Aura Curses

Werebeasts are highly temperamental and uncontrollable during their first few shifts, but as time goes on they regain composure and learn to control themselves. Eventually, with practice and time, werebeasts can train to shift at will, however they can never avoid shifting during double new moons. Ptithians with good emotional health have better control over shifting than those who don't, expertise also comes with age.

Due to the nature of the Basilisk's curse, werebeast-ism is not genetic, thus the child of a werebeast will not be a werebeast too. Within groups and clans of werebeasts where the curse is seen as a good thing or something that defines their community, there are rituals to make the child a werebeast. Ptithians as a whole are people who value personal choice, thus the child can decline the ritual. On the double new moon, one of the strongest hunters goes out to find a basilisk. They injure it, cage it, and bring it back to the clan. The child is given a silverglass sword or knife and is allowed to kill the basilisk.

Because basilisks can attack from anywhere on the main Ptitheros continent, werebeasts are found all over the world. Although extremely spread out, werebeasts over the years have come together out of necessity to protect themselves and spend time with others who truly understand them. Thus, werebeast groups have evolved into clans that can be found in certain locations where they can live a quiet life safely. These clans are few between and can be located in a few small settlements, where they behave much more openly, and larger cities, where their activities and discussions are much more covert. For their safety, the average Ptithian does not know of places where werebeasts seek refuge, but one word reaches these places that there is a werebeast out there needing a home, a specialized messenger is quickly dispatched to find this lost soul and show them the locations.

Clan Summit - an extremely population distanced clan that lives midway down the Saya Mountains. Their village is simplistic, small, and members bring back daily life necessities outside of food and water whenever they travel to the mainland. They have traditional means of wild hunting and take great pleasure in spending much of their time in their beast form, a sign of safety and confidence in who they are or who they have become.

Clan Thistlecave - Thistleweed Hideout is already known for its off-the-grid and dangerous nature, but what most don't know is that it's built upon a small underground city that inhabits a long cave system that eventually connects up at the Verge. This underground village is home to the ThistleCave werebeast clan members. These mellow and solitary people don't interact with the Hideout very often, instead, they have cave paths that exit out near the Abscond and (as a closer alternative) a couple miles up the Cardn River.

Clan Nightcrawler - Wurunwa Forest, a mysterious place full of mysterious creatures. Even werebeasts cannot challenge the forest, but they have chosen to inhabit its outer edges. Settled on the edge of the Wurun Waterway where it sprawls out into the ocean is a settlement built into the tall trees of the forest. Trunks are hollowed out and homes are connected by strong bridges, some places even reside in the expansive roots of the trees. These clan members tend to be anxious, simply because of the forest's influence, and live mostly in their natural form. They are constantly dealing with soyowas attacks.

Clan Seaside - a clan living next to the ocean in a quiet fishing-based community. They have good connections to markets within Wyndgale so they tend to be the most talked about/rumored and dissed due to their unwarranted publicity. They deal with hunters and cultists more than any other clan and have become very strong in their defenses, as they are willing to use their power to protect anyone in their clan. Seaside also welcomes non-werebeasts, however the individual must have a reason to live there, such as being prosecuted for something else or are stuck as a societal outcast.

To curse someone to become a vampire, the caster usually drugs the victim into a comatose, shaves their forehead (if they have fur or feathers) and plunges a stake made of wood or copper into the area of "the third eye"; the spot on the body where aura circulation is the strongest. Then they cast the vocal rune spell, leaving the body somewhere undisclosed afterwards.

Ptitheros vampires do not resemble the classic gothic horror variety seen in movies. The curse makes them highly deficient in aura, making it necessary for them to subdue their life energy from others who do have it. Vampires are always hairless, their teeth are sharp all the way back to their molars, and their front canines resemble that of a venomous snake. Their eyes gleam and constantly slip downwards into their sockets. Vampires are immortal for as long as they can steal aura from others to refill their energy.

For a vampire to get the aura it needs it must kill. Their ravenous nature and knife-like comb teeth make it easy for them to latch onto the neck or arm of even the strongest dragon and make them bleed out. The monster can then sink its fangs into the victim, taking all the aura locked within its system for itself. This stealing of aura makes the victim lose its soul, its aura forever trapped, never to return to the global aura or recycle back through Lindoss so that the next Ptithian born may have the aura it needs. Vampires wrack the important system, just like dams that ruin water cycles.

Vampires have the intelligence of any other sapient Ptithian. They can grow old, wise and careful. However, the more a vampire messes with the natural aura cycle, the more they become a target. Not only by hunters who despise monsters in general, but by the omnipresent shadow creatures of the sky: lindosts. Lindosts have a duty to protect the aura of every world, and if anything tries to mess it up, they will go after it. Even a clever vampire cannot escape a lindost.