Seriously they may be one of my favorite concepts in all of Discworld. And I don’t even normally like werewolves that much
First of all THINK ABOUT YENNORK PUPPIES. The wolf form ones I mean. They’re still werewolves so they have human lifespans and human aging. But they’re always wolf shape. So they’re puppies for like TEN YEARS. Aaaahhhh
Or what happens when a yennork is born to a biomorphic mom when she’s in the opposite form. If momma’s in human form and baby’s a wolf, things probably go a lot easier–wolf puppies are an awful lot more in proportion to the human pelvis, and she can always transform into a wolf if necessary. But on the other hand what if baby’s a human form yennork and they’re born during the full moon? They must have some very talented midwives in Überwald
And what if you had a werewolf who was a biomorph but out of sync with the lunar cycle? Like they transform during waning crescents or something? Would they be considered a technical yennork because they’re not a “proper” werewolf?
I bet the out of phase thing happens most often in people whose parents aren’t both bimorphic werewolves themselves. I mean the genetics of shape shifting have got to be really complex. It probably only takes one little mutation to screw it up, which is why two bimorphs like Angua’s parents can have 50% of their kids be yennorks. But if a werewolf has a kid with a non werewolf then I’d expect those kids to be yennorks like 99% of the time using real world genetics and more often than not even with flexible Disc genetics. You’re only half werewolf so you’re less likely to get the most quintessentially werewolfy of the powers. But if the descendants of two hybrids or yennorks get together and those latent genes meet up again then you get a surprise werewolf like Ludmilla
BUT! sometimes all those intervening generations fiddle things around a bit so you get a werewolf with backwards moon phases, or a wereman like Lupine, or a person who turns into a wolfman-type-thing instead of a real wolf. Maybe in lineages that started with a wolf form yennork and a regular wolf you get some domestic dog genes in there and end up with a big hairy dude who turns into a Pomeranian. So many varieties!
Yennorks are great
And nursing! Either you have a squimy little shapeshifting kid or a kid stuck in one form that due to the laws of the universe is probably not the shape you want to be in at that moment. And there is no hard evidence that werewolves on the Disc favor multiple births but it does seem possible given their other wolf-y tics and the fact that Angua and Wolfgang clearly have a minimal-to-nonexistant age gap between them, so you have to factor in the possibility that you are dealing with two or more children who might be totally different shapes. Werewolf parenting must be rough.
Then you have growing up (first generation) yennork itself which should be a tv show because wolf puppies with the brains of human eight year year olds (Plus or minus some instincts and mindsets, but still probably very clever) trying to learn how to read but not being able to turn pages with their paws. It’s full moon and there is a castle full of wolves and one little girl who’s mother is barking at her to eat with a fork. “Would your puppy like a treat?” “My sister. But yeah, she would.” Wolfpile in front of the fireplace with an eight year in the middle looking really chill. Human yennork kid begs and pleads to be allowed to go out with the rest of the family to play a rousing game of Chasing The Villagers Through The Woods, is declared too delicate and instead spends the night alone in an empty castle playing cards with Igor.
(And I am constantly reminded of how absolutely screwed up Elsa von Uberwald would have been if her brother didn’t kill her, since there was clearly no vaguely healthy parenting going on in that household and the culture seems like the sort that turns out people desperate to prove themselves as not complete failures. All I want out of life is an older Elsa with an inferiority superiority complex like a mountain, who is constantly being decried as weak but can still break a human man’s arm like a twig, who wants nothing more than to be as lethal as the people surrounding her, whose favourite person in the world is her older brother because even if someone is constantly bullying you and threatening you and may have tried to murder you when you were eight at least they’re paying attention which is more than anyone else is willing to. And sorry for that digression.)
Plus once you get past first generation you’re looking at every possible permutation of werewolfyness under the sun, which is a really clever way to establish that all werewolf myths can be and probably are true on the Disc, fitting with the “All vampires are true thing.” Turned by bite? Sure, weird mutation along one line. Need special clothes? Absolutely true somewhere.
A Middleground 