Werewolves

Werewolves, also called Lycanthropes or Wolfmen, are the main antagonists of Dog Soldiers. They are humans who transform into humanoid, wolf-like monsters at night during the full moon. Transformed werewolves are highly-vicious predators which can prey on humans, and despite their bestial nature; they are highly cunning and possess a pack mentality.

Transformation
Werewolves transform into their lupine form every month during the full moon - during this part of the lunar phase, werewolves can transform on more than one night. Monstrous noises slightly different from the werewolves' normal vocalisations were heard by Harry Wells' squad at twilight, followed by the transformed werewolves' howls; seemingly the Uath family transforming. However, werewolves don't necessarily transform at a set time and can willfully suppress their transformation, as Megan did for most of a night; though she eventually ran "out of time" and transformed before the night's end, suggesting the transformation is ultimately inevitable each night of the full moon. When Harry Wells and Cooper were speculating on how much time the former had before he'd transform, they suggested it was like "when you need to take a piss" or "needing a shite" - it could be delayed but only temporarily. Megan claimed when deceiving the squad that werewolves will revert to their human form at dawn - Ryan was still transformed when he was encountered and killed by Cooper in the sheltered house cellar in the early daytime.

The full transformation has never been viewed directly. In Megan's case, the transformation was preemptively signaled by significant and sudden bouts of discomfort in the abdomen, and the experienced soldier Wells' transformation was signaled by intense, near-crippling agony and convulsions; whilst Ryan only displayed signs of grunt-inducing pain after he'd started transforming. When transforming, firstly the werewolf's eyes will turn bright-green and dilate, their teeth will begin changing shape, and their vocal chords will begin altering, causing their human voice to at this early point sound distorted. The rest of the transformation apparently takes no more than several seconds, and in Ryan's case he made little sound before emerging fully transformed.

Infection
If a human is scratched by a transformed werewolf's claws and survives for long enough, they will theirself become a werewolf. After being infected, both Wells and Richard Ryan experienced a rapid improvement in their formerly-crippled condition, going from being unable to stand or walk without assistance due to their wounds, to being as physically able and mentally clear as ever - this change in condition appears to be influenced by the full moon, as Ryan remained injured and traumatised until the next night after he was attacked, whereas Wells' recovery occurred in the same night he was infected after a matter of hours. Within hours after this recovery stage, the individual's wounds will have completely healed, leaving only scars.

After this point, the infected person appears to be affected not just physically but also mentally - as Cooper pointed out, Ryan went from traumatised to calm and unfazed. Both Ryan and Wells appeared to experience heightened levels of aggression during this post-recovery stage. Wells seemed more ready, eager-to-go and constantly slightly agitated; whereas Ryan became near-constantly calm and spent his time frequently and needlessly taunting his fellow survivors, but sharply lashed out when Cooper demanded against Ryan's will to see the latter's regenerating wounds. Ryan, who previously hated dogs to the point of senselessly killing them for merely barking loudly in his presence, seemed to experience a silent canine connection with Sam during this stage. Wells commented during this stage to Cooper that he felt "absolutely fantastic".

Eventually, the infected person will transform before the night's end, seemingly a matter of hours after nightfall.

Appearance
In their lupine form, werewolves resemble lupine humanoids with grey hair and brownish skin, standing bipedally at roughly seven feet tall. They possess heads strongly resembling those of grey wolves in shape and fur colour, with bright-green eyes, and possess a thick mane of hair which covers the shoulders and runs down the back to the anus. The rest of their body is half-bald, with tufts of hair on the elbows and hair on the legs and groin. Werewolves have a long and lanky build in the shapes of their limbs and torso, similar to actual wolves. They have double-jointed legs ending in wolf-paws, with the thighs being thicker with muscles than the cnemis and metatarsals, and a thick ribcage which protrudes through their flesh. They have humanoid hands, with bony fingers equipped with long, talon-like yellow claws.

Behaviour and Intelligence
Though transformed werewolves are evidently intelligent pack-hunters and combatants, it's unclear how much if any (or all) trace of their human form's personality they retain upon transforming. Megan claimed the Uath family were good and kind people despite what they were doing in their lupine forms, but may have been lying under the circumstances; the family were evidently both aware of and covering up the murders they committed in their lupine forms, storing the skeletons and fresher bodies of their killed victims in their cellar and in a closet around their house. When the squad worked out that the werewolf pack had to be the Uath family, Wells suggested this would explain why the werewolves were targeting the squad so relentlessly after the latter group had taken shelter in the family's house: anger at the invasion of their den. After transforming, Ryan showed signs not only of remembering how he felt towards Cooper, but also seemed to understand what Cooper was saying, responding with violence to each of Cooper's insults. Furthermore, the transformed Ryan seemed to prefer using his hands to strike with fist-punches, backhands, and other such attacks as a human in hand-to-hand combat would favour, instead of bites or scratches; and he attempted to kill Cooper by driving the same sword Cooper had previously impaled Ryan with through Cooper's mouth.

Transformed werewolves maintain a disturbingly high level of intelligence and familiarity with manmade tools beyond their cunning. Apart from operating door handles, they've been observed operating zippers, firing a shotgun against a soldier immediately after ripping it off him, and disabling the Land Rovers' fuel lines seemingly deliberately. The squad also believed when the house's power went out that the werewolves deliberately disabled the house's external generator, to give the werewolves a visual advantage and (Ryan believed) to deliberately scare the squad.

