Survive the full moon in a country largely populated by werewolves

Question

You're planning to move to the rich country of Lycania (names are a work in progress, ok?), a country as big as the USA plus half of Canada, where you have been offered a good position which would make you earn far more than your current job, giving you an alternative to a mediocre life. Lycania is the one true first world country in a slowly decaying world, and there are people who would [literally] kill to live there.

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The catch: Lycania's original inhabitants are werewolves. While most of them are quite accustomed to their culture and remain within their isolated nation bordered by snow lands to the South, and at North only the sea, immigrants go through the struggle of fighting for survival once a month.

The amount of control Lycans have over their wolven self is not uniform: some rely purely on animal instinct, some have a great degree of control on their monthly powers, turning said control sometimes towards avoiding beastly actions, in other cases towards evil uses. The Lycan governement limits the amount of damage by doing all they can to limit access to government owned dangerous facilities and equipment (military vehicles and weapons primarily), but in this society of natural hunters guns and other simple weapons are not that hard to come by - think USA - as if the werewolf nature wasn't enough to make them dangerous.

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You want desperately to take the job, but you wouldn't mind surviving decently past the age of <insert your age here>. You (individually and/or via your employer who will likely offer a solution to help you as part of the benefits) need a plan that can guarantee you high chances of survival (>90%) for multiple full moons - ideally an infinite amount of them, but if you make it for a few months you'll have been around long enough to find alternatives as well, and will have saved enough to have better alternatives.

As it may have a huge impact, you can consider two separate cases:

1. Your means are such that your purchase power and connections are those of an average working class person

or

2. You are already considerably wealthy and well connected (this implies that the job in Lycania would make you filthy rich in a few years' time by the way)

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Some further points and requirements:

• You could aim to become a werewolf, but either you don't want to or the risks are too high (because I said so... i.e. I don't know the official reason yet)
• Werewolves are humanoid wolves with prehensile hands, or forepaws, who can move both on 2 and 4 limbs: they can get as big as 115% of their human version (that approximately applies to both size and weight)
• Silver (as well as garlic) is not lethal to them on a regular basis, but it is essentially an allergen to which all werewolves have some type of reaction ranging from mild to very strong; there seems to be an inverse correlation between the amount of control Lycans have during full moon, and the strength of their reaction to silver, so instinct driven Lycans will generally avoid it
• They can be killed with regular weapons but will not be slowed down unless their limbs are seriously maimed, or a vital organ is hit, otherwise they will heal much faster than a normal human being
• The transformation happens for all werewolves on the night when the moon is at its fullest, from dusk till dawn
• You have some time (~ 6 months) before you start working, and your employer is willing to arrange flights in and out of Lycania for you during those months to get settled, as they understand outsiders' needs
• You can rely on passive defences (think fortified apartment/house) or active ones, and combine them together as needed: do keep in mind that some resources are finite, e.g. bullets, and you cannot easily rely on just having enough of them
• You can hire contractors, bodyguards, and so on, but a) if they're non-werewolves they're usually extremely highly paid professionals, b) if they are werewolves, they may be of the evil type and turn their knowledge of the work you had them do against you
• You don't have the option to leave the country just before full moon: planes and ships out of Lycania are much less frequent and more expensive close to a full moon, and priority admission is granted by the government
• Very tall mountains, very big lakes, or the sea, are not easily reachable from where you will be living, unless you have a specific plan in mind
• You can rely on leaving work earlier than usual on the day before a full moon: 3pm rather than the usual 5pm; you cannot however plan on taking one or more days off work every month
• There is a small police and army force of Lycans who know how to control their instincts, however that alone takes most of their willpower, so that they are not really effective in restraining other werewolves
• If a Lycan of the evil type has anything against you they will likely try to harm you during the night, as finding proof of their actions will be highly unfeasible and as a non-werewolf you are easier to find and attack than others they may want to hurt as well; remember that this type has a still functioning human intellect and can rely on tools, vehicles and weapons if necessary, as well as make plans and form packs, so simply locking yourself in your house is not reliable enough
• The technology level is very similar to that of "our" 2015, the main difference being that medical solutions to inhibit or control the transformation are being researched, and that tools for restraining werewolves have been invented throughout the ages: these are nowadays mostly produced and used abroad, or by families with difficult pups... errrr, children

