So for my werewolf story, I was thinking of having my protagonist start off working with a circus of werewolves who use their performances to mask their thieving activity as they roam from city to city. However, realistically would such a thing be easy to spot? Would people figure them out? I'm trying to figure out how they cover their tracks and am getting stuck.
Depends on the period. Most circuses and carnivals were considered a den of thieves for most of history. They would of been watched closely by the local constabulary. Of course an organization like today's Doctors without Borders would make a great front for Werewolves and Vampires.
Whoever would suspect them of stealing would suspect them of being ordinary human thieves, right? Are these the kind of werewolves that only transform on a full moon, or at will?
Also, if they are long gone by the time people figure out that they're the thieves, then what do they care? I suspect this is actually why circuses got a reputation for thieving. And Rickswan's thought is a good one. If your setting doesn't know that werewolves exist, and they do the crimes in a way that a regular human couldn't, then the confusion will make it hard to catch them.
WHAT ARE THEY STEALING? The cops really do not care if twenty bucks go missing here and there. Missing babies get you state-wide dragnets and beat-downs of carnies. And other supernatural beings will want the dogs to keep a low profile when in their territory. NOT ENOUGH INFORMATION friend.
If they stay with the same circus or carnie, they'd be caught in no time. That is such an obvious pattern, even a high school drop out cop would think to check for it. If they moved from one wandering troupe to another, it might take a day or two longer. ANY geographic progression of similar crimes will be analyzed for correlation with some other migration or means of travel, provided the crime is serious enough to warrant the analysis. Pickpockets would fly under the radar. Bloody mutilated corpses with tooth and claw marks would not.
I'm with Super on this one. Depends on the time period in question - if its a horse and cart time then its pretty easy to carry off the wandering rogue but in a modern setting I don't think the plot will work - travel is much easier now, and information travels faster. The idea of Doctors without borders is humurous and ironic obviously, but it might be that they are a guns for hire military style unit too - going to war-torn countries at the behest of vicious dictators, of which there are still plenty, and eating the opposition.
Maybe they run are secret police types or run their own brutal dictatorship? Maybe they use to run the USSR, and now have North Korea or some other secretive place.
If it's mid evil period, monks could work. Sending out a raiding party ahead of the group, then a day or two later arrive claiming to be trying to track down the evil that is doing the killing.
Or your characters might stay clear of the circus entirely, but wander separately to towns near the circus stops. They do their thieving raids in the towns where the circus is performing, knowing full well suspicion will fall on members of the circus. And if an occasional circus worker disappears without a trace, well, the police would have a suspect they would never find. After all, werewolves gotta eat...
A lot of people say it depends on the background and setting so here it is: It's modern day mostly, maybe about 70 years or so in the future in an alternative present where magic and werewolves exist. But it's set during the rebuilding period of a really bad semi-apocalyptic war between humans and druids so people have gathered in large city-states because the druids made the forest a hostile environment for humans which spreads almost like a virus and only the ruling class of magicians' magic can keep it at bay. The circus is a mixture of humans and werewolves, and werewolves have an easier time navigating the forests. People either travel by train or airship and travel between cities is not as common as it once was, which is why the circus is pretty popular. My main protagonist was taken into the circus when she was a child and is now 19 and when the circus stops in a city for a while, she and various other members venture out into the city and steal mostly cash in a pickpocketing manner. So the things that go missing are not always reported to the police, and crime is high in general anyways so I doubt that the police would catch on, especially since the circus travels so frequently. Does this make sense, or do you still think the law enforcement officials would see through it?
