Warwere: While they are believed to be the result of an attempt to enhance and militarize lycanthropy, Warweres do not appear to have ever been used as battle by their unknown creators. Most likely because the creators in question were eaten at some point.
Rather than being a merger between human and a conventional animal, Warweres are a blend between a human and an artificial creation dubbed a "War Beast", much more formidable than a natural animal. As well, a partially successful attempt was apparently made to keep beast and human separate with the human mind in ascendance, with some odd results. The result is a creature with some obvious commonalities with conventional lycanthropes, but also some notable differences. There are also two varieties; the deliberately made "Greater Warwere", and the "Lesser Warwere" created by accidental infection.
A Warwere has either three or two forms, depending on if they are of the Greater or Lesser type. Human form is what it sounds like; an apparently human form, although physically enhanced in every way. Humanform Warweres are prone to aggression and violence, but basically rational and capable of self control. They are also nearly insensitive to pain and capable of rapid complete healing, so among themselves at least their tendencies to violence are more an annoyance than anything.
Their second form shared by both Lesser and Greater Warweres is the Warbeast form, their "animal" component. The Warbeast shape is four-legged, with a body resembling a scaled cat and a head shaped like a cat-eyed wolf. They have a mane, back-crest and tail tufts that resemble fur from a distance, but up close can be identified as flexible spines (which are venomous, as it happens), with the rest of their body armored in scales. Tougher, faster and stronger than their human forms and equipped with claws & fangs that can rend both metal and stone, this shape a formidable combatant. Unfortunately, Warweres in Warbeast form are at best barely rational near-berserkers, and can easily lose control of themselves entirely. Worse, Warweres during the full Moon involuntarily take on their Warbeast form, and entirely lose their reason becoming pure killing machines. And since unlike normal lycanthropes they can tear through metal and stone, most methods of restraining them are futile; lock them in a basement vault during the full Moon, and they will tear their way out eventually.
The third form, the "Trueform" is available only to the Greater Warweres is their oddest, and apparently the result of the attempt by their creators to keep person and beast separate. The Trueform is a bipedal merger of human and Warbeast, but rather than a blend of forms it is more a combination. A Trueform has eight limbs and a tail, with two legs and six arms; the upper two pair of arms humanlike if clawed, with the lowest pair much larger and heavily built with longer claws. While usually bipedal the lowest set of arms are long enough that they often "knuckle walk" on three or four limbs much like an ape when in a hurry. Their heads have similar duplication with two concentric sets of teeth, four mobile pointed ears, and four eyes; an inner humanlike set and an outer set of catlike Warbeast eyes. Notably, each pair of eyes tends to look at different things, and expresses different emotions; the human eyes appear calm, the Warbeast eyes enraged.
Trueform behavior is likewise oddly split; their body language and tone of voice is bestial and angry, while their words are calm and rational. Mentally they are much the same; in Trueform both their animalistic Warbeast mind and human mind are active at once but separate, with the human mind dominant over and directing the Warbeast one. Their human personality is actually calmer and more rational than when they are in human form, almost detached in fact. This does have the somewhat ironic effect that their most formidable and scary-looking form is also the form they prefer for intellectual tasks and reasoned discussions.
Warweres are immune to ageing and disease, and very hard - but not impossible - to kill. Silver plated weapons do more harm to them and the wounds heal slower, but are not nearly as effective against them as against conventional lycanthropes; one of their improvements.
Warweres can't breed naturally as the change of forms destroys any pregnancy. They are however infectious, any human wounded by one has a chance of contracting the condition and if untreated will either die or become a Lesser Warwere. Warweres can also deliberately transform someone, in a ritual involving certain magics and crucially the direct transfer of blood to the subject. The result of such a ritual if successful (if unsuccessful, it's fatal, although it's less risky than the Lesser transformation) is a Greater Warwere; unfortunately, this ritual doesn't work on the Lesser Warweres, leaving them stuck as they are.
Due to how difficult it is to contain them during their full Moon rages, Warweres are typically found either far away from other people, or right in the middle of advanced regions that actually have the wherewithal to contain them when necessary and not much in between. There are entire islands known to be populated solely by Warweres, for example. Warweres that find themselves among humans without the ability to contain them tend to be either driven out or be killed, given how much damage they inevitably cause.
