Friday, February 26, 2021

Werewolf Gauntlets

These furry, clawed, mittens are made from the arms -- forepaws? -- of a werewolf. They look somewhat ridiculous but can be surprisingly deadly. It is said that they were created by the infamous armourer Malarck.

The gauntlets do 1d4 damage but are bulky and unwieldy and make it impossible to pick up or manipulate objects.

The gauntlets detect as magical, and also as cursed, if such a detection ability is available in your game.

Work out what day the full moon is this month -- either in game or in real life -- or pick a number between 1 and 30. Every time a character puts on the gauntlets, roll a d30; if the number matches the day of the full moon, or the number you picked, then the following effects occur:

  • The character is frenzied and must save versus spells in order to break off from hand-to-hand combat, or to remove the gauntlets.
  • The gauntlets have a chance of infecting those injured by them with lycanthropy. Use whatever rules for lycanthropy exist in your game of choice, or refer to the guidelines below.
  • Anyone infected by the gauntlets has a 7% chance of being possessed by the spirit of the werewolf that was killed to make them, and will be consumed by the desire to avenge themself upon the current owner of the weapons. Yes, the original werewolf was none too clever.
D&D-type Lycanthropy: Any character who loses half their hit points to the gauntlets in a single battle contracts the disease and will turn into a werewolf at the next full moon. Or you can pick a number and roll a d30 as above. Whichever is most fun.

(I have a text file on my computer containing weird names that I think I could use in a story or adventure one day. In there, for some reason, is "Werewolf Gauntlets". I see Mr Gauntlets as some sort of Victorian action detective, perhaps, but until then, you get this.)

2 comments:

  1. Warm hat, warm mittens, warm scarf, sturdy boots, weary look gazing into the distant trying to make out if it truly is the first sun of spring or just an illusion... Looks like a proper Sweden in January!

    I'm getting images in my head of small societies of pseudo-werewolfs, dressed in all these different kinds of werewolf apparels (claw mittens, leg trousers, head hats etc.). They can't remove the werewolf clothes because they frenzied on time, so now they walk around dressed up as werewolfs, shunned by humans, ignored by real werewolfs.

    Maybe pseudo-werewolf isn't the proper term; to-bewolf?

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    Replies
    1. Interesting idea. A Werewolf Hat might give you different abilities to Werewolf Trousers!

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