There's tons of ways they could enter the setting, wizards curse/spell gone awry, divine curse, just a worshiper of a evil nature diety.
I use lycanthrope in my games in differant ways.
Curse of Nuitari- Blackrobes who offend Nuitari become raving beasts who hunt down traitors of the orders and Renegades. They lose their spellcasting abilities while in beastform. The transformation is uncontrollable and happens whenever nuitari is visable by his followers. Werewolf is an exsample.
Blessing of Nature- Chislev blesses willing champions with the ability to transform into lycanthropic beasts. these werebeasts do not become bloodthirsty killing machines but instead become protectors of the woodlands and animal life. The chosen can transform at will. Were bear is an exsample.
Corruption of the Blackwind- These poor souls who once served morgoin but failed are cursed and become disease bearing killing machines. they forever lose the ability to return to their original forms and slowly go insane from a combination of the diseases they carry, the agony they constantly endure from the transformation and the shattered memories of their past lives.
Were rat is an exsample.
those are just a few exsamples to give you an idea of how lycanthrope can be added to a game. Canon information is for the books and shouldnt become a prison for creativity in the game.;)
I think what he is asking is, the module places a silver weapon as part of treasure because it is effective against certain types of creatures in krynn. Yet the only creatures we know of affected by silver weapons are lycanthropes, yet the official stance is that there are no lycanthropes in krynn. So what creatures are the writers of the module referring to?
That is more along the lines of what I was thinking. I had tried thinking of what monsters could fit into the same category as Lycanthropes. Like if there were any other shapechangers, but I'm not entirely sure. It seems to me that dragons seem to change all the time from their dragon form to a humanoid form and back again, especially in the new movie that came out, but I don't think that would qualify them as being shapechangers for the sake of having a weakness to silver. Something else I was considering were the Dragonspawn, since they are humanoids that get transformed into dragon type monstrous humanoids, but they don't have the ability to change their forms so that didn't seem to fit the bill either.
I had thought about bringing Lycanthropes into the world by other means. Like some dimensional warp that opened a path from another world. Although I do like the Morgion curse idea, since one of the places the players are going to used to be a Morgion Temple. Maybe I could have some of his former followers still roaming the sewers around the temple as Were Rats.
Extraplanars (mostly devils & guardinals, sorry no demons)
Devil-Bearded Devil
Devil-Chain Devil
Devil-Horned Devil (good & silver)
Devil-Imp
Devil-Lemure
Devil-Pit Fiend (good & silver)
Guardinal-Avoral
Guardinal-Leonal (evil & silver)
Yeth hound
Undead
Vampire (silver & magic)
Vampire spawn
Extraplanar & Undead
Nightshade (silver & magic)
Nightwalker (silver & magic)
Nightwing (silver & magic)
Dragonspawn are not any more vulnerable to silver weapons than other creatures according to the revised bestiary of krynn, this of course is not to say that you couldn't have one whose mutation is vulnerabilty to silver.
Also as a DM you could always replace some pre-existing vulnerability like cold-iron or magic with silver.
Also lycanthropcy was known as a curse in earlier editions of D&D and in gothic horror stories, so one might create a spell like "curse of the werewolf" that causes a target to become a were-creature. Of course the problem is that were-wolves in legend have had some connection to the moon and krynn has three.
You could also find cause for lycanthropes to be a new type of creature seeing as Takhisis moved the world and Krynn only had one moon for a time. Lycanthropes could have come into the world as a curse of takhisis and this curse might have been passed on through infection.
Again however you will run into the problem of three moons. You could possibly tie them into the moon that reflects their alignment: Solinari for Good-Aligned, Nuitari for Evil-Aligned, and Lunitari for Neutral-Aligned.
I would probably tie them into Lunitari seeing as how she is neutral and when a werewolf changes and loses control they typically kill anyone within range including loved ones and allies and not just enemies. Also lunitari has a closer lunar cycle to earth and is easier to track the night of change.
So there are many different ways you could introduce lycanthropes into the world of krynn if you saw fit. Or you could simply just use silver weapons for those creatures listed above.
From the impression the DLCS gives about silver weapons, it would seem that devils (seeing as there are more of them vulnerable than others) are more prevalent than other creatures on krynn, and it has always been maintained that vampires are a little more common even though we do not see them in the books or modules that much.
These creatures from the Monstrous Manual are vulnerable to silver (for some creatures, silver must be combined with some other element). I left out Lycanthropes.
Extraplanars (mostly devils & guardinals, sorry no demons)
Devil-Bearded Devil
Devil-Chain Devil
Devil-Horned Devil (good & silver)
Devil-Imp
Devil-Lemure
Devil-Pit Fiend (good & silver)
Guardinal-Avoral
Guardinal-Leonal (evil & silver)
Yeth hound
Undead
Vampire (silver & magic)
Vampire spawn
Extraplanar & Undead
Nightshade (silver & magic)
Nightwalker (silver & magic)
Nightwing (silver & magic)
Dragonspawn are not any more vulnerable to silver weapons than other creatures according to the revised bestiary of krynn, this of course is not to say that you couldn't have one whose mutation is vulnerabilty to silver.
Also as a DM you could always replace some pre-existing vulnerability like cold-iron or magic with silver.
Also lycanthropcy was known as a curse in earlier editions of D&D and in gothic horror stories, so one might create a spell like "curse of the werewolf" that causes a target to become a were-creature. Of course the problem is that were-wolves in legend have had some connection to the moon and krynn has three.
You could also find cause for lycanthropes to be a new type of creature seeing as Takhisis moved the world and Krynn only had one moon for a time. Lycanthropes could have come into the world as a curse of takhisis and this curse might have been passed on through infection.
Again however you will run into the problem of three moons. You could possibly tie them into the moon that reflects their alignment: Solinari for Good-Aligned, Nuitari for Evil-Aligned, and Lunitari for Neutral-Aligned.
I would probably tie them into Lunitari seeing as how she is neutral and when a werewolf changes and loses control they typically kill anyone within range including loved ones and allies and not just enemies. Also lunitari has a closer lunar cycle to earth and is easier to track the night of change.
So there are many different ways you could introduce lycanthropes into the world of krynn if you saw fit. Or you could simply just use silver weapons for those creatures listed above.
From the impression the DLCS gives about silver weapons, it would seem that devils (seeing as there are more of them vulnerable than others) are more prevalent than other creatures on krynn, and it has always been maintained that vampires are a little more common even though we do not see them in the books or modules that much.
Thank you. That gives me plenty to go on. :D
Cheers,
Cam