Random thought about the werewolf frame people have talked about

[Aasha]

I just had a thought. Sevagoth could have been the werewolf frame.

It would have made sense. The shadow would be the wolf. The moves already fit.

[trst]

Pretty sure Sevagoth's release predated the first mentions of a potential werewolf frame.

But he was still developed and released long before Voruna was developed. So even if his 4th would have been a more literal fit for a werewolf it's something was already done. So doing it again would have cheapened one of their kits and reworking Sevagoth into a werewolf frame isn't an option.

 

_{Also inb4 Gears comments}

[Loza03]

I mean, some pre-Dracula Werewolf stories involved projecting one's soul into the form of a wolf. Naturally, Voruna fits this description already, but you are right, it would have fit Sevagoth well too.

 

Werewolves have a fascinating and diverse mythological background, so it's a shame to see them as just the modern day offshoots of Vampires thanks to Dracula. That's fun, but since so many of their tropes are wrapped up in the same themes as Vampires, they tend to get the short end of the stick.

[TARINunit9]

7 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

Werewolves have a fascinating and diverse mythological background, so it's a shame to see them as just the modern day offshoots of Vampires thanks to Dracula. That's fun, but since so many of their tropes are wrapped up in the same themes as Vampires, they tend to get the short end of the stick.

Thumbs up to your comment, but I always got the impression moderns werewolves aren't inspired by Dracula so much as they are trying to invert him. Vampires are presented as preening aristocrats who kill for pleasure, while werewolves are poor rugged folk who kill because they can't help it 

[Loza03]

Just now, TARINunit9 said:

Thumbs up to your comment, but I always got the impression moderns werewolves aren't inspired by Dracula so much as they are trying to invert him. Vampires are presented as preening aristocrats who kill for pleasure, while werewolves are poor rugged folk who kill because they can't help it 

True, but the core tropes originate from Drac himself, since Dracula was inspired by the Vrokolakas and as such is fully a Werewolf in the original text since the Vrokolakas is a creature that is a Werewolf in life, and then upon death transforms into a Vampire, keeping most of their powers. This is why Drac transforms into a wolf so often in the original book, and might even be why he has fangs since that's one of the lupine characteristics Undead Vrokolakas kept after their death and subsequent revival.

I would imagine the modern differentiation is because of this same origin, and thus needing a differentation to not have the two be effectively the same movie monster, so Werewolf in London (one of the first depictions of a 'Modern' Werewolf) framed the monster as a victim, and things went from there.

Other mythological Werewolves were quite different. Whilst Vrokolakas were Greek in Origin, there's also the story of the Lycean Werewolves, who were transformed as an act of Zeus. And of course there's the spiritual projection Werewolves, which as a fun note, includes the Benandanti who granted had a whole bunch of other spiritual forms. Given that they explicitly did battle with ghosts, spirits and demons, and Voruna is the spiritual projection of a person into an animal shape who fought of ghosts and other void-sent hellspawn, Voruna has a pretty clear mythological basis.

[TARINunit9]

1 hour ago, Loza03 said:

True, but the core tropes originate from Drac himself, since Dracula was inspired by the Vrokolakas and as such is fully a Werewolf in the original text since the Vrokolakas is a creature that is a Werewolf in life, and then upon death transforms into a Vampire, keeping most of their powers. This is why Drac transforms into a wolf so often in the original book, and might even be why he has fangs since that's one of the lupine characteristics Undead Vrokolakas kept after their death and subsequent revival.

 

This is interesting to learn about, but you seem to be the only person who equates Dracula with Vrokolakas/Vrykolakas. 

If you know the subtext, Dracula is rooted VERY firmly in the tropes of the Victorian age, with symbolism of tuberculosis, aristocracy, sexual repression, and the overcoming of superstitions. And in terms of strict lore, the titular count Dracula wasn't a werewolf, he was a warlock, and becoming a vampire was just part of the bargain he cut for himself (Drac also has several differences from the historical Vlad III, including being from entirely the wrong country, but that just steers us even further on the tangent)

[NinjaZeku]

Thinking about it, what moveset would a Werewolf Frame have?

A big howl type ability surely, and slashing stuff apart with claws while enraged comes to mind,
maybe some option to leap upon enemies from far away to deliver a special melee attack.

