Literature / Howl of the Werewolf

Bad moon rising...

Howl of the Werewolf is the 62^nd entry in the Fighting Fantasy series of gamebooks, written by Jonathan Green.

You are a mercenary swordsman, tired of the comfortable plains of Femphrey and Lendleland, who decided to look for a job somewhere else. Unfortunately, you decided to travel across the haunted lands of Mauristania, home to Vampire Lords, bloody cults of witches and packs of feral werebeasts. In the gloomy forests of Lupravia, a pack of wolves, led by an humongous black one, attack you and you're bitten by the pack leader. Soon enough, you realize that a terrible curse is flowing through your veins, a curse spread by the wicked masters of Lupravia, the demonic Wulfen Family, and the only way to save yourself is to reach Wulfenstein before the next full moon and destroy the Archlycanthrope, source of the curse. But the way is long, and Lupravia is an accursed land of wild spirits, ghastly demons, walking dead and dangerous sorcery. It's up to you to survive this terrible nightmare, resist your curse and put an end to the threat of the Wulfen Lord.

Howl of the Werewolf greatly departs from Green's usual style and is remarkably similar to the style of Stephen Hand, both in the setting and in the adventure progression: instead of the classical linear path, the game (while requiring certain items to be won) can be won in more than one path, and the one where you collect the Plot Coupon isn't mandatory to win. You can explore the vast lands of Lupravia from village to village, fighting through pretty much every single iconic gothic horror archetype and then some more through a series of distinctive and unique encounters which make this adventure enjoyable and add to the replay value. Also, since you're cursed with Lycanthropy since the very beginning, this "curse" may also provide you some special skills that may be of help on your quest.

See also Dead of Night and Moonrunner for adventures with similar settings and plots, and Vault of the Vampire for another adventure gamebook set in Mauristania.

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Howl of the Werewolf provides examples of:

• Affably Evil: Both Countess Isolde and Count Varcolac are overall polite and affable, despite being monstrous, inhuman tyrants whose presence alone turned Lupravia into the grim land of iniquity and fear it is now.
• Animalistic Abomination:
  • As a result of the curse on Bauer's farm, normal animals such as horses, cows and pigs devolved into monstrous, aggressive monsters.
  • In one of the Non-Standard Game Over, you become one if you fail a dice roll for the Change score. That happens when your Lycanthropy gets triggered together with the cockroach mutation potion that the Black Monks force-feed you with, mutating you into a Wolf-Cockroach hybrid, thankfully only described and not illustrated.
  • There are also demons in the form of large animals, such as the Shuck, the Wolf-Spider and the Wolf Demon.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Given the setting and the tropes involved, nearly all the noblemen and noblewomen of Lupravia are evil and dabbled with the dark arts. The main villain and some former cohorts farmed a secret cabal and formed a pack with dark powers to become more than human. Some actually did become more powerful, but most became nearly-mindless monstrosities.
• Assist Character: If you managed to get Van Ricten as an ally, he will help you in battles- with SKILL 10, he's a valuable asset against the forces of evil.
• Ax-Crazy: Garoul Wulfen, the Black Werewolf who bit you in the beginning, was driven insane by his incarceration and it shows; he's even called "The Lunatic" when you battle him in his human form.
• Bat People: The Countess' werebat servant, Gustave, who is depicted as a giant humanoid bat with wings for arms.
• Battle Cry: One of the lycanthropic powers you can obtain is an unnerving howl that weakens the enemies, except for the undead or the mindless ones.
• Bazaar of the Bizarre: In Vargenhof, there's an alchemist shop that can sell you potions and exotic items. The rest of the market has more mundane but still useful items like a breastplate and crossbow.
• The Beastmaster: One of the powers bestowed by the changing involves commanding certain beasts to avoid fighting them.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Meg revived the Headless Highwayman Lucre to be together with her love even beyond death. When you destroy the skull, the ghost is send back to hell, dragging a screaming and horrified Meg with him.
• Big Bad: Count Varcolac Wulfen, Arch-Lycanthrope and leader of the Cadre Infernal. With the Wolf-Demon he summoned as the Man Behind the Man.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Countess Isolde, another member of the Cadre Infernal, secretly wishes Varcolac's death so that she can take his place. And she does succeed if you were dumb enough to trust her.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: The Monastery is infested with giant, monstrous insects and beetles dwelling in the catacombs and corridors, while the Monks themselves have mutated into grotesque insect people.