I will edit/add to these if necessary, please point out if you believe they're not consistent, or lack something, as it's still a work in progress

Answer 1

In a world like this, I think that the employer would sort out most of the security:

1. 'Normal' Humans would be in demand: consider that, once a month, all of society breaks down for an entire night as everyone goes completely insane, then suffers amnesia about it in the morning. There are some people who only go a little insane, but they're indistinguishable from everyone else. So, if one of these individuals with heightened control does something "evil" during that time, they're no more culpable than anyone else. On the other hand, there are some people completely immune to this monthly insanity! An employer would want to do everything they could to ensure non-lycans were protected, as they'd be able to keep working even when everything else was shut down (it sure would suck if your server died during the full moon, and no one could look at it for a full 8+ hours).

2. 'Normal' Humans would be dissuaded from losing their normality: If an employer in a country full of werewolves went to the trouble of hiring an importing a normal human, they'd probably have that normality as part of the employment contract. After all, what's the point of hiring someone immune to the monthly insanity if they just go ahead and infect themselves with it? This would give the protagonist plenty of motivation to remain completely human, even if the option to become a werewolf were to present itself.

3. The employer would ensure safety: So, given points 1 and 2, a reasonable step for the employer would be to offer a safe place to the employee for the duration of the full moon every month. However, this would come with the condition that the employee would be locked in for the duration. This would also protect the employer from having a normal human ransacking the place while everyone was wolfed-out. There is already a real-world parallel for this: overnight retail workers are "locked in" at their workplace; they can open the door, but doing so would set off an alarm. This prevents them from letting in unauthorized persons, or from entering unauthorized areas, barring an actual emergency.

4. The logistics of safety: Assuming that the werewolves in your story would have the standard mythological allergy to silver, then an employer could provide a thick reinforced-concrete room which would keep out just about everything (human and lycan), and a silver chainmail-type suit for emergency protection. Fully covered in silver, a human would be immune to any attacks from a nude werewolf. If the wolves know to avoid silver due to its odor, then the human could just be given a colloidal silver spray deodorant/pepperspray that would basically be a cheap, disposable werewolf repellent.

Answer 2

Use a bomb shelter

The way you describe your werewolves, this doesn't actually seem to be that big of a deal. They are not werewolves for very long, only one night per blue (okay, full) moon. As such, you only need to deal with the problem once per month at most.

A bomb shelter that can only be opened from the inside once it is locked would be the obvious solution. The main problem with bomb shelters is that you can't keep an infinite amount of water or food down there, but this isn't a problem when you only have to stay there for a single night.

Just keep proper track of when the moon is full, head home earlier that night and lock yourself in your bomb shelter. Then the next day you come out, replenish your supplies and keep living your life normally until the next full moon.

However, don't use a group bomb shelter

After some comments to this question, I'd like to add that you should not make use of a group bomb shelter. You want your own one for just you.

You might get locked out of a group bomb shelter if they decide to close early because of werewolf related paranoia, or one of the members who enter might be a werewolf undercover, or infected with lycanthropia without even realizing it, which would lead to a lot of humans locked in with a werewolf.

Answer 3

Bathysphere

Make a simple bathysphere from stuff you find in the junkyard. Anchor it to the bottom of the largest body of water you can find or make. Advantages:

• The submerged bathysphere is very hard to spot in the moonlight, even if you know it's there. Murky water can further camouflage it.
• Your scent will not leave the bathysphere.
• There is only one point of entry.
• Firearms inside the bathysphere work much better than those on the outside.

Unfortunately, the bathysphere is weak against ghetto depth charges and scuba-wolves with cable cutters. Ideally you'd put your bathysphere in the ocean, since werewolves can't stand salt.

Answer 4

Air balloon!

I was considering boat, but there might not be lakes, and werewolfs can swim! But they sure cant fly, and probably can't operate air balloons.

