003. Species

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• Lycanthropes can assume two forums – human and animal.
  
• Changing between forms takes a great deal of energy. Must lycanthropes must feed immediately after changing back to their human forms. Stronger lycanthropes do not need to feed immediately after. All lycanthropes need to eat a high protein and calorie diet to be able to keep enough body mass and energy to go under continuous shifting and the energy that it takes. Those who do not eat a proper diet with the nutrients needed risk collapse after shifting to either form and passing out.
  
• Lycanthropes are able to do slight partial shifts, though to do with caution as this does expend energy. When faced with extreme bouts of emotion it is hard to control their shifts (when angered, overly happy, in sexual acts) and they may find that their eyes shift to that of their shift’s. Their teeth are liable to change too, from the rounded human teeth to the elongated teeth of their wolf.
  
• When a werewolf shifts form into a wolf they are easily three or more times larger than the average grey wolf.

• Lycanthropy is a blood-borne affliction. It can usually be contracted only through a wound from a were who has shifted to animal form. Injecting lycanthrope blood directly into the body will also spread the disease.
  
• The lycanthrope disease is a hostile disease; there for all lycanthropes are immune to illnesses and other diseases because the lycanthrope strand’s hostility will wipe out any other strain.
  
• Because of the disease anyone who becomes infected becomes deathly allergic to silver. A small wound caused by silver can easily get infected. Any wound caused by silver will take humanly slow.

• A victim must be bitten or clawed by another werewolf (the werewolf must be in full werewolf form or be a powerful enough werewolf to have just transformed claws/hands or teeth) to become a werewolf.
  
• Not all lycanthrope wounds end in the victim contracting the curse. Though more often than not, they do.
  
• The first sign of contracted lycanthropy is unusually fast healing, often even of wounds that should have resulted in death for the victim. Other signs may or may not include sharpened senses and increased speed and strength.
  
• Depending on the “power” of the werewolf will it determine when their first shift will happen. A new born werewolf will have little control over their shifting for the first few months of lycanthrope life. Their first shift if completely involuntary and usually occurs one month after being infected, the time it takes for the disease to spread all throughout the body.

• Speed: All lycans are inhumanly fast. They are able to sprint speeds that are unmatched by any other being. In human from they are slower but still retain a speed and grace that is unmatched.
  
• Strength: All lycans are inhumanly strong. They are able to lift items with ease that normal humans would have to rely on machinery. In human form they are still strong but it is a shy comparison to what their shifted forms can accomplish.
  
• Sight: All lycans are able to see for vast distances and acute detail with little effort. In human form everything is lessened. Everything with their lycan eyes (even if it is just their eyes shifted) is magnified to the smallest detail.
  
• Smell: Thanks to their wolf counterpart lycans have the best sense of smell. This is the only ability that hardly slackens when they are shifted into their human form. This sense can be so acute in some lycans that they can smell the chemical change in someone when they are aroused, being truthful, or even lying. Though it is a true gift to have that acute sense of smell.
  
• Healing: Short of decapitation a lycan heal nearly anything; wounds large and small. They are not able to re-grow limbs; if lost in either form the loss will transform over.
  
• Temperature: Lycans have a high body temperature, their normal body temperature ranges in the 109F area. Because of this they never become cold; they also never over heat because of their immunity to most ailments.

• Most alphas have the ability to resist shape shifting, although it is very rare ability to prevent shift during the full moon without the assistance of another werewolf.
  
• They have the ability to finely control the speed, violence, extent and/or the time of their shapeshift. For example only a very few can shift hands into claws without a complete change to a hybrid or full animal form. The most powerful may exhibit the ability to shift forms quickly, painlessly, or nearly at all without feeding.
  
• The ability to force other werewolves to change form or to prevent them from doing so.
  
• It is a very rare gift but some alphas are able to transfer power, though temporarily to another shifter, to give them a hint of their alpha’s strength and power in need.
  
• The ability to heal others by “calling flesh”.

• Dominance is a key element in werewolf social organization. The pack is structured in a clear hierarchy, and the pack members move up or down by winning or losing challenges against other pack members.
  
• Most dominance battles end when one participant backs down.
  
• A dominant pack member may issue any order to submissive member, provided that the dominant does not order the submissive to do anything illegal, unless that illegal activity was ordered by the alpha.
  
• A pack member may offer or receive “protection” to or from another member. A pack member must accept all challenges on behalf of any person whom he or she has offered protection.

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• First off Rogue werewolves are just ordinary werewolves with no special abilities. They are only called Rogue werewolves because they split off from the other packs many years ago.
  
• Generally Rogue werewolves hold great distain for the structure of the pack, whatever reasoning is their own. They could not like packs because they don’t take orders, they were banned, they are too weak of a werewolf to advance in rank within the pack, and whatever it may be.
  
• Rogue werewolves are trying to upset the balance of things. They are causing trouble for the humans by abducting men, woman, and children. Killing at random is a very large part of what they are doing.
  
• Rogue werewolves are clever. They don’t want to be pinned to doing something destructive. They will set traps, rigs of sorts, to go off when they aren’t around to pin the destruction on the pack werewolves, humans, or hunters to try to get them to fight more and more within themselves.

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• Hunters are skilled and specially trained by master hunters from childhood to be raised as werewolf killers.
  
• Humans are selected as hunters for innate skills of speed, agility, fast reflexes, strength, and so forth. These skills give them an advantage over the average human against the werewolves but they are still no match. These skills more or less just level the playing field.
  
• Someone with specialized skills is able to be spotted from birth, they mature quicker, and they are able to have higher mobility skills faster.
  