• Black Widow: Lady Aranea was a Lupravian noblewoman with a reputation for marrying rich nobles and offing them. After the secret ritual, she turned into a literal woman-black widow hybrid dwelling in a spider-infested cavern.
• Blessed with Suck: Some members of the Cadre Infernal weren't as lucky as the others. In particular the Abbot, Serpensa and Aranea seems to have got the worst possible outcome from their deal, mutating into grotesque, almost-powerless abominations.
• Carry a Big Stick: While infiltrating Countess Isolde's tower, you can enter a weapons room and collect a powerful spiked mace, which deals extra STAMINA damage at the cost of reducing its owner's SKILL because of its weight. The problem is that shortly after obtaining this weapon, you get attacked by an Animated Armour who uses similar mace.
• Charm Person: The Changeling pretends to be the beloved child of the Bauer couple. Despite having no son, they really believe that the creature is their baby and will defend it to the death.
• Circus of Fear: The Carnivale is a sinister wandering circus hosting several grotesque characters, including Serpensa the Snake Woman, former member of the Cadre Infernal. Subverted in that they're overall nice and harmless, unless you killed one of their own, in which case they'll kill you for that.
• Clipped-Wing Angel: One that already happened, while the others member of the Cadre Infernal became powerful, threatening monsters, the Abbot mutated into a huge, slime-spitting maggot whose laughably low SKILL score can be halvened by invoking Saint Crucio to weaken him.
• Cool Sword: Possibly the only mandatory item in game is the Wulfen Sword, the blade Varcolac forsake to obtain his powers. It's a nice magical sword which deals further damage to werebeasts.
• Combat Tentacles: The Lurking Horror's only discernible trait are its long, slime-covered tentacles, which it can regenerate.
• Corrupt Church: The Order of the Black Monks, whose Abbot was a member of the Cadre Infernal. Upon his transformation, the Monastery became a wretched lair of evil infested with giant insects as the now mutated monks worship Death and Decay.
• Creature-Hunter Organization: The Order of the Black Rose is a group dedicated to fighting the horrors of Old Night. Van Richten the Vampire Hunter, Doktor Kafka and hermit priest Corran are its remaining members as the scholar Vereticus left.
• Crystalline Creature: A glass knight comes to life and attacks the player in the Tower of Maun.
• Cursed with Awesome: Lycanthropy is a serious threat to your soul, but from time to time, the moon-induced changes will increase your SKILL and STAMINA scores and even bestow you some unique powers.
• Deal with the Devil: The Cadre Infernal did one to summon a demon which would grant them unlimited power over Lupravia: under directions of Serpensa, each member forsake a significant item and cast it into a well in a ruin to gain power. You can find said ruin and recover the items.
• Depower: Varcolac's Lycanthropy is basically a Cursed with Awesome ability. If the change becomes permanent, you are doomed to transform into a werewolf during the rise of every full moon, but meanwhile in your human form you are stronger than your regular self, your senses are sharper and better than a regular human, and you gain one or two special abilities too. Obviously, you lose all these abilities in the good ending.
• Depraved Dwarf: The master of the Carnivale looks like one, but ultimately he's a nice if creepy person, ordering your execution only if you murdered a member of his crew.
• Destination Defenestration: What happens to Van Ritchen if he's with you when you confront Countess Isolde. The good news is that he takes the Countess' Werebat servant with him.
• Disney Villain Death: The duel against the Werebeast can end with the wounded monster trapped into a carriage falling down a chasm.
• Dragged Off to Hell: If you disrupt the witch's spell summoning her ghostly lover, he carries her in his arms back to the netherworld, much to her horror.
• Dungeon Crawling: Notable examples include the Tower of Maun, the Monastery, the Spider Caves and, of course, Wulfen Castle.
• Eldritch Abomination:
  • A demonic one called "The Malice" will manifest itself in the ruins where the Cadre gathered if you enter the well.
• Epic Fail: Early on, facing the ghost pack of the Howling without dipping your weapon in Holy Water results in your embarassing defeat as the ghosts turn on the villagers, leaving you unconscious for some time.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: The Tower of Maun, where the Vampire Countess Isolde lives.
