Specifications
important and must-know information!
Full Moons have nothing to do with turning into a wolf. Being a lycanthrope is the ability to turn into a wolf at will. Generally a few times a month will make it so that the change from human to wolf is fluid and painless. The more you shift, the easier it becomes. The more you wait the more agonizing the process is. This is purely because both your forms are accustomed to this change. Staying one way would make it so that the particular form you are in is more natural, thus easier to be.
Shapeshifting is not bones breaking and fur magically appearing and a slow process. It's actually very natural like stepping into a pair of pants. However with it comes a wave of nausea. Thus, people who stay in one form too long have a hard time coming into the other and the nausea is worse the longer one waits.
There are two ways to become a Werewolf. Born of two werewolves or changed. Both process can be confusing. If both werewolves are born the chances of conception are higher than either parent being made. If the female is a made werewolf, it is harder for her to conceive but not impossible. There are ceremonies done during Hunt's that can help with fertility.
To become a werewolf, however, is much more complicated. Basically you are given a blood transfusion and you're body fights it out. You get an extremely high fever and eventually you will die. The chances are nearly 50-50 of survival, so it's always a gamble. Although some believe a healthy body in their prime and peak performance has a better chance, that's not always the case. Upon death the body with either accept the change or stay dead.
Even if you survive the blood transfusion it does not mean you'll survive. An alpha or a very strong dominant has to help the new werewolf through the first change, which is painful the first time but never will be again. After living through the first shift and changing back, you have survived and are now a werewolf.
A person with a dominant personality usually will be a dominant werewolf, although it's not always the case. Sometimes when a person is forced through the change, unwanting or knowing of it, their wolves will be weak minded and turn submissive. Submissives have the ability over time to become dominant.
Being a werewolf means you have two sides to you. Born werewolves are generally content with being one with their wolf-selves, but made werewolves find the two sometimes a battle. Werewolves need blood and flesh to survive. Werewolves naturally crave and hunger for blood and flesh of animals and stay healthiest when consuming on a regular basis. If starved the shift could be brought on by hunger and some wolves have a hard time shifting back until satisfied./p>
Pack Hunts are rituals that happen a few times a year. This is a connection the pack has on a mystical level. For unknown reasons these hunts seem to cleanse a Pack and give them strength. On big Hunts the entire Pack is given a sort of euphoria - some say it's like a drug. Pack's have been known to hunt for days on end in shifted form.
Even wolves who go out on their own and may be in a whole other country will naturally find their way back to the Pack for the bigger hunts which happen at least once a year. This is involuntary and a mystical sort of pull. There is no choice in the matter, it is as much a part of being a wolf as being waking up and sleeping is to a human. Any made werewolf who goes on a single Pack Hunt is automatically part of the pack and will share this pull.
There are smaller Hunts in which the local pack will attend all throughout the year. Usually these hunts are for mating purposes as well as helping a human through the change.
Vulnerabilities include Aconitum (Wolfsbane), Mistletoe, and pure Silver. These things if ingested will attack and kill a werewolf like poison. Even just having wolfsbane or mistletoe rubbed on the skin will cause a rash. Being hurt with silver (the more pure the silver the more damanaging)will make the wound prone to infection and heal at a human rate.