Being a Shifter is not all peaches and cream. It has great benefits, yet is alot of work. It is not something to awaken lightly, for it will probably be diffucult or impossible to get your inner animal permanently asleep again. It forces one to suffer through a lot of emotional and spiritual growth. Like going though puberty, it is a bittersweet mixture of trials, challenges, exciting new discoveries, pure hell, and constant longing to get it over with. Balance is hard. It forces one to learn things about oneself that most humans never do, because you can look at both yourself and humanity in general through the eyes of another species. And you see things that are not pretty. Your mind awakens to new things, some hard to deal with, some wonderful blessings. You may yell at yourself for awakening yourself to being a Shifter, and yet feel yourself the object of special blessings because of it. You see yourself as you really are, beyond species, and have to accept it and learn to trust it. You also see what being human has done to your soul, all the nasty human corruptions that neither animals nor pure souls have, and you have to learn to live with it and accept it. As you change, and begin absorbing more of your animal, so that your normal outlook becomes more of a mixed human/wolf outlook and an outlook of the real you, beyond species, you become frightened of losing your identity in the process, your very me-ness, because so much of your former identity is falling away, because it wasn't really you, just some human things that don't fit with the real you. You have to make concessions to your Animal nature. Cities, constant loud noises, even the press, heat, and noise of a good party, may be so distasteful to your animal side that you can hardly stand them. Anyplace a Wild Animal would be miserable and terrified, you will be at least highly uncomfortable. And without other Shifters or Symps around, you get lonely for someone that understands, especially if you are a pack animal, such as a Wolf.

If you think working in an office where "everyone" smokes is irritating, try working in an office where "everyone" smokes when you are a WereWolf! Much more sensitive senses is certainly not always a blessing. WereWolves, and other predatory Shifters, like meat alot. It doesn't take much to get them on a roll, describing how good meat tastes, just how they like to fix it, the flavor and texture of it, ect. But this causes problems. It means many WereWolves have trouble eating their veggies, and suffer from chronic constipation. It also means the food bills are high-- most WereWolves can't physically shift and/or hunt, so they end up buying about as much meat as they can afford. And since WereWolves tend to have some of the largest appetites anywhere (and very high metabolism, they don't gain much weight from these habits) it means REAL HIGH food bills. WereWolves also tend to like their meat rare, even raw. It is a rare WereWolf who won't occasionally gulp some raw meat. I've seen food poisoning problems from this (although some WereWolves can down ROTTEN raw meat without noticable effect) and WereWolves tend to get worms from this. Sorta takes some of the glamour out of it doesn't it?

Mental Shifters, if they can mentally Shift at will, are good fighters, going "beserk" they can win many fights against normal humans stronger than them (and sometimes the growling freaks out the enemy so bad they don't even try)

If you become a Physical Shifter, you have much more to take care of. You need a place to Shift, a safe, wild, comfortable place to roam, you need to be able to hide it from your freinds, family, and neighbors (either that or tell them and hope things work out). You have to learn how to not do stupid things as a Wolf (like tipping over garbage cans and having animal control chase you--supposedly true story--anonymous source) and how to remember what you did as a Wolf, and how to make sure you as a Wolf doesn't dump you as a human naked in the woods, miles from home.

And then there is always the problem of having exams or other events you must attend happen on the night of the full moon.

Return to The WereWolf Handbook