#you would become a pathalogic lycan not a true lycan. True lycans have full contol and can have the three forms.

[wonderfulwitchwillow]

I was doing some research for a short story set in Ravenloft with my own homebrew dread domain and I was curious if any herbivorous lycanthropes exist. Turns out that is one loaded question.

So in second edition, a book called Van Richten's Guide to Werebeasts was made. Its part of a whole series that is a monster compendium written from the perspective of Dr. Van Richten's. Unlike modern compendiums where it's just monster, lore, statblock, like Monsters of the Multiverse (which is also from a characters perspective kinda) the books are basically speculative biology with sections for the GM only since the books exist in universe for your characters to read. Side note from where the post is going, I love this and I'm sad that this is no longer the case in universe. It really neat that we got several books discussing the origins of monsters and their biology or lack there of for some creatures like constructs.

Anyway Rudolph mentions he has only seen some lycanthropes but has heard stories of several others including Were-Elephants so I assumed it was open and shut until he states (and I am summarizing)that no herbivorous lycans exist and any claims are pure nonsense, as were cow or were rabbit are not real.

It would be really funny if years later he was proven wrong by himself. In Curse of Strahd, Rudolph has notes about meeting a were-hare child. We don't have any details if this hare is carnivorous because were-gorrillas exist but they are based on the carnivorous ape stat from 2e so it is possible in all likelihood that the child is a living Monty Python joke. That's assuming there aren't any other herbivorous lycans. Which there are. Just not found in Ravenloft, they are found on Toril. The Were-Stag and Were-Bison. According to the forgotten realms wiki they are indeed herbivorous and as I don't own the novel: Hall of Heros, it's closed and shut.

Anyway I had to share a tidbit of Rudolph proving himself wrong in universe. Though given how Were-rats are based on giant rats, I would imagine some form of "Dire Rabbit" exists