Whisper-Smoke of the Moonbound

Aura Strong transmutation; CL 11th
Slot —; Price 18,000 gp; Weight 1 lb.

DESCRIPTION

This tightly wrapped bundle of pale silver-gray incense is bound together with braided wolf hair, dried moonlotus petals, and faintly shimmering resin harvested beneath a full moon. When burned, the incense produces a heavy, low-hanging smoke that carries the distinct scents of wet fur, rain-soaked earth, cedar bark, and cold iron. The smoke curls unnaturally along the ground and seems strangely drawn toward creatures afflicted with lycanthropy.

When a full stick of Whisper-Smoke of the Moonbound is lit, it burns for 10 minutes and fills a 30-foot-radius spread with pale silver smoke. Any creature with the lycanthrope subtype entering or remaining within the area must immediately succeed on a DC 19 Will save or involuntarily shift into its animal or hybrid form (whichever form is more natural to the creature’s instincts). This transformation occurs instantly and ignores voluntary resistance normally available to afflicted lycanthropes.

Natural lycanthropes take a -4 penalty on this saving throw during the three nights surrounding the full moon. Afflicted lycanthropes instead take a -2 penalty at all times due to the instability of their curse.

A transformed lycanthrope remains in its shifted form for as long as it remains within the smoke and for 1d6 rounds thereafter. Creatures already shifted when exposed to the smoke must still attempt the saving throw; failure causes them to immediately lose control as though affected by a rage spell, attacking the nearest living creature for 1d4 rounds unless they succeed on an additional DC 19 Will save.

Non-lycanthropes are unaffected by the incense aside from experiencing an uncomfortable sensation of being watched from distant tree lines and darkened windows. Creatures with the scent ability can detect the smoke from up to half a mile away under calm wind conditions.

Each bundle contains five sticks of incense.

LORE

Among the oldest monster-hunters of isolated marsh villages and mountain hamlets, there exists a deeply uncomfortable understanding regarding lycanthropes - one does not truly hunt them by chasing the beast, but rather by forcing the beast to emerge before it wishes to do so. Whisper-Smoke of the Moonbound was born from precisely that philosophy. Its creation is traditionally attributed to desperate frontier priests who discovered that certain lunar resins agitated the spiritual instability underlying the curse itself.

The incense gained particular infamy in isolated settlements where suspected lycanthropes lived secretly among ordinary citizens. Entire village assemblies would sometimes burn the incense during crowded festivals or religious ceremonies, waiting in dreadful silence to see who began screaming as bones shifted beneath flesh. Such events rarely ended peacefully. Even communities that survived the revelation often found themselves permanently altered by the knowledge that neighbors, lovers, or family members had concealed monstrous blood for years.

Many lycanthropes consider possession of Whisper-Smoke of the Moonbound an act bordering upon biological warfare. Packs have slaughtered merchants for trafficking it and burned shrines suspected of producing it. Some particularly paranoid were-creatures claim they can smell the incense even before it is lit, insisting that the bundled sticks emit a subtle "moon-scent" that causes nausea and involuntary trembling.

More troubling still are the stories told by certain alchemists who insist the incense does not merely force transformation, but momentarily strengthens the spiritual authority of the curse itself. According to these theories, the smoke awakens ancient predatory instincts buried deep within afflicted bloodlines - instincts older than civilization, language, or perhaps even humanity itself. Hunters who overuse the incense are rumored to develop recurring dreams of endless forests lit only by moonlight and the sound of distant howling that never entirely fades upon waking.

CONSTRUCTION

Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, baleful polymorph, rage, creator must be a lycanthrope; Cost 9,000 gp, 720 XP, powdered silver worth 1,000 gp, preserved wolfsbane, and hair willingly taken from a natural lycanthrope beneath a full moon.

Kelwyn’s Notes

There are curses which behave as diseases, and there are curses which behave as negotiations. Lycanthropy has always struck me as belonging firmly to the latter category. One does not merely "become" a beast through such afflictions. Rather, one enters into an exhausting lifelong arrangement between appetite and restraint, instinct and ritual, hunger and shame. Civilization survives only because humanity constantly rehearses the art of remaining human despite possessing every imaginable capacity not to do so.

This incense is disturbing precisely because it strips away the illusion of choice. The afflicted often spend years constructing fragile architectures of self-control around their condition - routines, medicines, prayers, self-imposed isolation, carefully rehearsed manners, even love itself functioning as a kind of emotional restraint. Whisper-Smoke cares nothing for these efforts. It reaches directly into the oldest portions of the soul and demands an answer from the animal waiting there.

What unsettles me most, however, is not what the incense does to lycanthropes, but what it reveals about ordinary people. Communities rarely burn such smoke out of wisdom. They burn it out of fear. Fear transforms neighbors into suspects with astonishing speed. One need only provide humanity with a mechanism for exposing hidden monstrosity before people begin praying for monsters to exist. There is a deeply humiliating enthusiasm that often emerges whenever societies are granted permission to unmask one another.

The werewolf, after all, is merely a man who visibly becomes what most people spend their lives pretending they are not.