The Transformation

First, there's pain. A whole shit ton of it. It feels like your skin is stretching and ripping and your bones are screaming in agony as they break and reform into stronger, bigger ones. Your mind shifts from the quiet sanity of a human into the shrill, screeching blood rage of the feral wolf. And the only thing you can think as your entire body collapses into the ashes and transitions into a horrifying creature is: When will it stop?

Then there's hunger. And by Hircine, you can't escape it. Your mouth starts watering uncontrollably like you're about to throw up. Even if you're lost somewhere in the middle of a deserted forest, you'll be able to smell the alluring scent of human flesh. Like a ravenous child waiting for dinner, you run. And you run. And you run. Everything is a blur, every drop of humanity inside you has vanished, and you- the real you -watches in horror as the wolf takes over.

The hunger comes next. Behind those gold, feral eyes of the wolf are yours, and they're watching the wolf inside them rip an innocent human to shreds. It's a sleeping dragon that hibernates until the feast overwhelms them. There's no control as you tear little Sally to pieces and eat her heart and destroy her humanity. You look up and you see her mother watching in horror. Then the wolf inside you goes for her, too.

After your hunger is sated, that's when the rage comes in. Overwhelming, pure, evil rage. You don't even know why you're angry. You don't even know which side of you is angry- the wolf, or the human. All you can think about is you're pissed off and you need to kill. You've already eaten, so you're not hungry. Now you just need warm blood washing over your black talons and the satisfaction of the smell of decay. Perhaps it's the power that makes you feel so good. These people fear you, with good reason, and you can kill them so easily. And you do. You kill them. You don't feel guilty.

The worst part of the transformation is the aftermath. You wake up and you don't know where you are, only that you're naked, covered in blood and filth, and your head is pounding. Sometimes you wake up surrounded by guards. You kill them too, only you do that with your humanity in tact. Other times you wake up surrounded by a pool of dead bodies. Those are the worst times. And the most common.

Even with human eyes, you get angry again. Why do you keep doing this? Why can't you control it? There's got to be a cure, where is it? You don't want to kill people, but damn, you love it. The wolf loves it. And you don't want to believe the wolf is you and all your fears and all your rages. It's a part of you and you know this in the back of your mind, but you can't believe it.

When you stand up on two human legs and you look around at all the dead bodies, you'll know that wolf is you. You'll know you've become the monster mama warned you about as a child. And slowly, tenuously, a sadistic smirk will rise to your crimson lips, and it's not the wolf that smiles.

The Consequences

Shortly after that first transformation is when you start to lose everything. The first to go is any semblance of kindness you have in your manner. The constant migraines and aching and the urge to tear anyone with a beating heart to shreds tends to make a person a little cranky. This is an unnatural cranky, though. A feral wolf attacks on sight. You're worse. You let people get close, you think this friendship is going to last, then you slip and you wake up next to their dead body.

So friends are out of the question, but they're not the only thing you lose. Your hands aren't steady enough to pick a lock. Your footsteps aren't light enough for sneaking. Your patience isn't strong enough for archery. Your tongue isn't slick enough and your mind isn't clear enough to talk a guard out of taking you to jail or a merchant into giving you better prices. That anger I told you about earlier? Eats up everything. Forget every single stealth tactic you know. You'll only make a fool of yourself.

Don't even think about bringing along a follower when you venture into a dreadful ruin. You'll get carried away while you're taking down some bandits. Your hand will "slip" and your sword will plunge through your follower's heart, and next thing you know, your chin is coated in their blood. Don't ever trust your self-control. You don't have any. You will kill them. You will devour their heart. A familiar sadistic smirk will rise to your bloody lips.

Thinking about getting a job? Don't. Working in the marketplace will overwhelm your senses with blood from the raw meat and flesh from the human customers. Trying to get into assassinating or thievery will prove useless, too. Remember, forget every stealth tactic you know, because it won't work and you'll look stupid. Your hands are too unsteady and big for alchemy or enchanting or magic or smithing. Mercenary work will only further your lack of humanity. Don't forget, mercenaries are killers too, just like you.

Happiness is something you'll never feel again. You're exhausted, miserable, and bloodthirsty. The only emotions you're capable of feeling are hunger, anger, sadness, and depression. Perhaps if you're lucky, you'll feel a bit of pride in going a day without killing or going fifteen minutes without thinking about eating someone. Other than that, nothing. So don't look forward to it.

The only source of relief you'll find is in others like you. They're just as miserable as you are, though, so don't count on finding happiness in seeing them happy. Not a lot of werewolves die of old age or natural causes. Most kill themselves. If you're lucky, you'll be freed from the rage for a moment long enough to let a guard's silver arrow pierce your sick little heart. Get accustomed to seeing death. It'll become part of your day to day.

The day you drink the blood of the lycanthropic ancestors is the day your dreams are crushed. The beast blood is so powerful it destroys your hormones, so don't count on children. If you do get pregnant or you get someone else pregnant, they will inevitably miscarry. That, or the baby will be stillborn. Barely any full grown adults can survive the transformation, don't expect undeveloped fetuses to survive it.

In fact, don't even have sex. The wolf in you tends to come out and, more than likely, you'll lose control and kill your bed mate. If you're that desperate for a little release, and by Hircine I cannot believe I'm saying this, go after a wild animal. Nobody will miss them if they die and it's not technically bestiality. You're a beast, remember?

