What kind of lycanthrope, if any, would they be?

          Ah! I get you. The second person in that example would be carrying the curse of the Wild Heart. While under the influence of the Wild Heart, the ENTIRE STRAIN of the Blessed was replaced by the curse (again, note that it drove even the blessed to evil, predatory behavior). When the power weakened Olarune’s blessing reasserted itself. But while under the influence of the Wild Heart, they were cursed and spread the curse.

      • With the exile bit, I think what I was working of was this line from this Dragonshards article http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20050404a :

        “While the Church of Thrane no longer follows Jolan Sol’s doctrines, the church continues to hunt shapeshifters in the present day. Jaela Daran has ordered templars to subdue lycanthropes whenever possible and to accept the surrender of any lycanthrope, so that the shapeshifter can be cured or exiled to Lamannia. However, if a lycanthrope does not cooperate, the templars use lethal force. This is covered under provisions in the Code of Galifar; the templars of the Church are authorized to defend the people of the Five Nations against supernatural threats, and a lycanthrope who willfully maintains his condition is seen as intentionally endangering others. The puritans of Aundair are infamous for ignoring Jaela’s edicts, and most Aundairian templars show no mercy when dealing with lycanthropes.”

        This along with your answer just now, would you consider Dyrrn lycanthropes as being spreadable on Lamannia?

        • Good catch, I meant to check that article and forgot. The main point is that they will cure the lycanthrope if possible, but natural lycanthropes can’t be cured. In this case, Lamannia is seen as Botany Bay. They aren’t exiled to Lamannia because it will cure them; they’re exiled to Lamannia because it’s the plane where they have the greatest chance of survival and it removes them from Eberron, so it’s considered a humane solution.

          I don’t see why Lamannia would have any impact on Dyrrn lycanthropes. The curse of the Wild Heart grows stronger based on the power of the Wild Heart, and dropping them in Lamannia severs that tie; but Dyrrn’s lycanthropes aren’t tied to Dyrrn, and I would expect them to function in the same manner on any plane.

          • Awesome! Thanks for the reply! I like that the results aren’t the same for all the lycanthrope varieties. In regards to Lamannia, I imagine that in addition to having some more relatively hospitable places, it was also used by convenience, since there are numerous manifest zones to it as well as it being coterminous once per year, it’s probably one of the easier planes to get to from Eberron without utilizing high level magics.

            • That’s correct. Lamannia and Thelanis are the two easiest planes to reach, and Lamannia doesn’t have archfey and feyspires that will complain if you start dumping undesirables there.

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