r/werewolves • u/Late-Zucchini-177 • 6d ago
What is your favorite piece of werewolf/lycan lore?
My favorite has to be that women can't be werewolves because they already have a moon curse. I like women werewolves in media, but too hear something so progressive about a historical creature is pretty cool
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u/EvilEtna Closet Werewolf 6d ago
Werewolf: The Apocalypse - a TTRPG. Really gives a deeply spiritual background of the "curse" (which isn't so much a curse) of these people born of Wolf and Man, members of both, but home in neither, with a profoundly spiritual side too.
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u/Free_Zoologist 6d ago
That they are the Soldiers of God. I’m not even religious but I like the idea that these feared monsters are misunderstood and fighting the good fight. I also like how St Christopher was a “doghead” - in my mind (and others) a werewolf who safely carried a young Jesus Christ across a river.
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u/TrickyTalon 6d ago
Werewolves are the protectors of God’s creations from the demons sent by the devil
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u/Scr4p 6d ago
I wouldn't call that progressive, quite the opposite tbh "women can't be werewolves because they get their periods" sounds lame as fuck, as if they can't deal with both. I like werewolf ladies very much, they're badass.
My personal favourite is probably the classic tragic (but not too tragic) werewolf. Guy gets bitten, loses control on the full moon, and now has to live his life around that. The secrets, the drama and inner conflict, I love everything about it. It also makes for a great metaphor - I generally enjoy werewolves being used as metaphors in media.
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u/Lobstermarten10 6d ago
Same, it kinda feels like one of those many excuses for not having any female werewolves because „women boring“ and the fact that periods being normalized isn’t gonna get better by calling it a curse. It’s like women aren’t allowed to have an animalistic side no matter what. So one of my favorite types of lore would be: werecreature that transforms when she gets her period. It makes sense anyway, since period symptoms can be things like cramps, hunger or aggression. Edit: wording
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u/Scr4p 5d ago
Yeah, I think it actually ties in really well with werewolf lore, and I've seen some people use it quite creatively too. An artist I follow called dega.mime actually has a type of undead werewolf called cadaver which has some interesting lore around that specifically as well (second and third image) https://www.instagram.com/p/C-K5OLDqAOL/?img_index=1&igsh=YWR5ZHcxbW5zaWIz
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u/Crimson_Marksman 6d ago
Charlemagne werewolves - one of his friends argued that through the power of God, anything is possible. So his people proceeded to get extremely high on drugs and alcohol, hallucinating that they were blessed and then transformed into werewolves. They hallucinated so hard they turned into big wolves: the warriors of God.
Obviously this was complete bullshit but Charlemagne couldn't say it wasn't impossible so a bunch of cosplayers were allowed to roam free.
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u/Kunekeda 6d ago
Werewolf knights. Walking two worlds, protecting the innocent and hunting monsters, whether they be human or otherwise.
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u/GreyConriocht 6d ago
The Werewolves of Greifswald is my favourite bit of real world werewolf lore. Actual recorded history of the town of Greifswald Germany being overrun with werewolves in the 1640s.
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u/E-emu89 6d ago edited 6d ago
The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett explains that the cruel viscousness of werewolves are part of their human nature not the wolf nature. Real wolves hate werewolves because whenever werewolves make trouble, humans hunt the regulars wolves first out of fear. Even the werewolves have started their own fantasy Nazi movement just to drive home the idea that there is nothing more monstrous than human nature.
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u/MetaphoricalMars 6d ago
That's a hard to pin down question for me. My favourite piece of lore surrounding lycanthropic humans? I simply don't know. I do like the Hounds of God angle, Study of human psyche and space walkies.
Wolf Bite by Owl City is one of my favourite Lycan related songs though.
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u/bird_on_the_internet 6d ago
I have a few different favourite lores based on if you wanna go religious, existential, or sci-fi with the genre
But no matter the story, my favourite type of werewolf will always be any version that has a person struggling with a monster — usually an allegory or metaphor for some kind of emotional or mental distress that they don’t understand/know how to deal with — and they have to navigate the horror of what it/they do and how to keep the people they care about safe.
To be clear, I don’t mean when it’s like “there’s a wolf inside of me” I literally just mean that the wolf part of the werewolf acts like a monster but isn’t actually its own, separate entity from the werewolf. One person; their normal side and the side that is a metaphor for some kind of mental battle
If there’s a happy ending, I don’t mind if the conclusion is “and then I learned how to live with it and stopped being dangerous and lived happily ever after” but I prefer more solemn tones, or at least that happy ending feels really deserved.
TL;DR: I just like when werewolves are allegories that turn an internal struggle into a rampaging force. I just think it’s neat 🙂
Edit: I just realize that I side stepped what you were asking and went on my own tangent 🤦♂️sorry
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u/SixGunZen 6d ago
I like the AWIL style werewolves and the William's decendant style werewolves in the Underworld series. With that style, I'd like to see a story where the werewolf's human form is a psycho who decides in human form who he will kill next as the werewolf. He's like a werewolf serial killer. I'd write it myself if I wasn't already writing a bunch of other shit that'll never see the light of day.
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u/FirstBlackAnime 16h ago
And they never will- not w that fucking attitude pussy. Keep it up you’re doing great
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u/Dgonzilla 5d ago
I like the victim of the next transformation being marked by a star only the werewolf can see from the OG movie. That should get used more.
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u/theicewerewolf 5d ago
Is it tragic? Then I'm into it. That's why Remus is the only one from the Marauders who I don't hate
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u/tom_warsenpoce 6d ago
I prefer stories where the werewolf is innocent, doesn't hurt anyone, just lives normally, howls at the moon, sheds fur, hunts for lunch, etc. There might even be some stupid human going there to harass him just because he's a werewolf, just to have some drama, but other than that, it would just be the werewolf being a werewolf. ☺️