AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

How do other people's Shifter characters work? How do their powers come to manifest themselves, what are their inner mindsets in relation to these etc.

Personally, I love the idea of a purely constructed identity; my own character, Tarich, in no way resembles the man he once was, and has no qualms with, at a moment's notice, essentially becoming someone else entirely. His powers, though of course supernatural, I treat as being pseudo-scientific in that they involve the use of an intimate, unconscious understanding of biology to physically rearrange matter.

As far as I know, there's no real canon as to what exactly a Shifter is (the original sourcebook is really bad), so I'm curious as to how others approach this.

I had a schizophrenic shifter who thought they were a bear once.

Ah the cloth examiner! You make me laugh fair play!

Maybe a shifter retains basic thoughts and intentions and perhaps rely on instinct and intelligence of what you become maybe?

Just wanted to post because of your famous lines.

Kampos Trading Post

"Cloth please"

"What?" Says an Elven female.

"Please give me your cloth so I can examine it"

"Its the only thing I have on..."

One of my own shifters took a somewhat different philosophy. My understanding of it was something similar to a monk, perhaps. Rather opposite to Tarich's approach, mine was that the shifter was one identity. All he was, was Will. While typical beings associate themselves with their physique, their mentality, their emotions, the shifter identifies himself only by his will. Thus, in every form, no matter how wildly different it physically is, he is the same. My understanding was that this concept of being permitted the shifter to take numerous forms at will, because he didn't identify himself by his form.

Its not just some, "Hey, I'm not -really- an undead, I just look like one" thing. Its more like the shifter views himself as a body-less entity, or at the very least, a morphic one.

That's not to say that my character couldn't change in time. Or that different forms wouldn't have a different effect on his psyche.

That's my interpretation of it-- But I'd say its mostly up for flavor.

Hector Zaeron sought to use his shifting to ascend from the human condition. But he didn't just want to become an animal, or a monster - although he often did, assuming forms and emulating the creature in their natural environment. The lone wolf, a patient tracker and cautious hunter. The dragon, an apex predator which dominates a vast territory with type-specific adaptations to the climate. But it was all for something more than that. Hector is a druidic follower of Malar. He believed in a form of balance exemplified by the eternal hunt - a "circle of life" sort of thing. This concept grew to consume him - or maybe he grew to want to consume it. So he advanced and refined his shapeshifting for the sole purpose of becoming The Hunt. No longer a man, or a beast, or a man who could become a beast, but a formless, abstract piece of a greater concept.

BhaalsFavoured07 wrote:

Ah the cloth examiner! You make me laugh fair play!

Just performing a valuable public service.

Mr. Hackums wrote:

One of my own shifters took a somewhat different philosophy. My understanding of it was something similar to a monk, perhaps. Rather opposite to Tarich's approach, mine was that the shifter was one identity. All he was, was Will. While typical beings associate themselves with their physique, their mentality, their emotions, the shifter identifies himself only by his will. Thus, in every form, no matter how wildly different it physically is, he is the same. My understanding was that this concept of being permitted the shifter to take numerous forms at will, because he didn't identify himself by his form.

Its not just some, "Hey, I'm not -really- an undead, I just look like one" thing. Its more like the shifter views himself as a body-less entity, or at the very least, a morphic one.

That's not to say that my character couldn't change in time. Or that different forms wouldn't have a different effect on his psyche.

That's my interpretation of it-- But I'd say its mostly up for flavor.

That's pretty much how they are described in the source material. A shifter's sense of self is so strong their identity doesn't at all depend on their form. They change physical shapes like other people change clothes. They have one singular mind detached from their physical shape so much that they can slip through shapes easily without getting any attached hangups, though they may have favored shapes like others have favorite outfits.

Mine was convinced he was an andalite sent to save earth. But he died, but really lived on in the spirit of tobias, who was once a boy and now was a red tailed hawk, who actually got the ability to shift back and used the powers to save the world from Yerks....

How I balance the Scholar is rather difficult to explain so I will explain it like this:

Everyone has their own opinion of the Scholar: some positive, most negative. However, every opinion of the Scholar is different: no two are the same. To me that says that nobody is really sure who the Scholar is or what the Scholar's true intentions are.

In essence, he is the Alpharius of shifters.

But is he self-consciously enigmatic?

Personally, I'd say no. He just aspires to goals which those around him do not know or understand.

Last edited by Eizendur on Fri, Dec 20 2013, 20:36 PM, edited 1 time in total.

serbiris wrote:

Hector Zaeron sought to use his shifting to ascend from the human condition. But he didn't just want to become an animal, or a monster - although he often did, assuming forms and emulating the creature in their natural environment. The lone wolf, a patient tracker and cautious hunter. The dragon, an apex predator which dominates a vast territory with type-specific adaptations to the climate. But it was all for something more than that. Hector is a druidic follower of Malar. He believed in a form of balance exemplified by the eternal hunt - a "circle of life" sort of thing. This concept grew to consume him - or maybe he grew to want to consume it. So he advanced and refined his shapeshifting for the sole purpose of becoming The Hunt. No longer a man, or a beast, or a man who could become a beast, but a formless, abstract piece of a greater concept.

How's that work out? Malar's dogma clearly states to kill all druids.

Faithes and avatars wrote:

Dogma: Survival of the fittest and winnowing of the weak are Malar's legacy. A brutal, bloody death has great meaning: "May you die an old man" is an insult among Malarites. The hunt is the fulcrum of life and death, and the focus point of life is the challenge between the hunter and the prey, the judgment of who may live or die. Malarites are expected to view every important task as a hunt and to remain ever alert and alive. They must walk the wilderness without trepidation, as Malar does, and must show no fear in the hunt. By being bold, they expect to win the day.

Malarite novices are charged as follows: "Savagery and strong emotions defeat reason and careful thought in all things. The strong must slay as frequently as possible and exult in the doing if they are to survive and achieve dominance of the pack that society truly is under the polite veneer it maintains. Taste the blood of those you slay and never kill from a distance. The glory and danger in the hunt should be told to all in grand tales. Work against woodcutters, farmers, and all fools who seek to cut back the forest and slay beasts because they are dangerous. Suffer no druid to live, for they believe not in survival of the strong, but in a weak-minded balance that allows the inferior to survive and often to rule. Slay not pregnant wild creatures, young wild creatures, or deepspawns so that dire beasts to hunt may always be plentiful."

Malar was one of the few gods to get significantly tweaked between 2nd and 3rd Editions. Druids of Malar are entirely legit in 3rd / 3.5 Edition. Faiths & Avatars is almost always a great reference despite being from an old edition; Malar is one of the few cases where its obsolescence shows.

Ah i was wondering about that... my bad.
In my defense FR is a convoluted mess.

It totally is, and if you wanted to play a Malarite shifter 2nd-Edition style and have her hate druids and the Balance and such, it seems plausible that there might still be sects of the faith like that. That would be kind of cool, actually, if there was some big schism in the mortal Malarite hierarchy about whether to tolerate druidism. Kind of seems like there aren't enough Malarite characters currently to make that sort of ecclesiastical rivarly really take off, though.

How do you play your Shifter?

Who is online