• Excalibur in the Rust: The impossibly cool and useful Wulfen Sword lies buried in the sludge of a dungeon room under a forsaken ruin in the wilderness.
• Expy:
  • Big Bad Count Varcolac is seemingly the werewolf counterpart to Dracula from the Castlevania series.
  • Doctor Arcanum combines in one shot Frankenstein and also Jekyll and Hyde when he turns himself in Arcanum Unbound with a potion.
  • Van Richten is, essentially, a stricter, more action-prone version of Van Helsing.
• Failure Is the Only Option: There's no way you can avoid being bitten by the Black Wolf in the beginning. Also, if you have the codeword Deliugeb in your sheet, then upon killing Varcolac and the Wolf-Demon, Isolde will appear, put you under mind control and reclaim the rule of Lupravia for herself.
• The Fair Folk: One of the enemies you can meet is a Jack Frost lookalike whom you can repeal by knowing his real name. Also invoked with certain monsters such as the Shuck and the Water-wyrd.
• Fantasy Gun Control: For once, you have access to a powerful Flintlock pistol, which you can obtain by the Headless Highwayman or Van Richten. It can shoot a limited amount of bullets (either silver or lead ones) and has special rules. It can possibly one-shot an enemy if you're lucky.
• Fearless Undead: As mentioned above, undead monsters are unaffected by your Howling skill.
• Feed It with Fire: Using the Transformation Spell in the Crone's book on Varcolac just makes him stronger.
• Femme Fatalons: Countess Isolde slashes at you with long and sharp fingernails.
• Fighting Your Friend: Early on, you must fight and kill your benefactor Ulrich after he lost control and turned into a savage Werebear. And if Van Ricten the Vampire Hunter tags along with your quest and finds out your infection with lycantrophy, he will attack you on the spot, and you MUST fight him.
• Ghost Town: Wulfenstein is an abandoned mess, its streets patrolled by ghastly Werewargs.
• Giant Spider: The caverns north of Vargenhoff are infested with giant spiders, with an incredible variety of specimens, presumambly under the control of Aranea the Spider Queen.
• Golden Ending: The best possible path implied involves finding all the Silver Daggers (which involves destroying the Cadre Infernal) and the Wulfen Sword, kill Varcolac and use the Daggers and the ritual to banish the Wolf-Demon before it can manifest. If the definition of the Golden Ending include getting (as best as possible) the full history of the Cadre Infernal, it would require you to fail a dice roll, i.e.: score a dice roll lower than your Change score at some particular point in the game. That would be incredibly luck-based if you had been focused on achieving as low a Change score as possible.
• Golem: Maun's Tower has a Stone Griffin watching over one of Isolde's coffins, Doctor Arcanum revives a Golem Hulk made of corpses with Lightning and Castle Wulfen hosts a Wax Golem guarding the mirror with the last Dagger.
• Good Is Not Nice: Van Richten the vampire hunter is driven to purge the land of dangerous monsters. Unfortunately, he decides that includes you if he finds out you're a lycanthrope, even though you're on a quest to cure yourself. Worse, the book penalizes you Luck if you kill him even if he did draw first, since Van Richten might've been a "paranoid borderline psychotic", but he was still a brave man performing a much-needed service, and his death makes it even easier for evil to spread.
• Gotta Catch Them All: The five Silver Daggers used by the Cadre Infernal and the book describing the ritual they're needed for. However this is subverted, as you can finish the game without gathering the daggers, but they do spare you another fight after beating the end boss.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Van Richten is a possible ally if you know him and decide to storm Maun's Tower. In Vargenhoff, you can ally yourself with a huntress named Katya. Too bad they don't make it to the end.
• Headless Horseman: The Headless Highwayman is the specter of a former bandit known as "Lord Filthy Lucre" who infested the countryside but was executed. His mortal lover, Meg the innkeeper's daughter, dabbled into Black Magic to revive him.
• Healing Boss: If the Arch-Lycanthrope comes into range of moonlight during the battle, they can restore 4 Stamina points.
• Hellhound: Excluding the various, monstrous wolves and werebeasts, we have Ghoul Hounds and the ghostly Shuck.
