Sanguine decides he wants to pull a little prank on Hircine. He turns the Dragonborn into a werebear instead of a werewolf so DB can go mess up Hircine's hunting grounds. This would allow us to play around in not one but two daedric realms. Sound like fun?

Thoughts?

Its a cool idea, I like the idea of Sanguine pulling a prank on Hircine, that could be quite funny. The only problem is what about non werewolf players? You cant just make them into a werebear without the players consent.

Good point. Maybe if you don't take Sanguine up on his offer he finds someone else and Hircine Comes to you to help get rid of them. Thing is you would have to chose a side in that scenario.

why not just become a werebear the normal way? getting infected? and why would Hircine have a problem with the player character becoming a were-creature?

Should you refuse the beast, have players fight the beast spirit with Clavicus Vile's axe. There, one more Daedric prince involved.

There are no werebears to infect the player. They don't exist yet. And Hircine is only after the werebaer because it's jacking up his hunting grounds as a prank from Sanguine.

Ummm what? That makes no sense because Sanguine does not have the power to turn the player into a werebeast of any kind, that is Hircine's power. I agree with what Markus said we should be able to become a werebear by being infected in the wild.

Werewhales (and mermaids) happen when Sheogorath decided to flood the Hunting Ground for no reason whatsoever

Werebears have an established presence in skyrim according to lore.

The best way I can think of to introduce them that's lore friendly, is to introduce them with a DLC with a plausible explanation for them not being there at the start. Something like this:

Some sort of curse/magical effect is forcing the wild werebears/werewolves into hiding, it could be from another daedric lord (Hircines foe perhaps), but once you download the DLC something the dragonborn does removes the curse/magical effect and werebears/werewolves storm back into skyrims lands.

This comes with the possibility to catch the werebear version of lycanthropy from wild werebears, and a more unstable version of the werewolf lycanthropy. Then you'd have three different beast forms (can only have one at a time):
- Companion werewolf lycanthropy, this could be weaker, slower and less durable (reduce the effectiveness of the current companion werewolf strain) than the wild werewolf strain, but you have more control, you don't forcefully change. This strain was created by hircine worshipping witches (as explained in game) which could explain why it's not as strong as the 'wild' version that hircine himself created. Hircine doesn't also have as much direct control, so they don't forcefully change.
- Wild werewolf lycanthropy, stronger, faster and more damaging. You can catch this strain from wild werewolves.
- Wild werebear lycanthropy. This beast form is slower, more durable and deals more damage than the wild werewolf form.

I'd like a mechanic for werewolf sneaking, allowing you to 'hunt' in the form. This could help separate werebears and werewolves. WB could be all about dealing damage, charging into combat, whilst WW could be about sneaking around, hunting etc. Both wild versions have forced transformations, they could do a 'full moon' type deal or just a random time.

I like these ideas.

this part is your own fiction, lore wise werebears are common i skyrim. so they do exist, just not presented in the game.

So where are they?

he just said it...they are not presented in the game

dude, please learn some, any, lore on the subject your idea deals with

remember, the games only represent a small portion of a much larger world called lore. not all elements from this "lore" world are represented in the games. so even if an in game book tells about werebears in Skyrim then that doesn't mean the games let you explore that aspect. just look at Dawnguard, we knew about the volkihar vampires from lore but there where non in the game at the very beginning, they were later introduced in a DLC as if they had always been there