What would a modern world be like with humans coexisting with werewolves? I'm thinking it is an urban fantasy setting where everybody knows werewolves exist, and werewolves are everywhere like normal people. The werewolves can change at any night, they can turn people by biting them, silver can only kill them, and they can turn dangerous if humans provoke them too much. And how would society differ from our society? Think Bright meets Underworld.
There's be a lot more resistance to gun control laws. Humans would turn dangerous if provoked by WWs too much, leading them to form vigilante committees to go out hunting werewolves at night. Werewolves would form vigilante committees to go out hunting human vigilante committee members at night. Nobody could truly trust anybody because anyone could be turned into a WW with a single bite and be a secret werewolf. Price of silver would be higher than the price of gold and some cartel would have a monopoly on the silver trade. Werewolves wanting to be accepted into human society would have to be licensed and subjected to stabilization via some kind of vaccination, and even then, they'd be viewed with suspicion. Some humans longing to be werewolves actively seek getting bitten, but werewolves have their pride and don't want to bite just anyone. And then there is the whole half-werewolf population, scorned by each side, who decide to kick all butts, WWs and human alike.
If you're asking about this cause you're writing a story about wearwolves. Here's a free joke not very many readers will get it, but the ones who know will chuckle...probably: There is a master thief wearwolf, who's constantly HOUNDED by the police, his name is Lupine The Third.... (I am not sorry, except if you don't get the very obvious joke being made :3)
I love that the joke goes both ways, it's an anime reference of course, but he's literally Lupine x3 my jokes usually aren't this good haha. Newest one is the answer to the question 'what's an assasin's favorite vegitable, artiCHOKE' (I actually am sorry for that one XD)
Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series creates a world where supernaturals have "come out of the closet" and humans attempt maintaining control by giving hired killers Marshall badges that are essentially a license to kill all supernaturals (mostly vampires but also shifters). The idea is they are only supposed to kill the bad ones but most government consider all of them to be bad so no one bats an eye if "innocent" ones get massacred by the Marshalls. The vampires have to jump through a lot of red tape to "legally" turn a human and when anyone in law enforcement is bitten by a shifter they are required to retire. There's a lot going on, it's a good series until it turns into just one long sex scene (forget when that happens but the first 3-5 books were pretty solid from what I remember).
Well, heck, no wonder I didn't understand what was so funny about it, though I got the hounding part. Thanks for tipping me off about the anime reference. (Scurries off to look it up.)
So basically the werewolves will be treated like the mutants in X-men, unless there are more of them than the human race.
that's actually an interesting idea, have it so that there are more werewolves than humans. Humans would stop caring about 'minorities' because the entire species is one and they'd be forced to work together.
Would they? Or would they draw closer into their tribes and clans and septs and live fiercely defensive lives against all comers, werewolf and human?
Would probably depend on the volume of humans VS werewolves and how much of each race of humans is left. If there's plenty for each race I could see them dividing up into tribes. If there's only a handful I think they'd be more concerned about preserving the species as a whole.
Common defense for a group of folks all located in a single area would be logical, with safety in numbers drawing together disparate groups who probably still wouldn't get along philosophically, resulting in strife from within as well as without.
My first reaction was to be reminded of Woody Allen's quote: "I do believe that the lion will lie down with the lamb, but the lamb won't get much sleep."
I read a manga where vampires outnumbered humans in an integrated society. Humans were essentially the low class/caste. They worked minimal jobs, had very modest living situations, and were frequently abused by vampires who were rarely punished for their behavior against humans.
Are you sure that was Manga, Marshi... and you didn't accidentally just pick up the wall-street journal by mistake?
Humans and Werewolves living together, mass hysteria! Well you would have the three types: Coexist Cohabitat/Mingle Anti-WW So, complicated, but doable. Or ask a cromagnon what humans due to competing species. Oh that's right, we killed and bred them extinct. But you do have the three types, and just have to sort out the balance of it all on both sides of the aisle. Next comes the nature v. nurture debate when it comes down to the long term survival. There are ways that they could live and thrive in parallel, even if it will be tough to find that equilibrium that works on an evolutionary basis. Or in short study Darwin and evolution theory for a good idea on how it all works, cause he sure noticed a ton of variants of Canaries.
