Editing Werebeast

{{Quality|Superior|18:31, 27 October 2013 (UTC)}}

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'''Werebeasts''' {{Tile|Ñ|6:0}} are [[night creature|night creatures]] that are procedurally created during worldgen. [[Deity|Deities]] may curse sentient creatures (including any animal man) to transform into an animal form on the night of a full moon. Sentient creatures bitten by werebeasts are cursed to become werebeasts themselves.{{cite forum|126618}}

Werebeasts may take the form of mammals or reptiles, including animals that do not exist in Dwarf Fortress, like iguanas.

The behaviour of vanilla werebeasts in worldgen (i.e. fleeing town upon being cursed and conducting raids from their new lair) appears to be caused by the cursed individual's beast form having the [NIGHT_CREATURE_HUNTER] tag; removal of this tag from a generated werebeast extracted from a world.dat file and jimmied into the standard raws caused those cursed to behave no differently from any other unnaturally-immortal individual.

==Werebeasts in Fortresses==

In some regions, the full moon will herald the attack of werebeasts upon your fortress (triggering a message similar to the one that is shown when a Megabeast attacks), or instead the unwilling transformation of your own citizens into their bestial forms. The cursed will attack anyone they can find for the duration of the full moon, spreading their affliction even further.

Werebeasts of the same species will cooperate with each other and not normally fight, but those of different species will treat each other no differently than enemies.

If you have not yet established a correct defensive perimeter (note, werebeasts are [[trapavoid]]) and a steady, trained militia, it is quite likely that if a werebeast attacks, a dwarf will be attacked and bitten.

If a dwarf is attacked but not bitten, he will be just fine (if he survives the ordeal). If a dwarf has been bitten by a werebeast and survives, however, he has a high chance to change when the next full moon comes.

There is no cure. To protect your other dwarves you should either keep the infected dwarf in an inaccessible pit so he does not infect your whole fortress, or if you do not want to take care of him, just kill him.

Infected dwarves will not die of old age{{Verify}} and do not need food and drink. They may go mad, however, so if you want to make him work (or use him for a [[stupid dwarf trick]]) you should try to keep him happy. This can be difficult because werebeasts will not sleep or eat, though they will drink if alcohol is available.

Or maybe you want something exceedingly more [[fun]] instead? Try the following.

==Infecting your entire fort==

* Super-effective hospital service, your dwarves are fully healed once per month. No need for crutches or something.

* No need for beds or bedrooms other than those for nobles

* Unhappy thoughts are less severe as the process of being bitten and biting others tends to make your dwarves very resilient to tragedy.

* Exceedingly difficult to set up, quite long as well

* May kill your most important dwarves

* When transformed, fortress activity grinds to a halt, and for a few days afterwards as civilians run around finding new clothing

* <s>May</s> WILL cause issues with military when transformed : dwarf armor is too small for werebeasts, though they will hold onto their weapons and shields, and even quivers/bolts during transformation.

* May be exceedingly fun for [[Thought|dwarven]] [[Tantrum|sanity]]... but then again you ''were'' looking for fun in the first place

There are several ways to attempt to infect your whole fort, some with higher success rates than others. The trick is to have your uncursed dwarves be bitten but not die, and also to have your cursed dwarves survive any retribution.

One method is to equip a squad of dwarves with training weapons and send them to an isolated area with one or two of your werebeasts. Ideally the dwarves who get injured will back away while the others hold back the werebeast. In reality it can be hard to balance the battle, which leads to either the werebeast killing off the injured dwarves or being pummeled into submission without spreading his curse. The main problem is when an attack by either the werebeast or a dwarf happens at the moment of transformation, it is considered a dwarf on dwarf attack, which leads to a minor [[loyalty cascade]].

Another method is to simply lock a werebeast in a room with a civilian(s) and hope that the civilian survives long enough for the werebeast to turn back. This reduces (but does not eliminate) the chance of a loyalty cascade, because only the werebeast is attacking. The main problem is that werebeasts become legendary fighters/wrestlers very quickly and are more than capable of killing/fatally wounding half a dozen dwarves in a single transformation.

The most successful method discovered is to lock a werebeast in a room with civilians, but be sure the room is completely covered in cage traps. Many injuries inflicted by werebeasts can knock a dwarf unconscious due to pain or strangulation, and an unconscious dwarf will be trapped by a cage trap. In the cage, dwarves are free to recover from their wounds, safe from any further attacks. In addition, a dwarf who is released from a cage gets an enormous happiness boost that will help him cope with the loss of family and friends who were not so lucky. Further improvements to this technique, such as assigning the uncursed to squads with no uniform (or just a helmet) that replaces clothing in order to allow every bite to break the skin, have pushed successful conversion rates to near 50%. It is also recommended to release dwarves from their cages immediately (via constructing the cages and attaching them to a lever) to prevent insanity due to unhappiness.

