Larry Fessenden's deer-headed wendigo... was not actually deer-headed!

As Emily Zarka, Ph.D., helpfully informed us, the image of the windigo as a hideous satyr originates from the 2001 film Wendigo directed by Larry Fessenden. Fessenden also curated the book Sudden Storm: A Wendigo Reader, now sadly out-of-print.

(Technically, it was Matt Fox who seemingly invented the satyr motif in the 50s with an illustration of one for a printing of Blackwood’s story in a magazine. However, Fessenden seems to be responsible for popularizing the satyr motif outside the pages of that magazine.)

Although Fessenden popularized the satyr motif that now dominates Euro-American popular culture, his movie describes the windigo in an ironic manner. Take a gander:

Man: “A Wendigo is a mighty, powerful spirit. (...) It can take on many forms. Part wind, part tree, part man, part beast. Shapeshifting between them. (...) It can fly at you like a sudden storm, without warning, from nowhere and devour you – consume you with its ferocious appetite. (...) The Wendigo is hungry – always hungry. And its hunger is never satisfied. The more it eats, the bigger it gets. And the bigger it gets, the hungrier it gets. And we are hopeless in the face of it. We are devoured.”
Miles: “Is the Wendigo bad?”
Man: “Nothing between the earth and sky is bad. But there are spirits that should be feared, (...) that are angry. (...) Do you believe me? ”
Miles: “I guess.”
Man: “Go ahead and take it. Nobody believes in spirits anymore. Doesn’t mean they’re not there. He who hears the cry of the Wendigo is never the same again.”

The script is unambiguous. The windigo depicted therein was a shapeshifter. When it appeared as a satyr, that merely one of the countless forms it could assume. (It probably assumed that particular form since the cast was hunting a deer at the time.) It was never a satyr in truth, insofar as truth applies to trickster demons, but assuming the shape of one!

According to the back-of-the-book advertising blurb for Sudden Storm:

Between Algonquin mythology and field-noted cryptozoological points of view, the Wendigo is portrayed as a ferocious yeti-like monster, a half man-half stag creature, a troll, or even just the wind itself.

See that? Fessenden himself acknowledges that the windigo isn't really a satyr, but that stories depict however the storytellers please. Considering all the online chuckleheads who claim the satyr is the only "correct" depiction, it is the height of comedic irony that the guy who invented the satyr motif actually wrote the windigo as a shapeshifter.

Zoanthropes and weretouched

Previously I used the word "zoanthrope" to refer to humans that assume animal forms but are not lycanthropes. (Although technically it may be synonymous.) This may be the result of a racial trait as with the mhuinntir and skinwalker races, or might be the result of a class feature such as with the druid and shifter. Thus, zoanthropes are suitable as player characters.

The weretouched are individuals with any therianthrope ancestry, not necessarily lycanthropes, such as from a werewolf, jackalwere, or kitsune. This may grant them shapeshifting, ranging from the limited physical changes displayed by the wereblooded or skinwalker races all the way to the extreme therianthropy displayed by the weretouched archetype for the shifter class.

Keith Baker's hypothetical "pure lycanthrope" are another example of a zoanthrope.

Vermin hosts

Vermin hosts are OGL monsters introduced by Creature Collection II: Dark Menagerie.

Vermin hosts are similar to lycanthropes and entomanthropes, except for several key differences. They exhibit a number of similarities to the worm that walks. Their animal form is a swarm of vermin, and even in human form they still have several of these vermin crawling inside their bodies.

Like lycanthropes, vermin hosts may afflict others with their curse. However, the curse is not spread by their natural attacks. Instead, they send one member of their swarm to enter the body of prospective host and whisper offers of power until the victim accepts, at which point they are consumed by a swarm of vermin and transformed into a new vermin host.

A vermin host’s alternate forms might include a swarm of vermin, a swarm of vermin fused together into a roughly humanoid shape, a hybrid of human and vermin, and a giant example of that vermin.