So I'd go for air balloons. If there's simple gun powder weapons around then I'm sure someone would have invented at least a crude and simple flying device for this kind of situation. It would only really need to be flying for a night, and if you bring a friend then you could take shifts making sure it stayed floating.

The downside

A) Needs gas

B) unless you're an actual pilot who intends to steer the balloon all night, you need to tether it to the ground so you doesn't fly away. Unless you would want it for a traveling reason, it would make sense to just have it tied to your house roof or in the garden.

C) a smart and strong werewolf would know to just pull your ship down with the rope/chain, or even climb up the rope. Or be a d*ck and cut the rope and then follow your balloon on foot until it crashed (if the balloon is not steerable/no pilot) at the end of the night

Answer 5

There are a few things to consider in a world like this that haven't been explicitly mentioned:

A. If lycans are normal 29 of 30 days and normal humans are getting paid an exorbitant amount of money to work here (more than lycans?) then it's likely that their job entails something that the lycans cannot easily do themselves - such as maintaining systems, order or some other critical component to the countries survival during that one night.

This probably means that the normal humans are actually expected to work through that one night, and survive to do their job. Employers would have a very vested interest in their survival in such a case.

B. If the law of the jungle is an accepted part of society for the one night per month how does the society itself hold together and maintain their own population to still be considered a first world nation. Killing each other off en masse on a monthly basis would deplete the population considerably faster than procreating - since a baby (even a litter if they tend to have multiple babies) must survive several of those nights - and so does the mother.

The society would have a significant interest in providing safety to its own lycan population is if didn't want to eliminate itself in a few years.

C. Lastly to become a first world society really does require law, order and peace. Every one of our useful inventions have been created because someone intelligent was safe long enough to create the idea. We wouldn't have guns if someone wasn't safe long enough to experiment with gunpowder. We wouldn't have swords if someone wasn't safe long enough to learn to forge them (and then actually do it). We wouldn't have concrete buildings if the workers were killed off once a month or the project was bombed by "evil Lycans" before its completion.

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All of those things suggest that a potential human employee would find themselves in one of two positions during a full moon.

1. They're in a fortified, human work environment for the night to get their critical work complete.

2. They're on the offensive anyway, acting as an extremely well equipped police force or military to keep the aggressive lycan population in check so that society doesn't tear itself apart by morning.

Answer 6

Get yourself a couple of Siberian tigers, and you will sleep like a baby. Apparently, the Siberian tiger is the only natural predator of wolves. It's uncertain if this includes werewolves, but it is probably safe to assume that your average werewolf is not going to take on a tiger. Wolves are crafty, and they will coordinate their attacks, so make sure you have several tigers. Put up a big fence around your house and let them roam around the yard. It's not really practical or economical to keep the tigers around all the time, so put them "on loan" to the local zoo and retrieve them when you need them.

Answer 7

I would lock myself in a very secure survivalist-style hole-in-the-ground bunker for the night. Obviously i'd want internet in there.

Answer 8

There are other non-werewolves living there, you said. Ask them how they manage. It seems to me that either the werewolves are going to be smart enough not to invade the home of someone with a high-powered rifle, or they’re going to be way too dumb to figure out a way around any reasonably complicated defense. Either way, lock yourself in. Safety in numbers (unless one of that number got bit and didn’t tell you).

Something non-lethal, like pepper spray, seems like a good bet if somebody he cares about goes wolf around him. There are real cultures that, say, held pogroms on Easter, so it’s possible that the werewolves just let each other get away with that, but it has to be inconvenient enough for people to keep dying, when they’re paying top dollar to recruit immigrants, that there’s got to be some kind of system in place to stop that from happening over and over.

Answer 9

Well i'm not that much deep into the werewolf subject but as a kind of inspiration, here are some points:

• I would probably try to find out if there's a non werewolf community at the place i'll work and for at least the 1st full moon try to provide some bodyguards (I'd prefer non-werewolves) or at least weapons. Therefore i would try to start my job just after the full moon has passed:

The community could be a solution to help each other: For example they could escort each other home to work and take a day off in turns so that for example the last to come home has an escort!

• I'm not sure if you pointed it out but can one buy weapons when settled down in Lycania?