In short: No friends, no companions, no roommates, no lovers, no children, no dreams, no good sleep, and a constant desire to eat your mother.

The Side Effects

The first agonizing side effect you'll endure is your advanced senses. I know having super-human smell and sight sounds cool, but not when you want to kill everything you see. Especially not when you can smell your dinner. The alluring scent of flesh will assault your nostrils throughout all hours of the day, and the sight of blood coursing through veins will mesmerize you in an endless haze of ruthless torture. Visiting taverns, where it's crowded with all those lively and oblivious innocents, is not recommended.

Second comes the migraines. These aren't the type of migraines you get from sitting through hours of loud noise, either, or the migraines you get from a concussion. Take getting hit in the head with a brick and amplify that pain by several thousand notches and you might be close to the kind of migraine a werewolf gets. Tiny little steel pinpricks, trillions of them, injecting into your brain all at once. Many of my kind have killed their self by repeatedly banging their head against a wall trying to stop it.

You can never stop it until you take a silver weapon and pierce your heart. And that day will come, believe me.

Nausea is another bummer. If you go into crowded places filled to the brim with humans, the thirst will overwhelm you and you'll start getting light-headed and dizzy. If you pass out, you'll begin a transformation into a werewolf, so don't pass out. You start feeling nauseous, you get out of there unless you're trying to get killed. Or worse, taken hostage and experimented on.

The constant aching of your exhausted bones isn't good for morale, either. The aching obviously comes from your transformations, and the more you transform, the more it hurts. The less you transform, the more you hunger. And the more you hunger, the more lives are lost. So... good luck.

Your bones become fragile from breaking and healing so much. Stay away from bar fights and blunt objects. Just a fall down a flight of two steps is enough to break an arm. Rolls of linen help somewhat, but you're still vulnerable. Being a werewolf doesn't make you invincible by a long shot. In retrospect, it probably makes you weaker. The weaker the human in you is, the stronger the wolf. You become feral and even your own kind will turn against you, so watch it.

Other side effects are subjective. Pale-skinned people might be pained by sunlight, petite people might be more prone to the bone-breaking and the bone-aching. I'd give you tips on what type of body is best to have before taking the beast blood, but it wouldn't matter. Every wolf knows pain.

The Aftermath

Ever thought about your death? What do you imagine? Close your eyes, clear your mind, and think about it. Think hard and concentrate. How do you want to go out? What do you want to see at the end of the line?

Got it? Okay. Crush it. Because you're not getting it.

In the end, when our Lord Hircine finally puts you to rest through whatever means- suicide, glorious battle, whatever -there won't be a light like they talk about in the stories. There will be pain, then there will be darkness. You think it's an escape, a time where you can finally slip into bed and just sleep. For all the death and grief you caused and all the depression and pain you suffered through, this is the final and the most cruelest consequence of having beast blood: False hope.

I haven't felt a lot of sympathy in my life. When I was just human, I held so much sadness and pity for the poor or the sick or the elderly or the orphans. After becoming a beast, I couldn't find a lick of emotion in my soul to donate to them. For all their poverty and pain, they had no idea the kind of pain Iwas going through. They had no idea how close they were to the end of the line every time I inhaled a gust of that flesh-scented air. They were oblivious to how much I wanted to scream in agony from the migraines and the temptation to kill. They were merely and so blandly wrapped up in this fake world that hides the real monsters behind children's legends.

If a beggar tells a noble he's sick and poor, that noble is going to offer coin and sympathy. If a werewolf tells a human he needs help because he's become a beast, he is greeted with a silver blade through the chest. Why? Why is that beggar more humane than a werewolf? He is no more honorable, sitting on the streets and begging for coin then stealing it if he doesn't get it. He is a dishonorable coward that is too lazy to work for his own money and would rather bum off of strangers who work for their coin. He is just as bad as the wolf, only in different ways.

The truth is, werewolves are no more human than you are now. They feel pain and hunger and lust and they know these things better than anyone. They feel the suffering of a thousand normal lives, only it doesn't get better for them. If you're depressed, your therapist will tell you to simply wait it out, wait until the storm passes, remember that there's always a rainbow at the end of a storm. What would your therapist say if they knew you were a werewolf? They'd give you false hope, because they're just as monstrous as you are.

Let's talk about the soldiers and the guards you feel protected around. Just as a werewolf would do, they kill. When they're deployed into a war zone, they kill people just like a werewolf does. Innocent people with families and children and hopes and dreams. And they're rewarded for it. Why aren't you? You take out just as much bad in the world as you put in good. You should be rewarded for surviving a lifetime of inhumane suffering that is unimaginable to someone who hasn't felt what you have.

But you're not. Not even in death. Not even when you close your eyes and never open them again. Or when you eat the heart of a thief or an assassin, nor when you save someone from thinking they want this curse. With all your monstrosity and faults and crimes, you're still good. Even a savage wolf won't attack someone who gives it a piece of meat.

It doesn't matter, though. Hircine and his realm is what awaits you at the end of the line. You will be forced, for the rest of eternity, to feed the wolf inside you that you so despise.

You loved, you felt pain, you felt rage and hunger and guilt, and you survived through it. The only crime you ever committed, in their eyes, was existing. The wolf inside you, a wolf even humans know, is a thing of blood whose every motion is timed with dying cries.

And when Hircine claims your soul and the flames come, let them lick your bones and laugh.