Protanthropos

Other names:Lykos-Protanthropos, Primordial Were-man

Category: Lycaon

The Protanthropos is a cuadrupedal animal with notorious intelligence and sociable behavior, theyre often found in big groups ruled by a dominant breeding pair.

Theyre visually horrid, their appareance has given them a bad reputation and at first they were hunted out of fear.

Despite the common beliefs, they are quite reserved and timid from other creatures, more recent observations have shown that they have an omnivore diet and are opportunistic carnivores.

These creatures spread the sickness Feralytosis (Werewolf Disease) throught bites and saliva, altought the percentage of surviving a direct attack of any of these beasts is close to none, there have been records of non-fatal attacks over the centuries, which gave rise to the infected.

Their infectious glands are situated next to the main molars, bites are the only known method of infection.

Despite the general judgment against these animals, their meat is very valuable, mostly due to the difficulty in the hunt but also their indistinguishable flavor, when preparing their meat for digestion, it is of utmost importance the removal of the head and the digestive tract to avoid unfortunate incidents.

Anatomy

There's a clear sexual dimorphism, Males having a shoulder height up to 3.5 meters, whilst females can grow up to 4.2 meters.

The Protanthropos are digitigrades but their peculiar anatomy shows the front part having similarities with human-like hands, incluiding the presence of a opposable thumb.

They have a large curved back, long muscular neck and short hind legs, the front arms are long and thin, the tail is rather short and has no social behavioral purpose and is possibly just to keep insects out of the groin. similar to some herbivorous animals.

Feralytosis

It's a mutational disease, in which changes the behavior of the infected or in the worst cases, the whole anatomy to a similar in shape to the Protanthropos, despite Feralytosis active mutational state, the only creatures that can be infected are hominids like Elves, Dwarfs, Fairies and Humans.

Other non-hominid intelligent creatures cannot become infected with the disease, but can die from a direct attack or, if they survive, sepsis, internal bleeding, or traumatic shock.

The main symptoms are a total change in the anatomy of the body, increase of size, elongation of the muzzle, extreme aggressive behaviour and a great appetite for meat, preferably of the species of the infected subject.

There's 3 important stages of the infection.

In the first stage, which has a duration of 48 hours since the first contact, the subject will experience gradual incomformity, which can be confused with the pain caused by the direct attack, then fever, nausea and vomiting, eventually developing Hydrophobia and psychosis during the lasts hours, another known simptoms are intense muscle spasms and vomiting blood.

On the second stage, the transformation has a duration of 10 minutes, during that time the subject will experience unimaginable pain as the muscles, bones and organs are rearranged in a really short period of time, internal bleeding is present all times, due to the confusion, the subject can become aggressive and further propague the infection. whilst the subject is in the second stage, they will lack fur and their skin will be covered in streched marks and open wounds that eventually will close up once the subject reachs the third and last stage.

During the third stage, the subject will continue to develop fur and becoming more similar in apparience to a Protanthropos.