Then i would spent a part of my income to get some weapons

• An other point what if for my self defense i injure a Lycan would he be angry at me after full moon?

This could be a problem between Lycans and emigrants!

• an other point what if during full moon i just stay at work and settle down their?

This would mean a few days before i would install a bed or have it always in my office and buy enough food to survive as i guess the working place would be secure!

• About medicine is there a possibility to use a kind of weapon which injects a kind vaccination or injection which might either make raise the control a werewolf or freeze their body movement for a while (as a clean weapon)?

• But why the employer doesn't care for the employees safety?

Answer 10

Use active and passive measures along with area denial to prevent attacks. It is better if you can defeat a werewolf attack before it even starts. You don't need to make your house impenetrable, but strong enough that a werewolf or team of werewolves can't breach the defenses in a single night. Or build the defenses in such a way that a werewolf will find it easier to look for prey somewhere else first.

Basically, living in this country will be like living in a warzone for one night a month. Every defensive measure taken by a modern military to defend an outpost is appropriate for this answer.

Area Denial

As the locals if there are any smells that werewolves don't like or just simply cannot tolerate. Spreading strong scents such as cayenne, mouthwash or vinegar are your home may repel a werewolf. Experimentation will be needed to find out which smells are most effective. The locals probably have a good idea.

Ultrasonic howlers boxes should make it uncomfortable or downright painful for werewolves to come near your home.

Active Defenses

Pack in lots of anti-werewolf ammunition, a fully automatic weapon and plenty of caffeine (adrenaline may be high enough you won't need coffee) for a long night. Make an obviously weaker entry point that forms a choke point. If the werewolves can only attack you one at a time then it's easier to defend yourself.

Fire weapons Make a version of this car-jacking prevention, only mount it to your house.

Traps Every trap imaginable.

Passive Defenses

Physical barriers such as fences, bunkers, barbwire or spikes can be combined to prevent a werewolf from getting too close and can be used to create your own kill zones.

Broader Cultural Implications

A trade-off these werewolves need to make is whether they want to roam free on the full moon or if they want to sequester themselves. If they roam free, they are subject to being killed as one might kill a dangerous bear or lion. If they sequester themselves they don't have to worry about being killed. This arrangement offers legal protection to normal humans who kill a werewolf on the full moon. (I don't know if it would count as murder, man-slaughter or some other offense.)

Answer 11

The bomb shelter answer is already great, so only a few improvements:

• Build your shelter alone (arrive directly after the full moon to have full time) and build it apart from your normal home. Perhaps you could build a long concealed tunnel from your home to the shelter which allows you a) an escape in a surprise attack and b) an escape if your shelter has been detected. Use every measure to be sure that your track cannot be scented.

• Your shelter is a mix of a panic room and a sniper hideout. It is a sniper hideout because it is extremely well concealed (Some real hideouts are tested by soldiers who are given the approximate location and still cannot find it, inform yourself about these in the internet). And it is a panic room because it is build underground, consists of strong ferroconcrete and a reinforced steel door. The door is airtight so you cannot be smoked out and consists of two separate steel layers with a fireproof concrete layer inside (It contains basalt which melts to a viscous unassailable mass when attacked with a blowpipe). You get air from several well-hidden vents which can be closed when detected.

• The last ditch defense is weaponry, but it should be avoided as last possible option because you are in the minority and cannot afford to fight. One silent/long range weapon like a crossbow or compound bow (take out single enemies to clear the escape path), one deadly medium range weapon like a shotgun with 00 pellets or a .357 magnum with hollow-point ammunition (you have been detected and need to fight) and one spear/sword (you have a good chance to survive, but an (already wounded ?) enemy charges you and you need to keep distance).

Answer 12

Your employer could mark you as their territory much like a dog would, which would cause most Lycans to leave you alone.

You could say the Lycans are purist and don't want to mix breeds, so instead of turning into vicious animals that simply kill just to kill, they seek out humans and eliminate them to reduce the chances of someone reproducing with a human.

As a "marked" human, you are the responsibility of the "marker" and if you do anything you're not supposed to, like breed with Lycans, then you and the marker will be eliminated/banished.