• Holy Water: Holy water helps a person harm night creatures that are immune to normal weapons. Unfortunately for you, holy water will burn you as well - though most other holy magic is beneficial to you.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Lampshaded by Vereticus when you tell him of Serpensa: once a powerful and diabolical sorceress who urged the Cadre Infernal to perform the demon-summoning ritual, she succumbed to the spell and devolved into a feral, magicless snake woman stuck in a circus' freakshow.
• Hunter of Monsters: Van Richten. Unfortunately his target includes you, should he found out about your infection with lycanthropy...
• Infinity +1 Sword: The Wulfen Sword; silver and stronger than the Silver Daggers. It was the very sword that Count Varcolac sacrificed to the Wolf Demon for his powers.
• Karmic Transformation: While Varcolac and Isolde attained true power, this is what happened to Serpensa, Aranea and especially the Abbot.
• Kill It with Fire: The best way to deal with Aranea consist in setting fire to her webs.
• Knight Templar: Van Richter the Vampire Hunter. If you admit that you were infected by a werewolf in his face, he will express sympathy but still decide that's much better for you to die.
• Lightning Bruiser: One of your werewolf powers, the Quickening, can turn you into one.
• Lightning Can Do Anything: Of course, like bringing a massive Frankenstein Monster to life. Or back to death if you have an Iron Rod ready...
• Literally Shattered Lives: If you're fighting the Glass knight with a mace, you can inflict this trope on him, since he's made of glass.
• MacGuffin Guardian: In Maun's tower, a pack of Zombies and a Stone Griffin protects Isolde's coffins, while a massive Wax Golem serves a similar purpose in Wulfen Castle, as well as the Silent Death in the library.
• Mad Scientist: Doctor Arcanum hits all the cliches without shame: base located in a windmill? Check. Using an electrical, storm-powered machine to bring a cadaver golem to life? Check. Having a hunchback servant who speaks in a lisp? Check. Drinking one of his own potions to turn into a massive brute of a man? Check.
• Magic Mirror: The Obsidian Mirror in Wulfen Castle hides the last Silver Dagger.
• Meaningful Name: Nearly all the locations and villages of Lupravia (which is one itself) have sinister names related to the setting, like Vargenhoff, Garou Gorge and Strigovia. The same goes for the members of the villains' names, such as Serpensa, Aranea and Garoul. Varcolac is the name of the legend that became both vampires and werewolves; hence the mixture of tropes.
  • Messed with by one of the carnival attraction, Archer's Arrows. You'd expect it to be a shooting gallery run by an archer, and while it is a shooting gallery, "Archer" is actually the name of the guy who runs it.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: The Giant Wolf Spider is a massive arachnid with the head of a wolf, adorned by chelicerae and multiple eyes.
• Mr. Exposition: The hermit Vereticus owns a large library and is more than willing to explain you stuff about the Cadre Infernal and Lupravia.
• Nightmare Fuel: In-Universe (and possibly out of), The Malice is a nightmarish skull taking the appearence of and growing appendages belonging to "everything you find frightening or scary".
• Non-Human Undead: The Werewargs patrolling Wulfenstein are undead werebeasts struck in their hybrid form.
• Non-Standard Game Over: Of course, what happens if lycanthropy gets the better of you, or you strike a deal with Countess Isolde.
• One-Hit Kill: The Flintlock pistol can do this to any enemy with a lucky roll.
• One-Winged Angel: Excluding the werebeasts taking their form, we have Doctor Arcanum turning himself into "Arcanum Unbound" upon drinking one of his elixirs.
• Our Werebeasts Are Different: This book, fittingly enough, is full of examples: other than the mundane Werewolves, the list include a Werebear (Ulrich, the woodsman), a Werebat (The Countess' servant), the Wolfwere (Vereticus' cursed son, described as a feral wolf with the body proportions of a man), the bear-like Werebeast (Burgomaster Straub), Werewargs (undead werewolves) and the Arch-Lycanthrope Varcolac, who's the source of all the Werebeasts plaguing Luparia. Also, Varcolac's powers are of demonic origins, and you'll have to deal with the Wolf-Demon possessing his body. And unlike traditional portrayals of lycanthropy, Varcolac's Lycanthropy involves some gradual mutation - Even before the obligatory werewolf transformation at full moon, you would develop special abilities and grow physically stronger in your human form. The way to reverse this version of lycanthropy also differs, where traditional approaches merely slows down but doesn't stop the inevitable change, and the only solution requires you to kill Varcolac (the original bloodline) before your first full moon. Word of God is that Green always liked werewolves and found their usual appearence in the series as mere, easily dispatched Random Encounters unsatisfying, so he wanted to flesh them out.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Countess Isolde is your standard Vampire Lady, living in a tower rather than a castle and performing dark magic, along with her hypnotic gaze, feral taloned form and invulnerability to conventional weapons. She can also revive herself as a Vampire Wraith if you cannot deal the finishing blow and failed to destroy all the coffins.