Working on a werewolf in modernish times thing myself (Me? Actually, write? I know perish the thought). To be clear they out "out" yet at least on a large scale in my setting, more an open secret of sorts. Not going to great lengths to keep things hidden but still not howling from the rooftops and coasting on the fact that most people will write things off as urban legends. One thing I ended doing though (that was partly based on the Awarewolves meme) was the idea that werewolves as a culture and as individuals have found various ways of taming their beast and finding control. Meditation, self-medication, honing their bodies, honing their minds, isolation, and etc. There are generational werewolves and the bitten sort through biting/turning is frowned upon by organized werewolf society and is rarer nowadays. Most turned are turned by feral/fringe wolves or via accidents. One character of mine was bitten while working as an EMT responding to a call. I also kind of handled it as almost like a sub or counter-culture putting a lot of emphasis on the community and found family parts of it. "Birds of a feathers flock together and packs stick together. Not because we're wolves but because we're still quite human." They have support groups, police their own community, do community action, hold events, have Facebook groups, and etc. Not all of this would apply/work in your world or story of course but I like the idea that over the generations they've found ways to do and cope with the affliction together. Just how I'm playing it though, and again they're more like an open secret in my world than everybody knowing.
I think it might be interesting to explore a slightly more optimistic scenario, more along the lines of what Kinzvlle said. While a cynical expectation of discrimination is very plausible, fantasy discrimination parallels can get a little tiresome with how often they appear. It's logical to consider the issue of prejudice, it makes sense that at least a few people would be judgemental, but it possible for it not to be quite as bad and/or the story doesn't place as much emphasis on that issue. It might be interesting to focus, again in line with what Kinzvlle said, on issues around integration rather than simply tolerance and violence. How are the logistics? What are the cultural awkwardnesses? What are the mundane inconveniences? What are the werewolves like and what is like interacting with them, living with one or being friends? That's more interesting than simple "Anti-Werewolf Racism is Bad" parable. At the very least, even if that is your story it's good to give such a story more flesh and specificity. For example, in a high-fantasy work of mine, a specific ethnic demographic, referred to as goblins but their endonym is dalkin, are exiles who occasionally have to raid others to survive, which ironically only reinforces their exile. Some of the captives from clashes are also kept as domestic slaves referred to hobgoblins. And one of the things I've thought about is how the dalkin perceive this divide. They perceive themselves as different but equal, and desire the others of their kind, the spriggans, to stop treating them as an invalid offshoot given their is ethnic diversity with the spriggan population of a similar kind. The desire for their differences to be respected is worked into their language even, dalkin means "other bloodline" whereas goblin in spriggan condescendingly means essentially "hole people", and the dalkin dialect in general is unusual but also conservative in ways that it shares most with the standardised upper-class dialect, because they never wanted to be separated. Also relevant for any discrimination parables is what groups might people compare it to? For me, one of the goals was to avoid the kobolds, particularly the dalkin as "goblins", being too similar to Jewish stereotypes. Because that is a problem with goblin folklore, and not always accidentally. So I've specifically avoiding things like a love of gold, association with banking, big noses, or any origin as a diaspora population. They have big ears but small noses. It's generally safer if you avoid paralleling any specific group too closely. The goblins in Harry Potter for example. have all the stereotypical goblin traits which includes many Jewish stereotypes; including the big noses, love of gold and association with banking, which is a particularly problematic combination because those are the traits most used by anti-semites. So be careful with discrimination parables is what I'm saying.
Good point. If the werewolves are dangerous, it would make sense why the police and governments discriminate against them from normal people. It could be their only way to protect people. But if the werewolves can control their beast forms, few people would fear them, unless they are bigots who love hunting monsters.
Depends on how much of a threat they are. If they are a very low threat - either there are very few of them, they are good at segregating / controlling their problematic behaviours, or both - then you would merely see an increase in police force, and a much greater acceptance of guns in civilian populace. If they are a moderate threat, you would have the above, plus specialized agencies created to combat the werewolf threat... think something like Torchwood or UNIT, but for werewolves. If they are a major threat, then they would be exterminated. "Happy genocide, beasties", no whats, ifs or buts. That is basically how we handled whatever was a major threat historically, be it micro- or macro- -organisms.
You might wanna look into a card game I used to play, called Rage. It's based on the RPG Werewolves: The Apocalypse, where they and other kinds of monsters live besides humans. I didn't know much about it then and to be honest, I still don't, but maybe it's of some use to you.