Conflict could also arise when your employer turns the act of marking you into a bizarre sexual thrill and it freaks you out or the situation becomes dangerous, but by this point you're already settled in so you either just try to fend for yourself or find someone who will simply mark you without creating more problems.

Answer 13

You don't have the option to leave the country just before full moon: planes and ships out of Lycania are much less frequent and more expensive close to a full moon, and priority admission is granted by the government

I don't see how this limitation would stand for very long. It doesn't make sense (Assuming you have a free market economy.)

This indicate to me that the law of supply and demand has gotten severely out of whack. There is a lack of supply but obviously a lot of demand. When there is an under served market with lots of demand, someone will step in to serve it.

This situation just needs an enterprising company or individual to schedule lots of chartered flights (fully booked) out of the country every 29 days. I mean if I were running an airline from almost every other country in the world I would just capitalize on that once a month, (scheduled & predictable) bonanza of demand. Travel in the rest of the world would pretty much cease for a few days everywhere else.

If you take it one step further... You could have the government make it a requirement that everyone (human) have a "full moon evacuation plan" kind of like a health plan (because isn't that what it is after all)

You could even set up subsidies for those who might not be able to afford it and online exchanges where people could choose from different evacuation providers.

Oh wait that last part sounds vaguely familiar.

Answer 14

Multiple people have suggested bomb shelters. I think there's a perfectly viable answer that doesn't go quite that far and is far more livable:

Concrete dome houses. Normally they are built with windows as per normal building codes but in this land I think a windowless version would be acceptable. You have a very tough door. They'll withstand anything short of the heaviest guns available to civilians (and even if a bullet comes through it's obviously unaimed and thus a very minimal threat), they'll shrug off any civilian low explosive device and it will take a fair charge of high explosives to breech them.

Current versions are ordinary houses inside other than the shape of the roof, this wouldn't be something you have to retreat to.

If this isn't enough defense take the same thing and bury it. Ideally, place it inside a hill and then replace the dirt so that while it's buried it's still at ground level or even a bit elevated. (Going entirely underground brings up drainage issues.) Build shotguns into the entryway that can be fired from inside--if the wolves try to force the door you turn the entryway into wolf steak tartare.

Again, these exist in the real world. They're much less common because normal building codes do not permit living in such a structure but it certainly would be possible to design such a structure with an acceptable means of fire escape. People do it because if you put a moisture barrier in the dirt over the dome and bury suitable air ducting in the ground you can build a house that doesn't need more than a fan to provide heating and cooling.

Given the werewolf threat I would expect at least the former to be the normal means of house construction, acquiring such a place should not be a problem. (Economically they are close to competitive with conventional house construction techniques and by the time you look at life cycle costs they're cheaper.)

Answer 15

In a first-world country with a healthy population of werewolves, I think that we can safely make the following assumptions:

1. The the governing powers have established ways to survive a full moon while protecting their assets, both material and human.
2. The intelligent werewolves have permeated every level of governance. Lets face it, they're just superior to humans in every way.
3. The top levels of Governance is exclusively werewolf. This is why they allowed the other, lesser werewolves to exist in society.
4. They need a healthy intermixing of humans in society to sustain themselves.
5. Human/werewolves violence is carefully monitored and any serious threats to stability (both from humans or werewolves) are dealt with.
6. A balance of power and respect for authority has been achieved.

Without these elements, a werewolves populated first-world country would quickly become a third-world country. We can also assume that:

1. There are high class protected humans and there are feed-stock humans. You want get above that cut off line as soon as possible.
2. Violence will be met with violence, so killing werewolves is not really an option.
3. Intelligent werewolves will protect those of value to them. You need to find a way to get on the good side of someone important, and make them see you as more than food.

My favorite Option: Get into the werewolves entertainment business!