The published vermin hosts included cockroach, rodent, leech, and spider.

The leech host reappeared in Slumbering Tsar #3. The vermin hosts were scheduled to be reprinted, updated for Pathfinder, in Monsters of Porphyra 3. To my knowledge, the vermin hosts have not been reprinted since their first appearance.

Other relevant links:

• http://www.d20resources.com/arcana.d20.srd/creatures/leechwalker.php
• http://www.d20resources.com/arcana.d20.srd/creatures/roach.thrall.php
• https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/swarmblooded-creature-cr-1/
• https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/worm-that-walks-cr-2/

Antherians and hengeyokai

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

Links

• https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Antherion
• https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Hengeyokai
• https://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?475874-Monster-ENCyclopedia-Jackalwere
• http://themonstersknow.com/jackalwere-tactics/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/3ojf6w/jackalwere/
• http://dailybestiary.blogspot.com/2012/09/jackalwere.html
• https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Jackalwere
• http://jrevell.blogspot.com/2019/03/d-monsters-lycanthropes.html
• https://www.dndbeyond.com/races/7721-jackalwere
• https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Aranea
• https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Hengeyokai
• https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/therianthrope-cr-varies-tohc/
• http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2019/05/why-animal-people.html
• http://greatandsmallrpg.blogspot.com/p/what-is-animal-fantasy.html
• https://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2014/08/and-goat-had-notable-horn-between-his.html
• 
  

Curse of lycanthropy, version 2

In an earlier post on lycanthropy in D&D, I divided the condition into three types. However, this was a mistake on my part as I forgot to include the first and second edition iterations. In this post, I present an expanded and revised version of my previous taxonomy.

All iterations of lycanthropy in D&D may be categorized along three common axes. These axes are: whether the condition is acquired or inherited and how, whether the lycanthrope is a natural at self-control or afflicted without it, and whether the lycanthrope is infectious or not.

This results in roughly four broad types of lycanthropy, or alternately therianthropy, and several subtypes. Here a lycanthrope, or therianthrope, is defined broadly as a humanoid who can transform into an animal. This taxonomy is closely based on that presented in the D&D 2e Monstrous Manual.

• Type 1 lycanthropy is a disease as seen in horror movies. It is transmitted by the natural attacks (and potentially body fluids) of type 1 lycanthropes. Type 1 lycanthropes have no control over or mental faculties during the transformation, but may train themselves otherwise.
• Type 1b lycanthropy is identical to type 1 lycanthropy except that type 1b lycanthropes cannot transmit lycanthropy.
• Type 2 lycanthropy is hereditary. Type 2 lycanthropes carry and transmit type 1 lycanthropy, but display full control over and mental faculties during the transformation.
• Type 2b lycanthropes are identical to type 2 lycanthropes except that they transmit type 1b lycanthropy.
• Type 2c lycanthropes are identical to type 2 lycanthropes except that they do not transmit lycanthropy. They may transmit other diseases, however.
• Type 3 lycanthropes use a magic token to transform, such as a swan maiden’s cloak, a selkie’s sealskin, or a ring of Hircine. They retain full self-control and cannot transmit lycanthropy.
• Type 4 lycanthropy is contracted as a result of a curse, such as the spell curse of lycanthropy. Type 4 lycanthropes are otherwise identical to type 1b lycanthropes.
• Type 4b lycanthropy is identical to type 4 lycanthropy except that they may transmit type 4b lycanthropy.

Obviously this taxonomy is arbitrary and lycanthropy may be categorized in other ways. For example, the most recent fifth edition of D&D restricts the usage of the term lycanthropy to contagious lycanthropy and not human-to-animal transformation in general. For the purposes of popular recognition, I will use lycanthropy to refer only to those conditions caused by curses and diseases, such as werewolves and wereboars. I will refer to human-to-animal transformation and vice versa collectively as therianthropes. I will otherwise refer to type 2c lycanthropes, as defined here, as zoanthropes. I will refer to animal-to-human transformations, such as jackalweres and wolfweres, as antherians.