• Permanently Missable Content: You can permanently lose the Silver Daggers, sometimes in foolish ways, such as melting them to make silver bullets.
• Persona Non Grata: That's you if you reveal your lycanthropy. Even normally good people such as the priest Corran despise night creatures like yourself and will harm you, so always declare yourself a crusader against evil instead. Only a handful of people, such as the Carnivale, will accept your fallen state.
• Perverse Puppet: If you enter a carriage in the Carnivale by night, you'll be assaulted by a horde of demonic-looking, living puppets. Should the Puppets' master catch you in his tent, you will join the puppets in their next performance... forever...
• Post-Final Boss: The Wolf Demon that made the deal with Count Varcolac will fight you after you killed the Arch-Lycanthrope Varcolac. Compared to the Arch-Lycanthrope's regular skill 12, the Wolf Demon only had skill 10, and is also an avoidable boss fight if you have all five silver daggers and possess the knowledge to banish it.
• Puppet Permutation: See above.
• Race Against the Clock: Averted, despite what you're told to early on. The moments where you slide into lycanthropy are pre-determined and you always reach Wulfenstein in time. There's obviously no mechanic for keeping track of time, either.
• Secret Circle of Secrets: The Cadre Infernal was a group of aristocrats and nobles of Lupravia who plotted and dabbed with vile sorcery to gain more power and influence.
• Seductive Spider: In one side quest you can choose to confront the five members of the Cadre Infernal, one of them which is Arachnea the Spider Queen; a giant black widow spider with a woman's slender body. Her backstory involves her being a seductress who use her charms to woo men before being cursed into becoming a spider-themed monster.
• Shout-Out:
  • Plenty of them, in a way which calls to mind Moonrunner.
  • When Garoul appear outside Grandma Zerkova's cottage, his presence and quotes are a nod to the Big Bad Wolf from popular fairytails such as The Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood.
  • The Headless Highwayman is clearly an homage to Sleepy Hollow (1999).
  • The Cadre Infernal seems to be a supernatural counterpart to the Brotherhood of the Wolf, fittingly enough. The hunt for the mysterious Beast of Vargenhoff is similar to the Beast of Géveudan.
  • As mentioned under Expy, the final battle agaisnt Varcolac reminds the Boss Fight against Dracula from the Castlevania series, including the One-Winged Angel Wolf-Demon form.
  • One of your opponents is a glass knight.
  • Van Richten probably takes his name from the famous monster hunter of the Ravenloft setting for Dungeons & Dragons.
• Silver Bullet: Van Richten has them, and they can play against you if you fight him. If you managed to find the other Flintlock pistol, you can melt any silver item you may possess to obtain Silver Bullets, which deals extra damage to Werecreatures. The Silver Daggers can perfom the same feat, though with a combat malus since you're not used to them.
• Silver Has Mystic Powers: Weapons made of silver can harm demons and undead though these enemies only take normal damage.
• Skippable Boss: There are a total of six boss-level opponents you can fight and kill. They are the five members of the Cadre Infernal and the Wolf Demon they made the Deal with the Devil with. However, only one boss is 100% unavoidable - Count Varcolac who would be the second last boss. Possible ways to play:
  • Fight a minimum of two bosses: You can completely avoid the first four members of the Cadre Infernal, get armed with the Wulfen Sword, fight and defeat Count Varcolac, followed by the Wolf Demon.
  • Fight up to 5 bosses for the Golden Ending: Get all 5 Silver Daggers from and fight/kill all members of the Cadre Infernal, and before the Wolf Demon rises up, banish it using the Silver Daggers and knowledge of a banishment ritual.
