Lycan
From The Black Vault Encyclopedia Project
A Lycan is a person who has the ability to undergo transformation into a wolf (Lycanthropy), or in more modern uses of the word into any animal form.
In common English wolf lycans are usually called werewolves and the term lycan is actually quite rarely used. The only more popular mention of the word is in the movie Underworld. The term stems from Lycaon, the first king of Arcadia in Greek mythology that was cursed by Zeus to assume the shape of a wolf for offering human flesh as either a sacrifice or food to the god, depending on the account.
In the Underworld series Lycans were persecuted by vampires for nearly 1000 years, under the pretext that they were dangerous and wild. The first Lycan was the son of Alexander Corvinus, William Corvinus. His bite was so potent that the first series of Lycans were savage and deadly beasts who could not revert back into their human forms. Their progeny later proved to be more usable to the vampires and were literally branded as subservient watchdogs for vampires during the daylight hours when the vampire's bodies were vulnerable to attack. A Lycan slave named Lucian eventually led a rebellion against the vampires in response to the murder of his wife. The daughter of the high-ranking vampire Viktor, she was killed because she was pregnant, and a Lycan/vampire hybrid was seen as an "abomination." In this world it has been explained that Lycans are immortal, just as vampires, often living hundreds of years. It is also explained that the older a Lycan becomes in age, the more control he can exert over his transformation, to the point that he can often change at will, possess full mental control of his wolf-like form and expel deadly silver bullets with muscle strength. To date only one female of the species has been shown (in a brief cameo when Raze brings a dead Trix back to their lair), indicating that the race is primarily male. As with typical werewolf lore, silver proves to be a poison to the Lycan race.
Copyright
"Original data received from Wikipedia on April 16, 2006. Credit given to original authors can be seen Here."
