Wererat Lord [Lycanthrope]

Wererat lords are the nobility of their kind, revered almost as gods by ordinary wererats with lifespans reaching 200 years. They look no different from common wererats. Lords of other lycanthrope types surely exist, but none has yet been documented.

Their key difference is growth: a lord's class level and Hit Dice have no cap beyond the usual racial and class limits, and they rise together. So a human lord who is a 16th-level thief attacks as a rogue of that level while human, and as a 16 HD monster in ratman shape. Most lords are thieves (75%), with some mages (10%) and thief/mages (5%). Like lesser wererats, they prefer steel to teeth, and even more they like shooting from safety or springing traps and ambushes.

A lord's wounds carry a 2% chance per point of damage of lycanthropy, double the usual risk. Those infected become ordinary wererats who cannot advance as lords do; true lords are born only to two lord parents.

Each clan answers to a leader with extra powers. It can call up a pack of giant rats and compel any common wererat it infected into ratman form, provided the victim can see it.

Lords live in tight clans that trust no outsider. Relatives may plot against each other, yet close ranks against any external foe. They gravitate to cities, where theft and murder come easily, and surround themselves with expendable followers, common wererats or infected victims chosen for loyalty rather than brains. When a city is picked clean or grows too dangerous, they move on.

Lords are parasites living off parasites, feeding on humans by way of their own lesser kin. Like cuckoos they move into an existing wererat lair or thieves' guild and take it over as a cozy nest. The arrangement ruins the hosts sooner or later, since the lords care only for themselves and will spend any follower to save their own skins.