Fans of The Elder Scrolls series love Bethesda's take on a fully open-world RPG. After all, games like Skyrim allow players to become whatever they want — be it a lord, a soldier, a master thief, or even an archmage. However, the series' lore reveals that players can tap into more supernatural sources in order to gain immense power. For instance, players — and much of Tamriel's population — may actually become werewolves. As the name suggests, werewolves in Tamriel are half-men, half-wolf creatures that tap into their primal rage to hunt in the night.
However, The Elder Scrolls lore reveals that there's more to werewolves than series fans might realize. In fact, similar to vampires, werewolves in Tamriel have a rich history that separates them from stereotypical werewolves of horror fiction.
10 Werewolves Get Sick Too
Aside from being a "condition" itself, people with lycanthropy seem to be susceptible to other diseases as well. For instance, in The Elder Scrolls Online, the Gray Host (a vampire faction) created a disease specifically designed to target werewolves residing in Blackreach. Due to the length of the quest chain, not much is known about the true nature of the disease.
However, perhaps more terrifying would be the fact that the disease can degrade the mind of a werebeast, making them lose control over their ability to transform into their bestial forms. Moreover, the Gray Host made this disease to be contagious, making the host infect other werebeasts simply by being near them.
9 The Condition Is A Daedric Gift
Interestingly, lycanthropy as a condition can be looked at from both medical and religious perspectives. For instance, the lore reveals that lycanthropy served as a reward that Hircine, the Daedric Prince of the Hunt, bestowed his followers. In the Daedric Prince's mind, lycanthropy can transform his followers into more powerful hunters. Moreover, being a lycanthrope apparently ties one's soul to an afterlife of hunting eternally in Hircine's Hunting Grounds.
Weirdly enough, Hircine remains actively engaging with his lycanthropes. As such, some werebeast packs in Tamriel gain enhanced abilities when they gain his favor. This is unlike Molag Bal, Daedric Father of the vampires, who practically left his powerful vampires to fend for themselves.
8 The History Of The Companions
Fans of Skyrim would remember the region's Companions, a group of warriors who serves as the game's equivalent to the classic Fighters Guild faction. Nowadays, the Companions also have the Circle, a sub-faction with its senior members. However, what most Companions don't know is that members of this Circle are actually Werewolves.
In the past, one of their members made a pact with the Glenmoril Witches that promised them great power if the Companions hunted in the name of Hircine. Unfortunately, this "power" turned out to be permanent lycanthropy. In the game, players will eventually decide if they want to help other members of the Circle "cure" their lycanthropy or not.
7 Werebeasts Have Types
As mentioned, lycanthropes pertain to individuals that turn into werebeasts — Bethesda didn't settle for just werewolves. Other common werebeast variants include the north's werebears, who prefer the colder climates that persist in Skyrim. Meanwhile, High Rock and Hammerfell have wereboars that prefer the calmer and more pristine climates of the regions.
Moreover, some werebeast variants seem to prefer certain climates or even certain races. For instance, werelions prefer the wetter parts of Cyrodiil, the Black Marsh, and Elsweyr (home of the cat-like Khajiit). Meanwhile, werecrocodiles lurk the swamps of Black Marsh and southern Morrowind, and may even be common amongst reptilian Argonians.
6 Werebeast Types Have Strange Variations
As if wereboars, werelions, and werecrocodiles weren't weird enough, Bethesda has further variants among these types to offer. For instance, people infected with lycanthropy can become Man-Beasts that seem beast-like but retain their intelligence. Meanwhile, Werewolf Lords appear to blend both their beast and humanoid forms. For example, a Khajiit Werewolf Lord will resemble a Khajiit with wolf-like characteristics.
5 The Green Pact Problem
Though one might assume Wood Elves would have the fewest problems with werewolves given their wild lifestyle and affinity for hunting, that actually couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, Wood Elves are expressly forbidden from "taking the forms of beasts" by the Green Pact they all abide by as a race according to an in-game book that can be read in ESO. This leads one to believe that becoming a werebeast of any kind would be a direct violation — though there is some contention among fans concerning this given other facets of Bosmer culture.
What's known for sure is that breaching the Green Pact has some incredibly dire consequences, both in this life and the next.
4 They Have Allergies
Similar to pop culture's werewolves, Tamriels's werewolves have a weakness to silvered weapons. However, Bethesda expands on this further by expanding the range of weaknesses and even things people can consider werewolves "allergic" to. For instance, aside from silvered weapons, poisons actually weaken a werewolf extensively. Albeit lacking explanation, perhaps properties in silver and most poisons affect lycanthropes more rapidly compared to when used to regular humanoids, thanks in part to the werebeasts' enhanced biology.
However, perhaps weirder is how lycanthropes hate certain plants. For instance, belladona and wolfsbane can damage a werebeast's veins and bones extensively. Moreover, Canis root serves as a popular ward against lycanthropes.
3 Cures Are Hard To Find
Granted, curing a supernatural condition like lycanthropy is bound to have difficulties. However, curing lycanthropy in Tamriel is weirdly and absurdly difficult to do so. For instance, the best time to cure lycanthropy is before the first transformation. Afterward, it can be extremely difficult to cure. The Glenmoril Witches have the most potent cures available, but these spellcasters keep these secrets closely-guarded.
As such, most cures involve the lycanthrope "purging" their inner beast. In turn, these methods often involve some way of "bringing out" the inner beast in order to kill it or transfer it into someone else. In worst-case scenarios, Vampirism can instantly replace lycanthropy.
2 The Moon Doesn't Matter
Bethesda subverts popular culture once again by giving the Moon rather minimal importance to a lycanthrope's life. In popular culture, the phase of the Moon dictates the way a werewolf transforms. However, for Tamriel's werebeasts, the Moon doesn't seem to affect them at all. It's said that only wereboars fully transform during a full moon, while other werebeasts have varying transformation frequencies.
For instance, other werebeasts seem to have nightly, weekly, monthly, or even random spurts of transformation. Moreover, these transformations don't guarantee complete full mental faculties — with weak-willed werebeasts often becoming vicious beasts. Thankfully, powerful artifacts such as Ring of Hircine can help control these transformations.
1 Vegetarian Werebeasts?
Given a werebeast's enhanced senses, it makes sense for them to be able to find prey — and in turn, most food — much easier. But interestingly, fruits and vegetables found in dissected werebeasts indicate that lycanthropes might not necessarily need to eat meat in order to survive.
Likewise, it's been shown that lycanthropes who manage to control their inner beasts can manage to avoid killing other people. In turn, they can instead settle for killing animals, eat recently-dead animals, or resort to vegetables.