Loup de Noir [Lycanthrope]

Known also as the skinchanger, the loup du noir becomes a wolf by wrapping itself in a special wolf hide. Long ago, certain human hunters learned the trick so they could stalk game more effectively, and over generations it became an inherited gift. A handful survive today, carrying a dark talent for becoming a savage killer.

It has just two forms. As a human it is an ordinary person and may hold any character class and normal ability scores. As a wolf it is as big and vicious as a dire wolf and gains several special powers. Without its pelt, though, it cannot change at all.

In human shape the skinchanger wears armor, casts spells and swings weapons like anyone else. As a wolf it bites for 2d6, and a natural 20 means it has locked onto the throat for double damage.

The sorcery behind the change also guards it. A loup du noir is immune to charm and hold effects and gains +4 on saves against all other mind-affecting spells. Only silver weapons or weapons under a bless spell wound it normally; ordinary weapons do nothing, since the wounds close at once. Magical weapons do harm it, but only for half damage unless they are silver or blessed.

Skinchangers are usually solitary, though a whole family or a company of hunters might share the secret. In human life they tend to be hunters, trappers and woodsmen.

Unlike most lycanthropes, they did this to themselves, and whatever drove them, the wolf's power soon seduces them. Holding off the change requires a save vs. spell, and every day since the last transformation imposes a further cumulative -1; failure means the urge cannot be denied.

The wolf keeps full human intellect, which makes it a crafty enemy, but bloodlust clouds its judgment and can turn it on anyone, friends and innocents included. When the frenzy pushes it toward a victim it would rather spare, it may save vs. spell to hold back, at a cumulative -1 for each day it has gone without killing. Sooner or later it must give in.

For all its intelligence, the loup du noir is no natural hunter and slaughters without discrimination. A creature it wounds in wolf form risks lycanthropy at 1% for each point of damage suffered. It does not count as a master lycanthrope, so it can neither force its victims to change nor control them.

The condition is hereditary. Its children born in wolf shape are wolfweres, while those born human may grow into skinchangers themselves.