  • And of course, you can fight up to the maximum six bosses: You can kill all members of the Cadre Infernal but fail to banish the Wolf Demon hence requiring you to fight it.
  • While Countess Isolde is one of the avoidable encounters among the six bosses, if you choose to enter her castle to kill her, it is still possible and also preferable to accomplish killing her without fighting her - She's not an easy opponent after all, given her Skill score of 10. That can be done by using or making the sign of a crucifix to chase her away, followed by finding out her resting place and kill her while she's at rest.
• Slasher Smile: The Changeling displays one when you first see him, silently tauting you from the cradle.
• Snake People: Serpensa, the freakshow of the Carnivale, is what's left of the evil sorceress. It was a result of the ritual she used. She can also make use of her reptilian features in combat to damage you in multiple ways.
• Spider People: Similar to Serpensa above, Aranea turned into a half woman-half spider hybrid, though she look mostly humanoid with a spidery abdomen, extra legs, multiple eyes and pedipalps over her head. Like Serpensa, she has multiple ways of dealing damage to you in combat.
• Spot the Imposter: While hunting the Beast of Vargenhof, the Beast will attempt to blend itself with several bystanders in a tavern. From the illustration provided in the gamebook you need to identify which of the tavern's occupants is actually the beast. Hint: The Beast of Vargenhof had received an arm injury from Katya's arrow and had yet to fully heal so the one you are after is Burgomaster Straub.
• The Starscream: The bad ending reveals that Isolde is this to Varcolac. She wishes to rule Lupravia in his place, but she's not powerful enough to challenge him directly. If you visit her directly she will "help" you disposing of him and put a geas on you that kicks in after you slay Varcolac and the Wolf Demon.
• Super Power Lottery: Literally. When you proceed far enough in the book, your lycanthropy grows worse and you roll to see what you get extra. Among your possible abilities are: Call of the Wild - a howl that weakens enemies with fear, Red in Tooth and Claw makes your teeth and nails as good as a sword, The Quickening which further increases your Initial Skill, Unnatural Vigour which restores 1/2 lost Stamina after a fight, Night Creature and then there's Cursed Bloodline (which does you damage and increase your Change counter).
• Super-Senses: Another power bestowed to you by your changing form.
• Switched at Birth: Implied with the Changeling cursing Bauer's farm from the inside.
• Teens Are Monsters: Meg, the sullen, goth-like daughter of the Innkeeper, is secretly a necromantic witch who has summoned the Headless Highwayman and let him kill and rob innocent travelers without remorse or compassion.
• Thematic Rogues Gallery: A lot of the player's enemies will be lycanthropes like they are, making it a good idea to hunt down silver weapons that are effective against their type.
• Together in Death: When you destroy the Headless Highwayman's skull, he's summoned back to Hell and this time he brings Meg with him. However, her panicked reaction reveals that no, she's not going to enjoy this permanence with her beloved.
• Torches and Pitchforks: The one in Strigovia is trying to fight back the Howling, but they can turn on you if you foolishly reveal your affliction. There's also one in Vargenhoff, looking for the Beast plaguing the town.
• Transhuman Treachery: The members of the Cadre Infernal already were monsters when the transformation took place.
• Überwald: Again, Mauristania is this, specifically Lupravia.
• Vain Sorceress: Isolde, the only female member of the Cadre to still retain her powers and unnatural beauty.
• Vampire Monarch: Or, in this case, Weremonarch, the Arch-Lycanthrope Varcolac is the master and source of all the werebeasts of Lupravia, and by destroying him the curse will be lifted.
• Victory by Endurance: In the game over description if you fight Isolde with conventional weapons, it states that her unnatural vigour allows her to tank your attack until you're too tired to defend yourself.
• Weapon of X-Slaying: The Sword of Wulfen deals extra damage against the many Werecreatures you'll fight.
• We Help the Helpless: Nearly every place you can visit has people in need of help, and it's advisable to do the right thing and help them out.
• Wicked Witch: An old crone is in service of Lord Varcolac inside his castle, and proves to be a devious opponent.
• Zerg Rush: If you decide to wait for the night before entering the spider caves north of Vargenhoff, all the spiders in the cavern will rush out of their lair to hunt and, well, it doesn't end well for you.

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