My lycanthropes are different

In my setting, diseases are caused by disease spirits a la RuneQuest, OpenQuest, Mythras, etc. Lycanthropy in particular is caused by lycanthropic spirits. Lycanthropic spirits are creations of the beast lords, a subset of the primal spirits venerated by barbarians and druids.

Why exactly lycanthropic spirits exist is a matter of debate, and it’s an excellent opportunity to segue into a discussion of the beast lords themselves. D&D and derivatives like Pathfinder never had particularly sensible theology. They have a bazillion redundant deities, when real religions pair down redundancies. Relevant to the beast lords in particular is that D&D and Pathfinder have a bunch of animal deities distinct from their beast lords. It’s quite common for so and so demon lord to be the patron of beastmen races or lycanthropes or whatever, typically invented ad hoc. It’s common for beast lords and demon lords to overlap in portfolios, which again is needlessly complicated. (There’s no reason a god can’t have multiple types like fey and fiend or whatever, but that’s D&D for you.) I don’t need a bunch of redundant deities like Pazuzu the lord of the skies and the lord of vultures too. I’m not interested in wasting my effort on a bazillion one-note deities. To that end, I’m just going to generically refer to a “beast lord of lycanthropes” or whatever whenever it’s necessary. Gods in my setting are just power sources, and simply don’t exist whenever they aren’t needed. I’m like Eberron in that respect, because it’s simple.

The default types of lycanthropy (and their alignment) in the 5e SRD are werebear (NG), wereboar (NE), wererat (LE), weretiger (N), and werewolf (CE). There can, of course, be an arbitrary number of lycanthrope phenotypes. Werebats, weresharks, entomanthropes, entothropes, quasilycanthropes, monstrous lycanthropes, etc. I'm going to ignore those for right now.

By default in 5e the lycanthropy is passed pathologically and struggles with the alignment of the infected. The monster manual depicts this as a horrible affliction like in horror movies, seemingly ignoring the fact that the werebear and weretiger are not evil. As Keith Baker helpfully points out, lycanthropy is a curse either way. Regardless of alignment, lycanthropy causes profound personality changes. Not only that, but it is very easy to spread epidemics. The RAW lycanthropy seemingly having a mind of its works quite well with my interpretation of lycanthropy as spirit possession. Even the good alignment of the werebear invokes Anne Rice’s The Gift, which interpreted pathologic werewolves as chosen heroes or something.

Each of the five types of lycanthropic spirits is associated with the beast lord of their animal aspect, as well as the generic lord of lycanthropes. Unlike in standard D&D, my setting practices genuine polytheism. Lycanthropic spirits are beholden to the lord of their animal aspect because that’s just how the beast lords roll, as well as to the lord of lycanthropes because that lord provides the whole transformative disease linked to the full moon and harmed by silver yadda yadda. I’m not sure whether the lord of lycanthropes should be the same as the moon god or not, but if the gods are just arbitrary mental shortcuts created by religions invoking a universal power source then it doesn’t matter either way.

5e lycanthropy doesn’t make a distinction for heritable, induced or cursed lycanthropes, but that’s easy enough to change. There aren’t any rules for dealing with infection like there were in 3e, since it wasn’t intended for lycanthropes to be playable, but that can easily be homebrewed.

• Typical lycanthropes are pathologic lycanthropes: they are possessed by a lycanthropic spirit that struggles with their mortal soul unless they embrace the curse or train in controlling it or whatever (in any case, D&D is NOT suited to playing as a lycanthrope due to game balance). They may be infected by another lycanthrope, or inherit it from their parents. They can be cured by exorcising the spirit.
• Heritable lycanthropes don’t have the internal struggle, because the lycanthropic spirit is their soul. As such, they cannot be cured of lycanthropy any more than an elf may be cured of being an elf. In other words, you need to cast a reincarnate spell.
• Lycanthropic spirits can be bound into tokens, such as a ring of Hircine. This allows the wearer to gain the benefits of lycanthropy without actually becoming infected, or for a pathologic lycanthrope to control their condition without relinquishing control to the spirit or training in self-control. (Yes, this references The Elder Scrolls.)
• Lycanthropic spirits may be bound to hosts by a curse, such as the spell curse of lycanthropy. This doesn’t necessarily allow the cursed victim to transmit lycanthropy themselves. If they can transmit their curse, then the curse escape clause probably remains the same for the secondary infections.

In general, the rules for lycanthropy are arbitrary and will depend on what atmosphere you’re going for. A horror setting like Ravenloft emphasized the unpleasantness of lycanthropy (such by requiring you to kill the patient zero of the infection before even attempting a cure, and giving every curse a specific escape clause rather than letting the party breeze through curses with abjuration spells), but that isn’t strictly necessary in a more lighthearted setting. I’m not sure which mine is.

Since D&D doesn’t lend itself to playing as a victim of lycanthropy, you’re probably better off looking for a lycanthrope class on DM’s Guild or something. I found over a dozen results on a casual search.

Anyway, I take a lot of notes from all the 3pp published for lycanthropes over the past two decades. The Complete Guide to Werewolves was particularly useful because it listed a bunch of ways (many taken from folklore and popular culture) for contracting and curing lycanthropy. For example, a character could contract lycanthropy from “picking the lycanthropic flower” or “being born on Christmas.” A character could cure lycanthropy by “being struck on the brow three times with a silver knife” or “eating the heart of the werewolf who infected you.”

So I suppose my lycanthropes aren’t that different aside from the logical beast lord connection and the spirit possession angle. Oh, and I'm taking notes from Eberron's depiction of lycanthropy, too. Lycanthropic spirits aren't mere animal spirits possessing humans, otherwise they'd act like the animal. No, they're spirits of how humans perceive those animals. An evil werewolf spirit will turn its host into the Big Bad Wolf from fairytales. A good werewolf spirit will turn its host into a wolf-loving tree-hugging hippie living in the wilderness. While lycanthropy might have been a natural gift at one time, now it has been corrupted and turns innocents into weapons. As the beast lords themselves are amoral as far as humans are concerned, both good and evil lycanthropes can worship the same beast lord. Or there might be multiple competing lords with the same portfolio. I still need to work through my theology!

Here are some brief example titles for the beast lords relevant to the core lycanthropes. The names come from historical religion, so anyone can use them because public domain.

• Artemis/Luna, lord of the moon, silver and lycanthropes
• Lycaon, lord of wolves
• Moccus, lord of boars (and pig-faced orcs)
• Artaius, lord of bears
• Bast, lord of cats (including tigers)
• Ninkilim, lord of rodents (including rats)

Here are some supplements that might be helpful to read:

• The Complete Guide to Werewolves by Goodman Games
• The Complete Guide to Wererats by Goodman Games
• Slaves of the Moon: The Essential Guide to Lycanthropes by Green Ronin
• Curse of the Moon by Sean K. Reynolds
• Bite Me! Series by Misfit Studios
• Blood of the Moon by Paizo