In spite of their intelligence, werewolves appear to be aware of their own even when the latter group are remaining in human form due to suppressing the transformation. The Uath werewolves merely lurked around Megan and Wells without outright attacking when both were about to transform - the latter case, combined with how the Uath's took Megan in after infecting her, seems to suggest werewolves are not overly territorial towards pack-outsiders and are willing to adopt werewolves they've infected into their pack.

Werewolves will hunt and kill not only humans, but also other animals such as the cows in the Scottish Highlands. Dogs don't appear to be in danger from transformed werewolves; as one approached Sam, but evidently didn't attack despite the dog barking at it in alarm, though this may be because the werewolf in question was in human form one of Sam's owners. Werewolves and dogs also appear to be able to communicate, based on how Sam and the transformed Ryan challenged each-other, firing barks and growls at each-other respectively.

Megan suggested when discussing the fifteen disappeared people in the Uath family's glen that the werewolves generally hunted people they caught camping or hiking out in the open. Indeed, the squad avoided any encounter with the werewolves during their first night in the area when they camped inside a ravine, whereas Ryan's team who were actively hunting the werewolves that night were slaughtered at their camp, and Ryan was attacked while scouting in the open.

The Uath family displayed a pack mentality, working and hunting together in their lupine form. When attacking Ryan's camp and during their numerous attacks against the squad, they employed a divide-and-conquer strategy, with each individual attacking the enemy from a different point so their prey often struggled to keep track of them all or prepare for rear-guard attacks. Megan claimed while deceiving the squad that based on their pack behaviour, the werewolves likely had a hierarchy with an alpha pair and a young male beta acting as second-in-command.

Werewolves usually kill their victims by dismembering and exsanguinating them, and almost immediately begin devouring some of the remains. However, the Uath werewolves also took the victims' corpses away from the place where they'd been killed, even when the former were still transformed, seemingly to be eaten at a safe location if not stored away in their house.

Beyond killing for food, transformed werewolves have at times displayed disturbing sadistic tendencies. This was most notably seen when instead of immediately killing Terry Milburn after dragging him off, one of the Uath werewolves took him to the barn and kept him alive; when Joe Kirkley entered the barn's Land Rover a significantly long time later, he spotted Terry still alive in a werewolf's grasp, with Terry's face mutilated by claw marks and an eye missing. The werewolf responded to Joe's arrival by slowly biting through Terry's spine at the neck while Joe watched, then throwing Terry's head at the windshield, as if to psychologically disturb Joe. Similarly, a werewolf inside the Land Rover opted to remain hidden in the rear and let Joe realise on his own that it was right behind him. This tendency to toy with their prey may also explain why, during the major attack on the house, the werewolves which entered the bedroom didn't immediately attack Cooper despite their speed when out in the open.

Abilities
In their lupine form, werewolves possess completely-monochrome and clear night-vision, which enables them to see in the dark as clearly as if they were in daylight.

Despite their lumbering appearance, werewolves are relatively fast, two-legged runners out in the open - although Witherspoon was able to initially outrun an attacking werewolf and buy himself some significant time before it caught up to him. Thus, werewolves appear to rely on stealth and strength to take their prey by surprise.

They are also physically very strong, able to easily shred apart metal technology with their claws, throw grown men several feet backwards, and break through wooden doors and surfaces in a matter of minutes whether impeded or unimpeded.

Werewolves are particularly stealthy when they wish to be, such as attempting to open doors slowly and silently at the start of an attack on the house, and numerous times remaining hidden and unnoticed in dark places even by trained soldiers (such as in the barn, the spare Land Rover's rear, and the Uath house's cellar where Cooper spent some time sitting).

In their lupine form, werewolves are incredibly difficult to kill. As noted by the soldiers, gunshots only served to stun them and force them back. One werewolf both survived and almost-instantly recovered from being repeatedly stabbed in a frenzy by Spoon with enough intensely to spray blood-droplets all over the room. The transformed Ryan survived being impaled through the centre of his torso with a sword and wasn't even crippled, with the sword remaining lodged inside him hours later. It's implied this nigh-invulnerability extends to werewolves even when they're partially transformed, as Megan survived and transformed after being shot through the eye (although in her lupine form, her eye remained lost).

Weaknesses
Werewolves have very few weaknesses. Silver appears to be poisonous to werewolves, crippling their extreme durability and rendering them killable by conventional means such as a headshot if silver weapons pierce their body. When Cooper stabbed the transformed Ryan in the chest with a silver blade, Ryan wasn't immediately killed, but the skin around the wound immediately turned red and the werewolf wheezed in pain.

The only other confirmed method of successfully killing a werewolf is with the force and fire of a large explosion.

Known werewolves

 * Uath family - A family that had lived in a remote glen in the Scottish Highlands for centuries, according to Megan. In the current generation, there were five of them excluding Megan. At least three of them including Megan were killed when their house was obliterated by a gas explosion with them inside, with the other four Uath's deaths remaining unconfirmed.
 * Megan - A zoologist who was apparently infected by the Uath's and was forcibly adopted into the family.
 * Richard Ryan - A Special Forces operative sent to the Highlands to capture a werewolf, who was infected when the Uath's slaughtered his team. He transformed the next night sometime after nightfall, and was killed at daybreak by Cooper.
 * Harry Wells - The sergeant of the British Army platoon sent into the Highlands, who was infected when a Uath werewolf scratched him hard enough to expose his intestines when the squad were attacked at dusk. He died with the Uath's in the gas explosion just as his transformation started.