Seawolf [Lycanthrope]

Seawolves are humans who turn into a blend of seal and wolf, then hunt the oceans in packs looking for vessels to destroy. The lesser seawolf's beast form has a seal's body 6 to 7 feet long topped by the head and shoulders of a wolf. It also has a hybrid wolfman shape, roughly human in build but keeping the fangs, claws and fur. In human form a lesser seawolf is 5 to 6 feet tall, heavily muscled, with tiny ears and a mane of long hair spilling over head and shoulders.

A pack swims up to a ship as seawolves, shifts to hybrid form to scramble over the rail, and tears into the crew with teeth and claws. A ship that looks too well guarded may simply be scuttled, the pack gnawing through its planks until it sinks. Unusually for lycanthropes, lesser seawolves have no immunity to ordinary weapons. A slain seawolf turns human again within one round.

Most seawolves were once fishermen or sailors, so most are human men. They run in packs of their own kind and burn with hatred for those who still work the sea, killing them or passing on the curse. A newly infected victim transforms in 2-5 days, slips into the sea after dark, and goes looking for a pack.

They wander cool waters with no lair and no treasure. By day they sleep on beaches, in caves or in houses they have taken over. Caught napping on shore, they claim to be shipwreck survivors, then murder the finders and take their clothes. At sea they sleep floating on their backs and can be mistaken for a knot of drowning men; when a ship comes to the rescue, they bide their time and then try to seize it. They breathe air and can hold their breath for 1d8+16 minutes, after which they take 1d6 damage per round until they surface or drown.

A female bears one cub, which may look like a human baby by day and a seal pup by night. Seawolves have no parental instinct and abandon their young; though newborn cubs already swim and catch food, they struggle to keep up and frequently drown by day, so only 5% survive to adulthood. Half-human children swim well and feel a strange pull toward the sea, and 25% become seawolves in adolescence.

They will team up with other evil water-dwelling lycanthropes but loathe selkies as friends of humanity, and lesser seawolves attack them on sight. They eat fish, shellfish, seabirds, sea mammals and anyone else they can catch, and a pack sometimes comes ashore to commandeer a tavern for a night of drink and debauchery.

A seawolf's personality is a warped echo of the person it was, with every vice swollen and made savage. Every so often it drifts back to its old home port, perhaps from buried longing, perhaps to stoke its hatred, and if it sees its former spouse or child it may try to approach them.

Seawolves are the declared foes of every humanoid who earns a living on the water. Wrecking ships, sowing fear and spreading the curse are the whole of their purpose.

The greater seawolf's beast body runs 12 to 15 feet, and its human form is 6 to 7 feet tall; otherwise it matches the lesser kind. Greater seawolves prefer to approach in human guise, bite or throttle a sailor or two, grab their weapons, and then launch a full assault. In seawolf form they shrug off steel entirely; silver, cold iron or a +1 or better magic weapon is needed to hurt them. Like the lesser kind, a dead one resumes human form in one round.