During a full moon, entertainment tastes shift. Standard forms of entertainment just don't satisfy 'those' needs, even of the most intelligent werewolves. All of them will be wandering about looking for some way to satisfy themselves, after they have eaten their fill of humans. Sadly for them, normal TV dramas are somehow unfulfilling and those bowling gloves don't seem to fit anymore. So here is what you do:

Start pitching grotesque yet intellectually stimulating entertainment concepts to local investors, perhaps a shakespearian battle arena or a reality show where you hide the blood. Eventually you will catch the knowing eye of an intelligent werewolves who feels the pain and boredom of long moon-lit nights where whole-sale violence is just not an option. Find a way to get your project moving, then work on an important part of it. You may not be the project owner or manager, but that does not really matter. Your aim is to improve your survivability. Do a good job and you will find yourselves rubbing shoulders with the elite in an emerging entertainment business. With some hard work and politicking, you will eventually find yourself in the protected crowd. You may also be given the opportunity to become a werewolves (in high standing.) Either way, entertain the elite werewolves, integrate into their society and protect your position. Then, you should live a long and happy life.

However, there is no faster way to be murdered by the masses than to produce sub-par werewolves entertainment. You have been warned!

Answer 16

Measure from preventing a werewolf to harm someone else:

If the werewolf society knows that the full moon has no usefulness at all then werewolves can happily self provide measures to avoid harm someone so they can apply the measures before going on full moon.

In example silvers revested straitjackets. They have to be crafted with the size for each werewolf, when they turn into wolves the increase of size tightly bound the jacket not allowing movement and the silver does not allow to bite-away the jacket (note that silver is outside the jacket, not inside, that at same time prevent also another werewolf to help remove the jacket).

Measures to protect humans:

Depending on the strength of werewolves a reinforced home/ transport vehicle can be designed. I don't see why people insist on having concrete homes with no windows, a werewolf cannot have unlimited strenght so there will be always strong enough materials that can avoid to be broke by a werewolf (there exists in example transparent materials much more resistent than concrete that would allow to make vehicles and windows).

Depending on the quantity of humans we can have from small cities to big buildings where each door automatically lock during full moon and can be opened only if people on both sides press the "Open for 3 seconds" button. The important part is having each room isolated to avoid spreading of wolves (like sectors in submarines). We can have also locked rooms for vehicles that can't have both entrances opened at same times (like in banks) so that one can enter the shelter even using a vehicle.

Law && crimes

There will problably be laws preventing both humans to hunt wolves, and forcing wolves to do all they can to prevent harming humans during full moon and like every law there will be people breaking the law:

1. Werewolves will act to close themeselves in shelters while in reality the shelters may have a illegal secret exit
2. People go killing werewolves that is trapped in shelters

Note that shooting at wolves on open spaces or inside human's reserved buildings may be allowed or not while killing a wolf even for self-defense in a forest may be considered a crime (you should not be in a forest in first place)

In practice there are many possible ways to make that coexistence possible from a logistical point of view, the interesting stuff about that situation is more from political and social point of view.

Social phenomena:

People that want to be rich spend time to research safety measure, werevoles are forced by law to use safest measure and hence once someone develop a new safest method (prooven to be safer) werewolves are forced to buy it this would also give a valid excuse for rebel werewolves and cause political friction between werevolfes' nation and humans' nations.

Note that this is actually similiar to what happens already in our modern society with guns & pharmaceutical companies and also with banks (debt)

Games:

Depending on society it is possible to assist to Arenas where humans have to survive the Full Moon (maybe sponsored by producers of safety measures^^). Games may cheat causing political problems (in example fully self controlled wolves that don't wont to kill humans even during full moon are massacrated by people with powerfull guns).

If Full moon is necessary

The fool moon may be necessary to werewolves life cycle (in example the reproduce only during full moon, in that case their society would not have something like Porn industry). Werewolves will be less interested in finding solutions for coexistence.

If full moon is not necessary

Proably in that case werewolves are interested in finding solutions to their "problem"

What seems really interesting is finding a realistic reason for wich werewolves may need humans (the server downtime is not a problem because if the server is down for 8+ hours there will anyway be no one able to use it because both users and developers are turned to wolves).

