Lycans

Lycans originated with Old Fang, founder of the Pack, who pushed his favored wolf transformation beyond ordinary Druidic shapeshifting by binding it to a parasite. The result was neither man nor natural wolf, but the first Werewolf: a powerful hybrid transformation that could be assumed more readily and violently than conventional animal forms. Other members of the Pack later repeated the process with different animals, producing Werebears and other forms collectively known as Lycans.

Lycanthropy became deeply embedded within Pack society, reflecting its willingness to embrace chaos as a source of strength. Experienced Lycans normally exercise considerable control over their transformations, but the parasites become increasingly active around the full moon, making transformations erratic, involuntary, and difficult to reverse. The Pack accepts this danger as the price of remaining a powerful, independent people without the protection of Wardens.

Lycanthropy is strongly influenced by the Twins, Riftmoor's two moons, becoming increasingly active and making transformations more erratic as either approaches its full phase. The closer monthly moon creates the more familiar recurring cycle, while the slower seasonal moon produces a second overlapping rhythm; periods when both approach full can be particularly unstable. When Lycans leave Riftmoor, they retain these internal rhythms even aboard spacecraft or on other worlds, though over long periods the cycles gradually drift and become increasingly difficult to predict. The moons themselves are not required for transformation—the lycans simply remain biologically synchronized to the lunar forces that originally influenced them.