Lycanleather

This rare form of leather armor is often misidentified as standard leather armor with odd tanning processes. The exterior is covered with stiff hair while the inside is cured and hardened as expected with leather armor. The fur can come in various colors and particularly impressive suits make use of more than one kind of animal fur with different color and fur qualities. The armor is nearly impossible to repair by even the most skilled leather workers and armorers, with added leather quickly peeling away from the original work, and metal pieces coming loose and falling out. The armor is often discarded after battle damage and failed attempts to repair it.

The production of this armor is incredibly gruesome. Lycanthropes are forced into their animal form, and their hides are cut from their living bodies. The process requires great skill to avoid killing the lycanthrope and having the body revert to human shape, ruining any skins being removed in the process. Evil lycanthropes typically capture newly turned victims and remove their skins during the full Moon. Victims that survive the process have no memory of it, but are often meaner for having endured it. While it is easiest to use newly turned victims of their own kind, other types of lycanthropes are sometimes captured and used, while the rarest suits might make use of several types of lycanthropes. The Cult of Malar often seeks out good and neutral lycanthropes for this process.

Lycanleather can be repaired by using strips of leather obtained from a lycanthrope and processes for use as leather, but this is often unnecessary. Lycanleather will naturally repair damage at the rate of 1 point of damage per week until it can be worn.

Powers

Lycanleather is strong and serves as leather +1 for anyone who wears it, but it’s real power comes when worn by a lycanthrope. When a lycanthrope wears the armor it naturally serves as leather with a +2 enhancement for purposes of determining armor class. Additional magic may further enhance the magical protection. Further, while in human form, the lycanthrope can only be hit by magic or silver weapons, as if they were in their animal form. While worn by a lycanthrope, the armor repairs itself at 1 point of damage per round, and the wearer heals 1 point of damage per turn while in human form. When the lycanthrope changes to their animal form, the armor merges into the form, but provides no further benefit until the wearer returns to human form.

Non-lycanthropes who wear the armor have a 2% chance to contract lycanthropy of the same kind as the primary skin used to make the leather. The chance of infection increases to 10% if the last wearer of the armor was a lycanthrope slain while wearing the suit, with the resulting infection matching the type of the previous owner. A check is made when the armor is first worn, and additional checks at 1% are made after each combat that resulted in damage.