Antherians add a further wrinkle to the taxonomy of lycanthropes. Rather than being humans who turn into animals, they are intelligent animals who turn into humans. You are probably most familiar with the varieties known as jackalweres and wolfweres. The antherians are niche monsters and receive little to no attention in D&D publications.
Antherians don't have a consistent naming scheme or organization in official D&D publications. The name "antherion" was merely a suggestion provided by the 2e
Monstrous Manual, with "therianthrope" used to refer to animal/human shapechangers in general. In
Oriental Adventures, they were called “
hengeyokai”. The 3rd edition 3pp
Tome of Horrors referred to antherians as "therianthropes" and introduced them as a template so you could build your own.
The official "antherions" included coyotlweres, jackalweres, and wolfweres. The official "hengeyokai" included carp, cat, crab, crane, dog, drake, fox, hare, monkey, racoon dog, rat and sparrow. The 3pp "therianthropes" included asswere, foxwere, jackalwere, lionwere, owlwere, and wolfwere. (Some of these listings are redundant. I treat them as synonymous.) Given the definition of an antherian, this taxonomy would logically include creatures like aranea and selkies.
Etymology
The term
therianthrope refers to any mythical being that is part-man and part-animal, with or without shapeshifting.
There is no term in English to refer specifically to an animal that assumes human form. So fantasy gaming invented various neologisms.
The neologism
antherion appears to be a compound of
an- ("not") and
therion ("wild animal"). This was only used once, in the
Monstrous Manual, and doesn't appear to be linguistically correct.
I independently invented (that is,
others invented it first without my knowledge) the neologism
antherian. It is a compound of
therian, a clipping of therianthrope.
The neologism
hengeyokai is a compound of
henge ("goblin, ghost; an apparition") and
yokai ("supernatural being, monster, apparition, goblin"). It translates to the redundant "changing phantom."
It is not a real Japanese word and seems to have been invented wholesale by D&D. In Japanese, shapeshifting creatures like
kitsune and
tanuki are called
bakemono,
henge, and
obake.
Jackalweres
Jackalweres seem to be the most popular. I guess this might be since they are the first reverse lycanthrope to be published IIRC. (Aside from the aranea?)
Jackalweres have rarely received much backstory. In 4e they were the descendants of a pack of jackals who made a pact with demons to survive a calamity. In 5e they are arbitrarily servants of the lamias.
One homebrew backstory for a jackalwere PC race posits that they are people cursed into the form of animals and unable to resume their original form for more than a brief period. This resembles the folktale about the
werewolves of Ossory.
Pathfinder mentions that jackalweres can marry and have children with humans, though we receive no details as to their children’s capabilities. Considering that they are an evil race in D&D, I imagine that their children are also evil jackalweres.
Daily Bestiary offers a few original plot hooks to spice things up. I particularly like the one about an island god having jackalweres as his children, since it reads straight out of mythology.
Folkloric basis
The idea of animals assuming human form is found in folklore across the globe. These shapeshifters were of variable morality: they might prey on humans, or alternately wed humans and have children by their spouses.
In the stories of some American tribes, the horned serpent and thunderbird sometimes assumed human form and married mortal women. Their sons would inherit their power and be demigods to their tribes.
In comparative mythology of Europe, Asia and North America there’s a motif called the “bear’s son cycle.” A hero with a shapeshifting bear in his ancestry inherits the bear’s strength and uses it to help his tribe. Beowulf is a notable example. This appears to be where D&D’s good werebear comes from.
East Asia has a tradition of fox fairies, known in Japanese as kitsune, Korean as gumiho, and Chinese as huli jing. They could be benevolent or malevolent depending on the folktales. Malevolent varieties lured victims to eat them. "Benevolent" varieties played pranks at worst. Sometimes fox fairies married mortals and had children by their spouses.
In the stories of some American tribes, deer would assume the form of lovely women to lure young men to their deaths.
In Africa stories were told of hyenas assuming human form to lure victims.
Japan’s tradition of yokai was particularly detailed in the materials I could access: supposedly any animal that lived for a century would develop supernatural powers including changing shape (this appears to have been adopted from Chinese folktales). These henge often like to play pranks when they aren’t eating people.
A recurring motif in some tales is that the transformation requires a token (as I mentioned in my classification of lycanthropes and therianthropes). Swan maidens require their feathered cloak, selkies require their sealskin, merrow require their red hats, etc. If you steal their token, then you can force the shapechanger to marry you. It isn’t clear which is their “natural” form, but I’ll include them here under the antherians because they seem to live mostly like their animal counterparts.
Predating on humans, romantic attraction, and death by seduction are quite prevalent in these stories. So I guess D&D isn’t unjustified in regurgitating what works for violent encounters.
In my setting
As a world building exercise I am tying various beast and beast-like monsters to the beast lord pantheon. This includes the antherians. What follows is one possible creation myth, heavily drawing from East Asian mythology:
The fantasy world isn't our reality. As such, various supernatural phenomena occur within the natural world. Animals can talk to each other (and sometimes humans) like they do in Aesop's Fables, The Wild Thornberrys, The Jungle Book, Watership Down, The Lion King, etc. Animals can live for much longer than in reality, and can gain supernatural powers for living a long time. One such power is the ability to assume a human form to infiltrate human society.
The beast lords hold sway over all animals, and sometimes they will grant vassals the power to change shape in order to act on their behalf in human societies. If the vassals become corrupt, then they can expect to be hunted down by other agents of their patrons. Those who develop this power on their own, however, are free to act as they wish.
The power to change shape opens the new antherian to a whole new world of experience. They can live among humans, marry them, hunt them. All as befits the antherian in question.
If you care, the beast lords who may be relevant here include: (names subject to change)
- Epona, lord of horses (including asses)
- Reynard, lord of foxes
- Anubis, lord of jackals
- Bast, lord of cats (including lions)
- Lilitu, lord of owls
- Arachne, lord of spiders
- Lycaon, lord of wolves
Next up (hopefully):
- How do they relate to beastmen, lycanthropes, et al?
- Treatments for specific animal aspects
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