Lycanthropy, Vampirism and the Elves

[ënagualí~ᏉLAᗪἇ ኔጡ።]

 The Elves created Lycanthrops and Vampires as fighting machines / biological and psychological weapons - they messed up in the end!

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This is a legend – a legend of the beginning, of the origin of some beautiful, but also many gruesome things. Because wherever you have light, it casts a shadow! And just like the shadow owes his existence to the light, our greatest fears, that let the blood freeze in our veins, were created by what fills us with hope and admiration!

This is a dark legend – a legend about the elves.

The favorites of the gods, the firstborn, graceful, delicate and beautiful, magically gifted and close to nature, “the light of the world” and immortal – those are the elves.

But they are only immortal as long as they don’t die by violence! And for the elves, blessed with the gift of immortality, it is particularly bad if the life thread of one of them is cut before he hears this “tune” and leaves this world to return to the blessed homeland of the elves. But how could the elves – with all their gifts – survive in a wild, hostile world? Threatened by wild animals, different kinds of monsters, giants, dragons and last but not least the countless goblinoids?

Well, the elves allied themselves with nature – with animals, plants and the elements. They are – among other things – the inventors of ranger-ism and druid-ism. The animals served the elves at first, probably similar as they serve the humans today: as hunting and fighting comrades, guardians, messengers and spies. (Possibly present elves will probably stress here, that the relationship between their race and the animals was one with equal rights and camaraderie and that the animals were not exploited for food production or for show).

However this may be – the next step was that the elves started to learn from their allies; they started to imitate the hunting- and fighting style of the animals (elven – Kung-Fu) and sharpened their senses to reach those of the animals. With the help of their stronger growing magic, they could soon share the senses of the animals and finally even assume their shape. (Among other things, spells like “animal friendship”, “find familiar”, “bull’s strength”, “polymorph self” and the druidic shape-change bear witness to this). The single elves did this, as the elven clans concentrated on special Totem – animals: swan or crane, eagle or hawk, cat or panther, wolf or fox, cobra or naga, otter and dolphin, were among the most popular Totems or Sigils of the elves.

I see it slowly starts to dawn on you: the Swan-maidens, the abilities of the sea-elves to assume the shape of an otter or a dolphin and the lycanthropes – were-eagles, were-cats and were-wolves - this and much more started like this!

Do I hear you protest here? Think about it: where should be the origin of an evil that exists since time immemorial, if not with the race that takes claim to have endowed the majority of our culture?

You object the humans and the other races have distorted everything? Well, let me continue:

The elves had improved their situation without a doubt – but their problems weren’t solved yet! Because of their longevity / immortality, the elves reproduced very slowly – the orcs and goblins, on the other hand extremely fast. And despite their superiority, the elves remained vulnerable: the death of one of them always hit the other elves hard, while even losing 100 or more warriors hardly weakened the orcs and goblins… So what the elves still needed was a kind of invulnerability and the possibility to turn the numbers of their enemies against them and strike them with fear!

And so, the elves advanced further and further into the secrets of magic, experimenting with arcane rituals. At first, they succeeded in imbuing their elite-warriors with astonishing self –healing powers and made them immune to most normal weapons: only magic, fire, acid or silver – sometimes cold steel - could still wound them. Next, they succeeded in combining the advantages of a humanoid and an animal-shape in a hybrid-form: the ultimate warriors!

But the last, gruesome but crucial step was the “infectious bite” a possibility to turn the strength of an opponent against himself and sow fear in his heart. You see that it makes sense: true lycanthropes can control the lycanthropes they infected as “master – lycanthropes”; left to their own, the rage of the infected lycanthropes is directed to the closest targets: most of the time the own family and the own clan.

Now imagine the new situation: a small group or even a solitary of this “Lycans” could tackle easily one or more big orc-tribes. Silver or even magical weapons are rare – back then surely even rarer and fire as a weapon is quite unwieldy. So a very small risk – the “Lycans” were effectively invulnerable. They didn’t even need to kill their opponents – it was sufficient to injure a few and wait until the next full moon…

The story could end here – but a good thing seldom lasts forever. When someone develops a new weapon, his opponents will try to copy it. Perhaps some of the infected opponents succeeded in controlling the curse, maybe some progenies sired by infected lycanthropes became true lycanthropes. Perhaps it was treason: maybe Malar developed from an “animal-lord” to a “beast-lord” and some of the lycanthropes were corrupted by him “from the inside”, while others stayed in the service of good. Or the other races gained in magic and could create lycanthropes themselves with the help of Malar. It seems that there is an affinity between some races and some animals / lycanthropes e.g.: orc => were-boar, dwarf => were-badger, human or ogre => were-bear.

However this may be – as “the secret” started to spread, the advantage was nullified again – even worse: since the opponents of the elves were more numerous, even the small initial advantages in nature were gone. To protect themselves from total extinction, the elves needed something to turn the tide another time. Maybe a progression in the chosen direction, but this time with several “build-in security measures” to stop the tide from turning again. And of course, no further elves should lose their lives – perhaps one could use the dead – since they didn’t return home, their souls could do one last service to their people…

Well, in what direction leads us those thoughts: to vampirism – mightier than the lycanthropes, the vampires are subject to many more restrictions. They have shape-changing powers: classically wolf and bat, sometimes cat, crow, rat or serpent. These abilities strongly resemble those of the druids and the lycanthropes. They can even turn into fog and are immune to silver – only magical weapons hurt them. And while lycanthropes surely are immune against infection by another lycanthrope, vampires can drain their life-force and turn them into a vampire. A vampires curse even spreads faster than lycanthropy. And vampires have even stronger control above their subordinates and above certain animals. They can also use their “charming gaze” against humanoids – where the elves conveniently are as good as immune. The vampire’s ability to regenerate surpasses the one of the lycanthropes by far: they can literally return from the grave. And they are even in their humanoid shape very dangerous – so they don’t waste time to change shape and can use normal equipment, too.

This is opposed by the long list of their weaknesses: the sunlight, holy water or holy symbols burn them. They have to rest by daytime - respectively to renew their powers - in native soil. They can’t enter a building or a homestead uninvited and they can’t cross over running water. And their strange weakness concerning weapons (stakes) from (ash) wood – whereas they normally are only vulnerable by fire and magic weapons.

And if this isn’t proof enough, the hate relationship between vampires and lycanthropes, together with other legends and lore should be convincing. In spite of their loathing, the lycanthropes are often the day-guards for the vampires.

Or think of the typical elvish “funeral-rituals”: the deceased is bedded in a boat and pushed into a river or lake – then the boat is shot in fire. This surely stops the transformation into a vampire. Even when somebody is left lying in the sun, this suffices normally. But when someone is buried – or with underground dwelling races like orcs – or when we are at it – the drow?! (See the legend of prince Katharinadukis – an elven prince - who turned himself into a vampire to avenge his tribe. He is rumored to still roam the Underdark and feed on drow.) In the meantime, the elves turned away in horror of these “failures” but once unleashed, they “live” on…

See - A Cultural Overview Of Dwarves