A somewhat less drastic (though potentially even more [[fun]]) option is to start a Werebeast super-soldier breeding program. Some Werebeasts can hold and use weapons in Wereform, and whatever combat skills they have as dwarves also apply while transformed. Being infected gives dwarves a large increase to their physical attributes (which can still be increased further, unlike vampires), and they need not worry about being wounded in combat as long as they survive until their next transformation. Add to this the Wereform's large size of 80000 and inability to feel pain, which partially makes up for its lack of armor, and you end up with a potentially devastating military force, if you can manage to keep them from murdering each other and the rest of your fortress.

Were-soldiers are mostly useful when their Wereform is of the variety that can use weapons and preferrably also shields, which obviously requires hands of some sort. Weregophers for example can use either a shield or a one-handed weapon, but not both, and may even equip crossbows as well as quivers and bolts. It is unknown if dwarves in Wereform can wield weapons that are normally too large for them, such as pikes. If they cannot use weapons they may still be useful as soldiers if their Wereform is of the dangerous sort, for example in the case of werelions <s>and tigers and bears</s>.

Transformed military dwarves respect their stations, alerts and uniforms (when applicable) and ignore the civilian alert, but will still attack anything they regard as an enemy, such as their fellow dwarves or any destroyable buildings. They must therefore be kept away from the rest of the fortress with walls and bridges, as they will destroy any non-artifact doors. Note that as of 40.24 there is a nasty bug which lets sparring dwarves teleport through 1-tile walls, so make sure the walls to their prison are at least 2 tiles thick, and install two 1-tile bridges connected to one lever as a door. Bonus points if you also install a dump chute in the room to give them new weapons and booze. Designate a stockpile under the chute, set it to take from links only, disable bins and set it to allow booze, empty barrels, weapons, shields and possibly ammo. Supplying the were-soldiers with booze both keeps them happy and prevents them from wandering into your fortress to look for it. Be aware that they can and will jump out of a hole directly above them, so either make the chute at least 2 z-levels high and smooth the walls, or keep it firmly locked with a hatch cover.

Once their containment room has been built, add a piece of furniture, designate a large barracks from it and set them to train there. The were-soldiers will destroy the barracks while transformed unless it is an artifact, so wall it in after the room has been defined. Remember to use 2-tile thick walls because of the sparring bug above.

An important thing to remember is the following: If two or more transformed dwarves have any sort of active military order (either from an alert or direct orders), and can see each other at the moment they change ''back'' from Wereform, then they will instantly begin fighting to the death, causing a loyalty cascade. To avoid this, either train your were-soldiers alone in separate rooms (slower due to lack of sparring), or make sure to set their alert to Inactive and cancel all their orders before they change back to dwarves. Once they've changed back, they can be set to train or given orders again. If they do start fighting each other, canceling all their orders and setting them to Inactive will make them stop.  

==Transformation Dates==

There are exactly thirteen full moons in a Dwarven year, so werebeasts transform on exactly the same dates every year:

*25th granite

*23rd slate

*21st felsite

*19th hematite

*17th malachite

*15th galena

*13th limestone

*11th sandstone

*8th timber

*6th moonstone

*4th opal

*2nd obsidian

*28th obsidian

*Every full moon all injuries are instantly healed.

*Big strength and agility boost.

*Attacked if you visit any towns during your transformation.

*Having to re-equip yourself every transformation unless transformed size is similar enough to your race's size.

==Werebeast Characteristics==

The transformation to a Werebeast seems to only affect physical attributes, mental attributes are not changed though the descriptions will be relative to the Wereform's average. A Werebeast never gets hungry, thirsty or drowsy, and will not drown when in Wereform. Werebeasts in Wereform are type 2 Building Destroyers, so doors and vertical bars will not contain them, however bridges or walls will.  

When transforming to Wereform, all health regenerates, including missing limbs, and thirsty dwarves will have their thirst <s>replaced with bloodthirst</s> removed. The same happens when transforming back. Effects induced by insanity are not reversed, so berserking soldiers that transform will still not follow orders.  

Infected dwarves are removed from any burrows when they transform, and cannot be burrowed while in Wereform. They will however still remember the civilian alert burrow, so issuing a civilian alert while a dwarf is transformed will send that dwarf straight to your <s>slaughterhouse</s> emergency room if they can path their way there.

If the Werebeast cannot use weapons in Wereform (i.e. no hands), only the natural abilities of the creature are available for combat. These abilities differ from creature to creature (Claws/Hooves/venomous Bite etc.), but only their bites cause the Werebeast curse to be transmitted. Werebeasts have been confirmed to have the ability to arrive at your fortress both armed and stealthed.

If you become a werebeast and transform in adventure mode, you can pick up your weapon and shield that were dropped in the transformation, but, seeing as werebeasts seem to have minimum body size of about 80000, armor will become too [[Clothing#Size|small]] for you to fit in. Hauled items will also be dropped on Fast Travel.

Werebeasts also tend to change back into humanoid form at the worst moment, like when they are charging a group of axedwarves.  Sometimes a werebeast's humanoid form is more dangerous than the werebeast form, most obviously for [[Serpent man|snake man]] werebeasts.

Even if the werebeast is dispatched while in animal form, werebeast kills are listed as being of the original race.

Baby werecreatures are neutral, and while you can order your military to kill them the order will not be followed.

{{D for Dwarf}}