Exceptions

For the most part, ‘Souls strives to remain true to its premise and as realistic as possible. Time passes normally, and Luperci travel, skills, technology, and knowledge all come at the expense of time. Items left by humans don’t survive indefinitely, and over time, the rarity of certain items increases.

Nevertheless, there are a few notable exceptions to our general realism standards. For these specific scenarios, we overlook issues of realism in favour of simplicity, consistency, and fun.

Colourblindness

Luperci have colour vision!

However, even if a player has a Luperci-immune character, it’s fine for them to describe the character seeing within a normal colour spectrum. It’s an easy thing to overlook!

Some players choose introduce colourblindness in their characters as a trait, but this is certainly not required.

Crying/Tears

Canines do not have tear ducts, so realistically, characters should not be able to cry or shed tears. However, this action and the associated expression of emotion is so tantamount to the human experience that many players frequently forget. Some have explained that “crying” does not necessarily mean shedding tears, and that a canine “crying” can merely be read to mean they are whining, making noises, sobbing, or otherwise expressing grief or frustration without tears; but still, many players do write their characters shedding actual tears — and that’s okay.

Hair Dyeing and Styling

As per our Body Modification page, dye is required for all non-natural fur and hair colors. The dye must be realistically made, obtained, and used. Light colors won’t show up on dark natural furs, and vibrant colors are difficult to achieve.

That said, there are some allowances given to dyeing. Realistically, natural pigment dyes aren’t likely to last very long, especially on creatures as active as Luperci, and doubly so for individuals who spend a lot of time in the sun. While we do expect Luperci to regularly re-apply dye to maintain a color, they don’t need to do it nearly as often as would be realistic. It’s fine for an individual to re-apply dye every month rather than every few days to maintain a color.

Similarly, it’s probable that Luperci shifting between Lupus and Optime form would need to constantly re-style and re-dye their hair, as it regrows every shift. We’re okay with them not having to do that though. For very complicated hairstyles, some re-styling between shifts is a reasonable expectation, but they don’t need to completely redo everything. Dye colors may fade faster if an individual shifts a lot, but they also don’t need to redye every shift.

Use your best judgment! As long as some indication is given to regular maintenance of non-natural hair colors and styles, we’re not really picky about how often it happens.

Musical Instruments

The scavenging of, repair of, and creation of musical instruments should be realistic. It isn’t likely that a Luperci would be able to find a human-made violin or an oboe in perfect condition in a post-apocalyptic world, and it isn’t likely that Luperci would be capable of the precision work required to craft such instruments on their own for a long time.

However, if a musical instrument is realistically obtained — Luperci-made lutes, for example, are not so far-fetched — and a Luperci devotes time to practice, they are allowed to play their instruments. Realistically, this wouldn’t be possible for some instruments: Luperci do not have lips, which are required for many woodwind and brass instruments, like flutes and trombones. Luperci fingers are also not as dexterous or slim as human fingers, making piano-playing difficult. These are small details we overlook to allow characters the fun of being able to pursue music.

Reading, Writing, and Literacy

Luperci can learn to read and write in English, or any other human language. However, they cannot verbally speak human languages because they cannot make the correct associated mouth sounds. Luperci speak in a combination of canine noises and body language, though they may have developed a set of sounds and movements that correlate with words. Their “pronunciation” of the written word would differ greatly from a human’s, but can still be a system and a pattern to it.

Regardless though, we roleplay Luperci speech as regular text. Communication would be very difficult otherwise!