Answer 17

Having the benefit of reading a bunch of the answers already posted here is nice. My thoughts so far:

• Commercial safe rooms are designed against well-armed humans entering. If there's anything like that in this world, I'd go for that. If not, I would prefer for a safe room:
• steel reinforced, concrete, fire-proof (in case they set the house on fire to get you to come out, if they are (in the worst case scenario) sentient, amoral sociopaths on that night, or in case they cause an accident by knocking over your prized gasoline and open flame collection that you conveniently didn't have time to put away, or whatever), structure with adequate ventilation (the ventilation lines should also be fireproof, and go well away from the property, possibly exiting underwater at your pool filter, which will be bubbly anyways, since if you're well off enough to afford this you probably have a pool), charcoal filtered and strongly scented with unpleasant odors of course. If its mounted at the pool filter the air going out will also reek nicely of bleach. This shelter structure should be built into the foundation.
• live video feed to the rest of the property

• smart house features such as being able to lock / unlock doors to the house - if a werewolf gets inside and gets trapped inside and wants to leave for instance, it would be best to let it go - and be able to shut the door again, as well as monitor perimeter motion detectors and cameras.

• food and radio to be able to help relax.

• alarms that are wired to alert emergency services, blare loud klaxons, and emit odorant fog that smells like the house is on fire - and full of rotting eggs. If there are any known irritants to werewolves in this setting, like colloidal silver, those would be grand as well. And then...

• Pay a dominant werewolf to mark around the perimeter.

• Lay down an inner perimeter of strong, unpleasant odors, like with 'all-natural' insect repellents, such as garlic, pepperment and so on. Repeat this layering around your safe room.

• Ultrasonic noise generator

• First aid kit

• Fire suppressant.

• Adequate temperature controls integrated with the ventilation system.

• If it gets really terrible outside, provided the structure can take it (and again, it should be able to), set the entire house on fire.

• If werewolves outside of their werewolf time can smell better than a human can, hiring a werewolf consultant to come and smell-check the property. While they're at it perhaps they can advise me about possible modifications to make to prevent entry. This is probably a pretty lucrative profession there. Maybe the same one who is coming there to mark things. For that matter, ask them to come back on a regular basis and re-mark.

• A fast acting anaesthetic dosed appropriately for each family member, for if the worst should happen. Rather than cyanide capsules because I don't want someone killing themselves out of fear that the werewolves are going to break in if the werewolves are not genuinely going to break in, but I do want them to avoid pain if possible.

• fixed curfew: Although we wouldn't bar stragglers from getting in to access a shelter (things happen) we'd expect people to be there by a specific time and to lock themselves in by a specific time. Everyone would lock themselves in.

• spray the threshold after passing. No use laying down new scent.

• Lights out and try and be in shelters before moonrise.

• timed locks: IF werewolves are sentient but evil that night, or have human helpers, I'd spring for timed locks as well, that only open hours after sunrise the next day, to prevent hostage-taking from getting us all killed out of sentiment.

• maintainance: test equipment regularly to make sure it works.

• Periodically (every three months maybe), do a complete drill including overnight lockdown, and staged 'werewolf' incursion.

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Things I wouldn't do:

• Eat wolfsbane. Sorry, aconite / wolfsbane is a deadly poison in real life. Don't eat it, no matter what you see on Teen Wolf. You can totally consume (reasonable quantities) of colloidal silver in real life though. The silver will accumulate in your tissues, making a silver-sensitive werewolf more likely not to take a second bite. It will turn your skin gray, unfortunately (or fortunately if you like playing dark elves in cosplay a lot).

• surround the house with armed people. That's like wrapping it in super aggressive bacon.

• live in a windowless house. If you've got decent perimeter fences, like brick and mortar fences with razorwire tops, decent cameras and motion detectors, and a largeish estate, you can be in your interior shelter before they come to you, if for some reason a werewolf manages to transform outside of /the very night you should be spending the whole night in the shelter/ or you happen to have gotten stuck outside. Might as well be comfortable the rest of the time. I would do like one person said and have only second story windows though, just to avoid the costs of replacing them (hopefully).

• Forget to be home that night: If this place has similar technology to today, I would set alarms on my phone, reminders on my calendar and so on. I would make sure my loved ones did the same.

