Is lycanthropy a curse or a magical disease?

That sounds like heresy to me.

>Lycan
>Not meaning wolf

It can be many things. A curse, a disease, an occult ritual, a form of sympathetic magic, or even as said, a blessing.

It's in the name.

Aren't magical diseases just curses?

If you lose your mind in wolf form it's a curse. If you don't it's a disease.

I usually prefer when its the first and is transmitted as if its the second.

Yes

Yes.

Genetic Engineering.

First one, then the other.

Why did therianthropy never gain major use. Even D&D calls all changes lycanthropy.

A blessing from the One Who Fell, to bribe the migrants who seek to worship him into leaving him alone.

Instead of leaving, the mortals began a village at his snout. The smoke irritated his eyes, so he blew them away. They moved a day and a half to the east and camped at his tail. He slapped them away. Finally they built a city between his legs, where the towering pines blocked his swiping paws.

There at the roof of the world, where his blood pooled and became a lake, they drink and bathed in crimson glee. He told them it wouldn't have the effect they wanted - and it didn't, really. It was the same for them as the crows that feasted around his punctures. But the monstrous effect was enough to reduce their clamoring for direct attention, so he only has to deal with them a few times a year, and otherwise they leave him alone to rot in peace.

It's a gift from the god of the hunt, and if you don't live an awesome enough life with it (from his perspective) you come back as a fiendish beast to ravage the country side and make up for all the killing and hunting you missed out on.
If you did lead a metal enough life, he takes you to his afterlife where you hunt and fight all night and day in preparation for the wild hunt.

Neither, it's a possession.

It's how language works. It isn't rational, and definitely not prescriptivist, and follows how people use the language.

Basically, everyone knows what a lycanthrope is. Much less people know what its etymology is, a la wolf + mankind/humanity in greek. So it's easier for those with a much smaller vocabulary to expand the definition to cover a larger phenomenon, people who turn into animals than trying to figure out a new word which would make sense etymologically and would require lots of explaining. So the word eventually comes to mean any person who turns into an animal rather than its much more limited version of turning into a wolf.

As it stands, I tend to use Therianthropy when writing about scientists or wizards explaining the phenomenon, whereas lay people tend to just say lycanthropy or were things.

In my setting you can transform into an animal on purpose or have someone else change you, and your control over the form works Animorphs-style.

It's an extension of Gaia's will, that humanity pay in blood whenever they encroach upon on the natural world.

It's supposed to be a demonic pact.

He apparently became ths way after some wicked experiments, I think it's more like demonic possession or some Mr. Hyde thing

In my setting it's like a spiritual infection, the nature of the beast parasitizing onto your soul. Injuries and influences inflicted by Beastmen tend to cause it, but it also has been known to be caused by vengeful animal spirits possessing people.

According to my current character, it's a blessing, at least the strain he has. In his culture it's a gift which one member of the clan must always bear, but there are wild strains more parasitic in nature in the setting.

it's a transformation. a lycanthrope is a different creature from a human.

>Implying there's any distinction between the two

In a world more grounded in spiritual realities than physical, what is a disease but a particular kind of curse?

and here i thought it was a blessing

>Lycan - wolf
>Anthro - human
Dafuq m8.

STEP ASIDE BEST CLASS COMING THROUGH CHA-CHING-A-LING-DRING

Oh my god.

I suppose that, when you're just a barbarian in an uncivilized, wild, and horrible world filled with monsters, being able to turn into a powerful, raging monster that can fuck up a good number of them is a pretty useful blessing. The only price is that you hunt for the hunt god and you'd do that anyway because fuck if you're not hungry.

Of course, in civilized society, where fire and stone walls and law provides protection and warmth, it really is kind of a curse. Especially if you can't control yourself. Otherwise you're still a huge, hulking monster and people are generally not going to want that walking around in their walled city.