... uh wait, that's Valkyr.

No need for a Werewolf Frame, just make a doggo themed skin for her :P

[SneakyErvin]

3 hours ago, NinjaZeku said:

Thinking about it, what moveset would a Werewolf Frame have?

A big howl type ability surely, and slashing stuff apart with claws while enraged comes to mind,
maybe some option to leap upon enemies from far away to deliver a special melee attack.

... uh wait, that's Valkyr.

No need for a Werewolf Frame, just make a doggo themed skin for her :P

Shapeshifting that would allow for two different gameplay styles. Something like a soldier base form with a beast to shift into. Where one boosts ranged combat and the other melee, with buffs that transitions over between switching for a period of time to incentivize playing around the shapeshift aspect. Preferably the beast form should have the option to either use claws for melee or the equipped melee. Simply solved by having a specific loadout tab for the beast much like the shadow where you can decide to equip the same melee as the base for or leave it blank for claw use. Everything else is shared.

But sadly the moon went up and the werewolf frame went out of its mind and out the window, never to be seen or heard of again. 

[Loza03]

14 hours ago, TARINunit9 said:

This is interesting to learn about, but you seem to be the only person who equates Dracula with Vrokolakas/Vrykolakas. 

If you know the subtext, Dracula is rooted VERY firmly in the tropes of the Victorian age, with symbolism of tuberculosis, aristocracy, sexual repression, and the overcoming of superstitions. And in terms of strict lore, the titular count Dracula wasn't a werewolf, he was a warlock, and becoming a vampire was just part of the bargain he cut for himself (Drac also has several differences from the historical Vlad III, including being from entirely the wrong country, but that just steers us even further on the tangent)

from Project Gutenberg's ebook of Dracula, Bram Stoker, 1897. Doubtless there was plenty of other other themes drawn in (I'd privately pondered the Sexual aspects given Dracula's tendency to break into the rooms of pure maidens), but in spite of some spelling drift as mythology is wont to do, the specific monster Bram decides to have the Locals refer to is the Vyrokolakas, and from there, the Werewolf.

Also on the Vlad III notes, from my research apparently there's a bit of debate there. Bob Curran suggested that the Irish legends of the Abhartach (another vamp, and possibly one of many lost tales) might have been at least one of the Inspirations, possibly even more so as a person than Vlad III, though as for myself I don't know enough about all that to really delve into it. 

[TARINunit9]

2 hours ago, Loza03 said:

from Project Gutenberg's ebook of Dracula, Bram Stoker, 1897. Doubtless there was plenty of other other themes drawn in (I'd privately pondered the Sexual aspects given Dracula's tendency to break into the rooms of pure maidens), but in spite of some spelling drift as mythology is wont to do, the specific monster Bram decides to have the Locals refer to is the Vyrokolakas, and from there, the Werewolf.

Also on the Vlad III notes, from my research apparently there's a bit of debate there. Bob Curran suggested that the Irish legends of the Abhartach (another vamp, and possibly one of many lost tales) might have been at least one of the Inspirations, possibly even more so as a person than Vlad III, though as for myself I don't know enough about all that to really delve into it. 

Technically true, but I'm getting a very different reading from that passage: the superstitious "backwater" Transylvanians meeting the "learned" Englishman, trying to shower him in lucky charms to keep him safe from things that go bump in the night. The horror in this horror story comes from learning these supposedly spooked and superstitious folk have something VERY real to be afraid of (the overall flavor is basically Resident Evil 4's first two levels, before the camp sets in). 

I dunno, Dracula himself does mention were-wolves in a speech about how strong the Icelandic berserkers were... right before the Iceland army got pushed back by Atilla the Hun's army, who Dracula claims to be descended from. I'm not trying to say you're wrong, Bram Stoker definitely did his research into the old folktales, but I don't get the impression Bram Stoker was trying to draw attention to werewolves specifically. The point of a werebeast even back then was to have strength greater than a man. Dracula by contrast, is actually a wimp without his vampire magic: Renfield nearly kills him one-on-one while completely unarmed, and Dracula's final death is being tackled to the ground and hacked apart by knives. That's where the "stregoica -- witch" foreshadowing comes in, Dracula has low STR and CON stats

[(PSN)robotwars7]

21 hours ago, Aasha said:

Sevagoth could have been the werewolf frame.

well he's not. he's a dark wraith frame, and he already has near zero popularity for some reason (not a single skin for him years after his release.). 