• Share: If someone wants to spend the night in my property, that is fine, as its better than being on the streets, but the shelter would be single occupation only. Additional shelters as warranted by family / etc. However the safe rooms are single occupancy only, and its not my spare recroom or bedroom and its not a storage closet. Open it just to maintain stuff in there on a non full moon. You don't want to fix every minor scrape with the first aid kit in there and then not have one that night, or be frantically tossing boxes into the hall when the werewolves come.

• Put too many barriers on the way in: The perimeter gate would be accessible via biometric id (fingerprint), not a passcode or a key. The front door would have steel plate under the wood and be barrable from inside. The code to access the shelters would also be biometric(retinal). I think I would go ahead and have a double gated entrance though. So if a werewolf follows someone through the gate, whoever's on camera duty can close the inner one. Biometric id would also confirm, at the same time, that the thumb or eye used was attached to a living person. I'd also spend a lot of time drilling with everyone on getting into their respective safe rooms. I wouldn't put umpteen thousand barriers between me and the safe room.

• Have the safe room accessible from outside: I am in until I let myself out.

  • No external locks or key panels for people or werewolves to mess with.

• Buy alpha scent over the internet. That is just asking for trouble. Get together enough money, and its probably pretty expensive, to have someone come there and do it themselves.

• I really like the idea of a big freaking Siberian tiger. Its another one of those asking for trouble situations, though. Since I'm not really trained in handling one or certain what its requirements would be, or how to keep it from damaging my house or stalking me itself, it really wouldn't be much good unless it lived in kind of a fenced in perimeter around the property, with an assigned regular caregiver / trainer. It just seems like too much effort spent on defence at that point though. It should intrude minimally the rest of the time.

• Be completely alone: Up until its time to actually get into shelters, it would be nice to have more than one set of eyes on the perimeter that night. It would probably be pretty easy to trade having a safe place to stay that night (one of the shelter rooms) to have someone be a house guest.

• Let my guests run the show: The smarthouse interface would have the capability to both override and lock down smarthouse controls in the other rooms. This would be biometric, via retinal scan. The scan would also verify that I was alive. I want them to be in control in time to say, close a gate if they need to, but if they are about to do something I don't want them to do, I'd like to be able to stop them and do something different.
• Personally, I'd avoid guns inside the house. Its just going to lead to accidents and issues. While the stopping power of a high caliber gun at short range seems really necessary in theory, with good shelter it shouldn't become an issue. Just being outside a shelter with a weapon means putting more human smells into the air. If for any reason someone had to be away from home that night (and it should be a really good reason), then a high caliber weapon - a desert eagle with silver bullets, say - might be warranted, along with (hopefully) other precautions.

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Primary points:

• the important thing is to try to drive them away, and make it seem like you're not an important target.
• easy for me to get into in a hurry, thanks to drilling and design
• Fireproof, not fire-resistant. As in, capable of surviving inside of an active house fire.
• Maintain good smell discipline around that time. Smell barriers have to be maintained, not just laid down once.
• Provide a way for them to get out.
• Two point biometric id, not passwords. You don't want to be killed by foggy memory or slow or sloppy timing.
• Steel reinforced concrete, locks from the inside, can't be unlocked - from inside only - until morning.
• Don't eat poison.

Answer 18

Consume wolfsbane for the two or three days preceding the full moon. You will therefore be unpalatable to the werewolf, who is probably looking for food, not to settle a score with you.

That being said, a revolver with lead azide (exploding) bullets would be easy to carry and an exploded heart will probably prove a serious impediment to the most zealous werewolf.

Answer 19

If werewolves increase in size to as much as 115% merely utilize tunnels that are barely big enough for a human to crawl through. Catacombs might do in a pinch, if appropriately sized. A wealthy person might pay for a custom fortification, where the tunnels come complete with sensors and all manner of traps but the main defense seems to be size.

Answer 20

I would buy or rent a condo in one of the human enclave residence buildings/communities that are basically silver gilded inverse prisons (on lock down once every 29 days that is)

I would sleep peacefully knowing that a screened professional security force is keeping watch over the facility and my locked "cell" protects me from any other residents that might transform that night.

If no one in the country has thought of this, I wouldn't accept the job and instead start a company that builds these.