Adventuring is a dangerous business. Not just because an adventurer can end up dead in any number of painful nasty ways, but because they can turn into a monster themselves, although not how Nietzsche implied.
The most common means to become a monster involve vampires and lycanthropes, although other undead, curses, and polymorph spells can turn one monstrous as well.
At a gaming table, there are two main ways to approach this: let the player run the PC when it is changed, which has its merits - and its own game systems. The other option is what happens in my world: the PC becomes an NPC. Permanently, in the case of vampirism (and other undeadness), or only temporarily, when the change comes upon the PC.
I would argue that BX expects run-ins with Vampires and Lycanthropes, based on the updated equipment list in the Expert book. The Equipment list adds Mallet and Stakes (3), Garlic, and Wolfsbane (bunch), to the Mirror for some specific monster answers. These are lifted straight out of folklore and Hammer films. Note the Garlic is 5gp for an unspecified amount, so I am picturing a string of garlic bulbs. If nothing else, the iron rations will taste better.
Vampirism (and other undead)
To become undead, first one must be dead. This being DnD, the death was likely sudden and violent.
Once dead, someone (typically a necromancer) ensorcells your remains, binding your spirit to them, potentially pulling it back from the afterlife, to dwell in torment as your physical body is forced to execute the necromancer's whims until someone or something puts you down permanently. This is the most common source of undead in my world (and also why necromancy is Evil).
That said, necromancers aren't the only source of undeath in my world. Curses from places, beings, or items may result in the cursed rising as undead upon their eventual death. Stronger undead can simply create more of themselves by slaying living creatures: wights, specters, wraiths, and vampires. It is even whispered by some in Skara Brae that rituals exist that transform a willing being into one of the undead.
Despite the best efforts of some awful fiction - books and the movies they spawned - vampires are monsters, first and foremost. Buffy knows this, as do Blade, Solomon Kane, and the Winchester brothers. While these five may not be residents of Skara Brae, their purpose (and perhaps in-game clones...) does reside there, in the form of individuals, a temple, and at least one order of hunters.
As undead, vampires prey upon the living, often leaving more vampires (spawn in some rulesets) in their wake. John Carpenter's Vampires and Vampires II gets it right, as does Quentin Tarantino's From Dusk till Dawn, and despite the campiness, so does What We Do in the Shadows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Lost Boys, and Shadow of the Vampire.
Monsters are the DM's purview, so that is why once a PC turns undead, they slip into NPCdom. If a player wants to play a vampire, I'll recommend they try a different table and probably ruleset.
Lycanthropy
Sticking to the BX rulebooks, the only lycanthropes found are the sneaking wererats, brutish wereboars, murderous werewolves, capricious weretigers, and friendly-ish werebears. BX also features the Devil Swine, which are man-eating spellcasting monsters. Between myth and other games, there are far more potential weres. Ananasi (from White Wolf) are the first lycanthropes I'll convert, if only because they are in the Ironguard Campaign which takes place to the east of Skara Brae, in a land where 5e dominates. As needed, I will dip into the AD&D Monster Manual and other books for additional choices (2e has many more options).
I am considering implementing the rule where only humans can contract lycanthropy, and all other races just die horribly from it. That said, subdividing which races can become which types of lycanthropes could be a fun/useful/amusing approach in a more lycanthrope-centric game.
Regardless, contracting lycanthropy isn't something to seek out in my world, because not only is the transformation painful, as the video suggests, but it also results in carnage that most PCs and players would rather not want.
Furthermore, once the change takes place, there is a temptation for the DM to dictate precisely what the now-NPC were does, but I find it far more entertaining to let the player roll a die on this d30 table from Telecanter, What You Did While You Were a Werewolf (as an aside, all of Telecanter's things are worth a look). Granted, different weres should have their own tables (the werebear one will have something to do with giant bees and honey, or a mead brewery), but the inspiration and overlap begins here.
If I were a better blogger, I would add a table or pdf covering one or more of the other weres, in Telecanter's style.
Unlike vampires, lycanthropic changes can be gradual in nature, and these changes leave the PC in the player's control. The movie Wolf does this in fine fashion, regarding enhanced senses.
Speaking of movies, the 1981 American Werewolf in London is worth watching, if only for how it treats lycanthropy. Seeing the ghosts of everyone he has slain in wolf form is just icing on the cake and the fodder for a one-on-one game, perhaps. Dog Soldiers is another great werewolf film. These are the films that inspire my thinking.
So let the PCs get infected with lycanthropy, then make them fear the full moon, if only because other adventurers will hunt them down with fire, silver, and magic.
Skara Brae and its Megadungeon
Both vampirism and lycanthropy can spawn lots of in-game objectives and role-playing - putting down the friend-turned-monster or finding a cure, and temporarily binding the were-PC until the cure is effected can take several sessions, between research, acquisition of needs, and putting the needs to practice. A simple Remove Curse is unlikely to cut it.
Should the PCs feel they are too low-level to tackle a vampire or werewolf alone, perhaps due to vampiric level drain, the looming threat may span multiple sessions and result in all sorts of changes to Skara Brae itself. If word gets out that the PCs are the cause and source of the current troubles, well, things will get interesting, indeed.
I already intend for wererats to lair on the second and third levels, wereboar (loose) allies to the orcs throughout, and werewolves lurking as humans or wolf-people here and there. I see weretigers (and devil swine) as being more interested in Skara Brae itself, although the wererats can be found in the city as well. I'm unsure about the potentially friendly werebears, perhaps on the outskirts of town or in a cave near the surface, no doubt with giant bees nearby.
Vampires will initially be bound and sealed away, but PCs being PCs, the vampires will be freed one by one. They'll be freed because there is something about a sealed sarcophagus covered in warnings, yet radiating magic, that cries out to PCs to open. Perhaps as a thank you, the vampire will only kill one or two of its rescuers before fleeing to Skara Brae proper.
How do my readers treat these magical maladies?
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