• These heightened skills are thanks to a gene that was discovered by a human scientist. The gene is passed down at random though the generations, only in blood lines that are known to carry it. Every child could get the gene or no one could, one child every 50 years could get it. It’s unknown as to how the gene selects who it will be present in or the factors that go into it.
  
• Hunters are trained to recognize werewolves by sight, but deep down in their abilities are are always able to recognize werewolves some how, this usually varies between person. It could be smell, feel of the werewolf energy, or even the rare hunters who are able to recognize the werewolves by their power level and tell how strong of a werewolf they are.
  
• All hunters specialize in some kind of weapon; being a gun, swords, throwing knives, etc. This specialty is usually the same as their master hunter since they are better able to explain the techniques of that skill. It is very rare for someone to have a specialized skill that isn’t the same as their master hunter, this usually only happens if the hunter trainee shows extreme skill for that weapon.
  
• All hunters are required to take on at least one trainee in their life time, this is required by the Government that "owns" them so to speak.

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• Humans are just humans. They don’t have any special powers or abilities.
  
• It is not general knowledge about werewolves. Of course there are some who know about werewolves because of run-ins with them or a family member is a werewolf, the government is trying to keep that slice of information under cover.
  
• Humans can hunt werewolves too; they just don’t have the highly specialized skills of a true hunter. Anyone can accomplish anything if they put their mind to it.

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• Handlers are essentially managers for the Hunters. They are assigned a certain number of hunters where they will manage every aspect of the Hunter’s hunting job. To determine how many Hunters a Handler will be assigned all depends on the Handler’s skill and the nature of the Hunter(s) in question. For example, there could be a handler who doesn’t shoot to kill easily; they would be assigned several mild mannered hunters who tend to stay out of trouble. But if there is a ruthless hunter who always put themselves into danger where they could be infected much more easier then they will be assigned to a handler who is just as ruthless, if not more so. In the cases of violent or reckless Hunters the Handler will only be assigned one or two Hunters so they will be able to keep watch on them easier.
  
  
• Handlers get orders directly from the department in the government that deals with peranatural beings like Handlers, Hunters, and werewolves on where they need to sand their Hunters to exterminate an over population of werewolves or werewolves who are causing too much trouble for a town. The Handlers will give the Hunters all the information they need to know on how many werewolves they need to kill before they are able to return home, how long they need to stay there, and how discreetly it all needs to be done. A lot of the time Handlers will follow their Hunters to where they are sent on assignment, be it over sea or the next town over. They won’t be directly involved in a hunt but they make whatever needs to happen for the Hunters to be able to do their job. If the Hunters ask for more weapons, a certain kind of weapon, a clock cleared of civilians, or anything else the Hunters may require, the Handlers will see it done. The handlers also travel, especially with the more… penchant for racking up the body count of innocent civilians hunters, to make sure that the bodies don’t pile up that aren’t werewolves.
  
  
• Yet another job that is required of a Handler is to manage any press that their Hunter may attract. Even the mildest mannered Hunter tends to attract the press and media just because of the violent nature of the topic. Good luck to any Handler whose hunter uses a flame thrower, which is not exactly an easy thing to cover up. The Handlers must come up with some kind of story that covers up what happened, the government is trying very, very hard to keep the rising population of werewolves unknown to the public. Overzealous Hunters who get too wrapped up in the hunt tend to forget this and chase the werewolves into populated areas where there could be witnesses.
  
  
• The biggest, and hardest to follow, rule that a Handler has is: don’t make friends with your Hunters. Even though the Handlers are instructed to not make friends with their Hunters it tends to happen anyways. When you travel with someone, work with them, and spend more time together than with anyone else, you form a bond. Even if it is just a bond of respect, it is still there. The reason that this rule is so important and should be followed is because you hesitate when you need to shoot to kill a friend. The Handlers must keep their Hunters in line at any cost. If the Hunter’s psyche breaks and they turn into a homicidal maniac it will be the Handler’s job to kill them to save lives of innocent humans. And the most dangerous part of the job, to kill Hunters who are infected by lycanthropy.
  
  
• Because the need to be able to handle and control these natural born killers, the Handlers go through just as much training as the Hunters do. All the Handlers know how to shoot guns and normally carry one on them at all times. Of course, just like the Hunters, each Handler has their preferred weapon that they specialize in.
  
  
• Hunters are born and trained killers. Werewolves, at least in the eye of the government, are nothing but blood thirsty beasts that will kill you without hesitation. That gene that makes Hunters, Hunters also makes them the most powerful werewolves out there if they are infected. They are faster, stronger, and just a whole new level of werewolf who has been trained to kill basically since birth. The government does not want this kind of werewolf out there even more so than regular werewolves, they will go to any length to kill infected Hunters to insure they do not reproduce and strengthen the normal werewolf population. This is why the government frowns on Handlers making friends with their Hunters; it is a very real possibility for Hunters to be infected. The government really does not want their Handlers to hesitate and to be killed because what lies in their genetic encoding. Just as the Hunters have something special in their genetics so do the Handlers.
  
  
• The Handlers have a milder form of genetic mutation that the Hunters do. They are faster, stronger, more agile, etc than the normal run of the mill human but not to the same degree of the Hunters. What the government found in some special cases of these genetically evolved people is immunity to the lycanthropy strain. This immunity and the enhanced abilities is why the government chose them to handle the Hunters. The government didn’t want the Handlers to be the Hunters because they aren’t as fast or durable as the Hunters. But when you’re face to face with a pissed off Hunter who has been infected, you want immunity to the lycanthropy strain because it is more than likely that you’ll be bitten or scratched when you’re having a throw down with a trained killer. The government didn’t want to risk any more of their Hunters by facing them off with Hunters, it was far too much of a risk for them to be infected.