OGL substitutes for changelings, shifters and warforged

The changelings, shifters and warforged are races from the Eberron campaign setting that proved quite popular. However, they are not open game content and thus 3pp cannot reference them. Not to worry, there are substitutes under the OGL out there.

It was quite easy to find substitutes for the warforged. For whatever reason, there are many construct races out there. There are too many to list here, so you’ll probably need to search on your own until you find one you like.

I could only find one substitute for the changeling: the doppel race from the Dragonstar campaign setting. Their backstory and traits are essentially identical. Doppels are the descendants  of humans and doppelganger, displaying limited shapeshifting suitable for disguise as a result.

I could only find a couple substitutes for the shifter: the wereblooded race in the Bite Me! supplements by Misfit Studios and the skinwalker race in the Blood of the Moon supplement by Paizo. Their backstory and traits are essentially identical. Skinwalkers and wereblooded are the descendants of humans and lycanthropes, displaying limited shapeshifting into partial animal features as a result.

Obvious these are written for specific rulesets, but they should serve well enough as inspiration.

Beast lords and shapechangers

Since I've decided to make the beast lords a basic part of my setting's theology, that means I have to tie them with beasts and various related monsters. That includes beastmen, beastfolk, lycanthropes, therianthropes, and more.

The distinction between beastmen and beastfolk is arbitrary and the terms are often used interchangeably. When one does wish to make a distinction, it generally boils down to this: beastmen are chimerical combinations of human and animals features (e.g. centaurs, harpies, satyrs, etc), whereas beastfolk are anthropomorphic animals (e.g. catfolk, ratfolk, lizardfolk, sea devils, gnolls, etc).

Lycanthropes are humans or other humanoids suffering the affliction or blessing of lycanthropy. In my setting all diseases whether mundane or magical are caused by disease spirits a la Glorantha, a variation of which applies here. The disease spirits that cause lycanthropy are lycanthropic spirits and they behave a bit differently from other disease spirits, not the least of which being that they cause transformation into animal forms.

Antherians (from "antherion," a compound of an- + therian meaning "not animal") are intelligent beasts that may assume humanoid form as a racial trait, typically to infiltrate humanoid societies. (This concept appears quite a few times in real world folklore, such as the stories of fox fairies in China, Korea and Japan, the goblin spiders and raccoon dogs of Japan, hyena men in some African countries, deer women in some indigenous American cultures, and so forth.) Antherians cannot contract, carry or transmit lycanthropy; their innate animal spirit repels the lycanthropic spirit.

Therianthrope is an ambiguous term referring to 1) all shape changers that switch between beast and humanoid forms, or 2) antherians specifically (a usage originating from the 3pp Tome of Horrors, which introduced them under the OGL).

Zoanthrope is a synonym for therianthrope, referring to a man that assumes the form of an animal. For purposes of game setting world building, I will use the term to refer to humanoids that assume the forms of animals as a racial (or class) trait but are neither lycanthropes nor antherians. An example would be the Mhuinntir race from Legends & Lairs: Mythic Races, the Skinwalker race from Blood of the Moon, or the Weretouched archetype for the Shifter class in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Ultimate Wilderness. Like antherians, they cannot contract, carry or transmit lycanthropy.

Vermin hosts (introduced in Creature Collection II: Dark Menagerie under the OGL) are shape changers whose animal aspect are vermin like leeches, rats, roaches, and spiders. Although appearing similar to lycanthropes due to their assumed forms and ability to infect others, physically vermin hosts are actually swarms of vermin with a shared mind. I will treat them as a type of lycanthropy.

In the setting itself, most people are unaware of these distinctions and treat as shape changers as interchangeable.

All of these therianthropes may trace their origins to specific patrons among the beast lords, such as the lord of lycanthropes, the lord of vermin, etc.

In future posts I hope to explore the distinctions and ramifications further.