A thought...

[kengr]

Y'know, in a world where weres are common, and where they have to obey conservation of mass, it would be a bad thing to be biased against fat people...

Comments

[fayanora]

Some of the werewolves in my Ravenstone universe are potentially pretty dangerous even without a full body transformation. There *are* full body transformation types, though it's a risky thing to become, but there are other types as well.

I should clarify, in the Ravenstone storyverse, werewolves or other weres are a magical skill you can learn, not a disease. Though trying to become the kind of were that requires a transformation of your body is very risky. Risks include dying in the attempt, or losing your humanity in the attempt and becoming what is essentially a skinwalker.

Other forms of werewolf include:
* one in which you grow a "skin" of a werewolf made of solidified magic over your existing body.
* one where you manifest a wolf form separate from your body that is made of solidified magic.

Both those forms, when the magic is released through death or Will, the solidified magic turns into slime that evaporates rapidly. This slime is called ectoplasm.

There's also something similar, being able to "ride" the consciousness of a real wolf, dog, or other animal and directing it. But that's usually just a sub-skill of having a familiar.

[conuly]

Well, maybe. A 250 pound mouse would be crushed under its own weight, and I doubt a weremouse would fare much better.

[warriorsavant]

But if werewolves pull mass to grow, then a weremouse would shed mass. To continue the analogy, they would hang out with skinny people and transfer their excess mass to them. Actually, being a weremouse would suck ditch water. Whether by "infection" or "magic," you can transform to beast-like form... and you're a mouse. "Stand back or I will transform and, uh, nibble on your electrical cables."

[full_metal_ox]

Ah—but how about being 250 pounds of normal-sized mice, plural? And an antagonist would have to get them all to kill you—although you might be stuck as a mouse (or a Lilliputian human) until you could fatten up and rebuild mass.)

And combat against human-sized antagonists probably isn’t the best role for a weremouse anyway (unless they’d been trained by Reepicheep)—but stealth, infiltration, and eavesdropping? Think espionage (and sabotage) instead.

(So where the expletive did I come from all of a sudden? I was going through some old LJ whatwasthatone posts, and wandered here from a post of fayanora‘s.

[warriorsavant]

Interesting point. Useful in the same sense as the Pixies in Kim Harrison’s books (I meant for covert ops, not sarcasm).

[kengr]

250 lb swarm of killer bees?

Or 250 lbs of some bacteria/virus. Ebola anyone?

[kengr]

Well, that's the exact opposite of what I was thinking. I meant that the were-form and the human form had to have the same mass. No grabbing mass from elsewhere, nor shedding it.

[warriorsavant]

Could work, or could backfire, depending if the structure of the creature can be scaled up or down. Extreme example: a wereant couldn’t actually live. I suppose a wolf massing only 70 Kg... sorry, just looked it up, the average wolf masses 40 Kg, largest specimens 70-80 Kg, so indeed a traditional werewolf would be more deadly than a common wolf, even if it didn’t have any magical/supernatural powers. I suppose, as you say, an extra-large person would make an extra large wolf, and depending on how the transformation magic works, a very fat person could end up a very large and muscular wolf.

BTW, depending how the magic worked, there’s also no guarantee that it would end up the same gender. Have often toyed with the idea of writing such a novel if I ever went back to trying fiction writing again, but at this point, that is feeling unlikely.

[full_metal_ox]

Ooh! How loose is your interpretation of “mouse”? Imagine The Power Of Friendship as radiated by a 250-pound capybara!

[warriorsavant]

Sounds like were-Barney-the-Dinosaur, “I love you, you love me…or else.

Was thinking strictly Mus musculus.

BTW, welcome to DW.

[full_metal_ox]

Thank you; I’ve actually been here for some while (got an account in 2011, and began to put it to serious use after Perevorot’17 on LJ), but this is the first I’ve strayed into kengr‘s parlor.

[kengr]

Like the old song?

I love you,
You Love me,
Pedo-bestiality...

[warriorsavant]

Exactly. LOL

[kengr]

I was thinking more on the lines of Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos where this grossly obese fellow is a weretiger.

[full_metal_ox]

Just as his werefennec sidekick was necessarily a little person!

And the werewolf first-person protagonist, who’d lost his tail, had trouble sitting down in cold weather in human form—the cocceal injury being a constant.

(That’s also the one that remembered the lore that incubi/succubi are the same creature shifting shape and gender mode.)

[stickmaker]

Was going to mention this story collection if no-one else did. Yeah, I remember the were-fox.

The main character is also an actor, who often gets "Lassie" rolls too difficult for real dogs (IIRC).