Weremustela [Ravenloft]

Weremustela is the family name for four related strains: wereermines, wereminks, werepolecats and wereweasels. Their human shapes (rarely gnome or halfling) look ordinary, if slim and toothy. The animal shape is the matching ermine, mink, polecat or weasel. The hybrid is long, supple and furred, with stubby clawed paws (the hands still work perfectly), a short tail, and a snaky neck merging into a wedge-shaped, needle-toothed head.

The strains can be told apart in animal or hybrid shape. Wereermines stand about 5 1/2 feet, chocolate brown above and white below, with a black tail tip; in winter all but the tail goes snow white. Wereminks reach roughly 6 feet, short-furred in reddish brown to dark cinnamon, sometimes white-patched on the throat, chest or chin. Werepolecats, of similar height or a little taller, are brown to black over pale yellow underfur, marked with silver near the eyes. The 4 1/2-foot wereweasel is the smallest, colored and seasonally changing like the wereermine but slimmer. They speak local human tongues, a shared hissing language, and the speech of their own animal.

Human shapes favor daggers, swords and, where available, blasting-powder guns. In hybrid shape they may use weapons or bite: 1d4 (wereweasel), 1d6 (wereermine), 1d8 (weremink) or 1d8+1 (werepolecat). The bite is so quick that defenders always count as surprised for AC purposes against it, so Dexterity bonuses vanish. The animal shape bites for just 1 point and is for spying and escape.

A hybrid that lands a bite can hold on, dealing bite damage automatically each later round, and shake its prey. Every round of shaking, each thing the victim holds requires its own Dexterity check, shields and weapons included, or drops it. A shaken victim gets +2 to hit his captor but -4 against anyone else and cannot cast spells with somatic or material components. After release he suffers -2 to attack for 1d3 rounds. The jaws cannot be pried open; it lets go only once it has lost half its starting hit points.

In natural terrain the hybrid climbs walls, hides in shadows and moves silently at 80%. A white-coated wereermine or wereweasel against snow is effectively invisible beyond 60 feet.

Only +1 or better weapons, or fir-wood weapons, can hurt them, as can a blessed trapper's blade once used to skin the creature's own kind of animal. Swallowing even a pinch of mistletoe means save vs. poison or die, though there is a 75% chance it notices the herb before eating. Changing shape heals 1d6x10% of damage suffered since the previous change. Each point of bite damage carries a 2% chance of lycanthropy.

They roam temperate forests across the misty dread realm, usually (80%) in mixed bands of two or more strains. Wereermines like dense woods in colder heartland domains and the frozen north; wereminks range as far as the bayou domain but never far from fresh water; werepolecats prefer open woodland or plains. Wereweasels, the most common, share the wereermines' dark forests.

Society is savage but ranked. The strains fight without mercy for supremacy, and inside each strain individuals claw up a strict ladder. Wereminks usually win through size and ruthlessness; only the less numerous werepolecats can challenge them. They prize lies, betrayal and the total lack of scruples. Still, an odd kinship holds: overlapping groups share a lair, often an underground warren of larders and feast halls, and the young mingle, though cross-strain mating is punished with death. Nights of man-hunting and assassination often end in drunken singing.

They eat rodents, birds, eggs and insects, and wereminks add fish, shellfish and crustaceans. Human flesh is everyone's favorite, taken in savage raids on rural villages, though they refuse to live among people. They hate other lycanthropes and will happily eat wererats. Pacts with evil powers such as strong undead, made for wealth or favors, usually end in betrayal.