Voruna's the closest we're gonna get, all we can hope for is that maybe her deluxe will lean more into the Classical werewolf themes.

[Loza03]

7 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

Technically true, but I'm getting a very different reading from that passage: the superstitious "backwater" Transylvanians meeting the "learned" Englishman, trying to shower him in lucky charms to keep him safe from things that go bump in the night. The horror in this horror story comes from learning these supposedly spooked and superstitious folk have something VERY real to be afraid of (the overall flavor is basically Resident Evil 4's first two levels, before the camp sets in). 

I dunno, Dracula himself does mention were-wolves in a speech about how strong the Icelandic berserkers were... right before the Iceland army got pushed back by Atilla the Hun's army, who Dracula claims to be descended from. I'm not trying to say you're wrong, Bram Stoker definitely did his research into the old folktales, but I don't get the impression Bram Stoker was trying to draw attention to werewolves specifically. The point of a werebeast even back then was to have strength greater than a man. Dracula by contrast, is actually a wimp without his vampire magic: Renfield nearly kills him one-on-one while completely unarmed, and Dracula's final death is being tackled to the ground and hacked apart by knives. That's where the "stregoica -- witch" foreshadowing comes in, Dracula has low STR and CON stats

I mean you are probably right about what Bram was doing, but that's not really relevant at the end of the day, because whilst Bram was creating his own Vampire Mythos and was referring to a monster that showed up in the right place and fit the description. What is important is that the earliest modern media where Werewolves as we currently understand them - Werewolf in London, or failing that, 'the Wolf Man' which was a part of the same series of films - came out only a few years after the first film adaptation of Dracula.

Very few Werewolves aside from the Vryoklakas have the whole 'Bites transmit the curse' or the idea of them being baleful victims like Dracula's spawn. In the Western World, most of them were either transformed by Captial-G God, the gods, or learned how to transform from dark magic and being a witch/warlock/etcetera, nor did they transform with the lunar cycles (though of course Lunar Cycles and insanity were commonly compared mythologically, hence the term 'Lunatic'). So, the most likely conclusion is that, rather than plumb the depths of mythology, they nicked from the source of their most popular product. 

[xcrimsonlegendx]

On 2023-06-06 at 5:47 PM, trst said:

Pretty sure Sevagoth's release predated the first mentions of a potential werewolf frame.

That's not true, people have been asking for a "werewolf" frame that has a transformation mechanic that turns them into a four-legged creature for years and years. I think that's why DE went to such lengths to call Voruna "wolf inspired" as not to confuse it with the community idea of a beast transformation frame.

[trst]

10 minutes ago, xcrimsonlegendx said:

That's not true, people have been asking for a "werewolf" frame that has a transformation mechanic that turns them into a four-legged creature for years and years. I think that's why DE went to such lengths to call Voruna "wolf inspired" as not to confuse it with the community idea of a beast transformation frame.

I'm talking about DE's first mention of making a werewolf frame which I'm pretty sure happened well after Sevagoth's release. The point is that it doesn't matter what players wanted in that regard as the gimmick was already done with a frame before DE committed to making a werewolf. At this point we'll never get the literal werewolf some players wanted between Voruna already being that theme and Sevagoth having the abilities that'd fit.

As for transforming frames in general yeah that is an incredibly old frame suggestion. But it was always dismissed for animation concerns. Sevagoth got around that by retaining "normal" hands and arms but a frame that can turn into a non-humanoid shape would need a lot more work.

[ntrquangteo]

When i first heard about a werewolf theme wf i was imagine about a frame that can transform between 2 forms and grants additional buffs and some sort like dat

I even imagine a whole ability kit for her like invisible while in darkness, make foes fear and raise alarm while also make them take moar damage from all source, consume ded bodies to gain stacks and buffs and when enough stacks, morph into a totally diferent thing with claws and tails as weapons while also gain buffs but has drawbacks and prices

And then i have voruna and i was disappointed af