So, as promised in my “Race Abilities” post, here's a post on shapeshifting races. This is probably one of the more intriguing areas of fantasy writing and definitely has a lot of untapped potential for some really awesome story ideas.

I'll be honest and admit right up front that a lot of my thoughts on this are the results of reading one Limyaael's rants on shapeshifting societies. However, her rants are very abrasive and the language is usually eesh and this post in particular is reflective of her atheistic/agnostic worldview. So, hopefully this post will be a little more Christian-friendly. But admittedly some of these ideas are hers and I'll try to point them out when I can remember them, and be aware that without her I probably would never have started thinking about this subject.

So without further ado, here we go:

I guess the main issue is really one I brought up in the Race Abilities thread, and that is that shapeshifting is often portrayed as simply a cool trick that makes a character awesome and helps them overcome difficulties. Like many abilities, it has the dangerous potential to become deus ex machina very easily. But more than anything, I want to draw attention to how the race-wide ability to assume animal form would affect the culture and life-style of your races.

One interesting point that I noticed about Limyaael's rant on this matter is that she only really dealt with races/societies in which everyone had the same animal form, but the tendency I've seen on HW is a race of shapeshifters with a variety of animal forms. So based on that, I'll try to address this post to both scenarios. This means that this too will probably be a monstrously long post, but I've never let that stop me before and I'm not about to now.

So, to start with, some basic questions that will be helpful to consider in either case:

Is Shapeshifting a race-wide ability, one common to only a certain portion of the race, or an ability that just manifests in some individuals of the race? Limyaael's rant is dealing specifically with societies in which everyone can shapeshift, but I think there are some interesting possibilities to play with here. For instance, what if only one gender could shapeshift? The frequency of the shapeshifting ability in the race will have strong implications for that race's culture and the backstory of any characters from that race.

Is shapeshifting a voluntary ability? I think most people's natural inclination is to answer this question with an immediate, “yes!” After all, what's more awesome than a hero who can take on wolf form at will to chase down the villain or assume hawk form to bypass enemy armies? But you look back at the original form of werewolves, they could only change on the full moon, not whenever they felt like it (sorry, Twilight ). One way to reduce the danger of deus ex machina is to limit the voluntary control the members of your race have over their shapeshifting abilities. Maybe make it so that they can only shapeshift at certain times. Or maybe make it so that they can only shapeshift a certain number of times within a month. Or maybe make it that they can only stay in their animal form for a certain period of time. Or for those with various forms, make them able to only assume certain forms at certain times. In the book series Animorphs the characters could only remain in animal form for two hours at a time or they would lose all ability to change back. Maybe your race has to transform at a certain time of the month/year or lose the ability. There are lots of ways you can play with this, and I think listing all the possibilities would probably be a book in and of itself. But be creative in considering just how much control your race will have over their shapeshifting abilities.
To further illustrate, I'll use my Fantasian race the Kelpies as an example.

The Kelpies are a river-dwelling race that shapeshift into horses. The background of that ability is a long and complicated story that I won't go into here, but let's say it's largely connected from them being descended from a humanoid woman and a equine water elemental. The Kelpies for the most part have control over which form they take, with a few quirks in there to keep things interesting. Children have to learn control of their forms, it doesn't come naturally. Puberty and the rapid biological changes in their humanoid bodies can affect their control of their forms. There is an annual period that lasts either one month or three (still working that part out), in which they assume horse form. No choice. And the last quirk, and my favorite, because of their water-elemental ancestry, the further from rivers they go, the less control they have over their forms. The traditional distance that a Kelpie is said to be able to travel from a river safely is four days away. The farther they go, the less control they have. They might either become stuck in one form or find themselves helplessly shifting back and forth without warning. There are some, that train themselves to maintain control of their forms at greater distances from water, similar to the way that an athlete trains his body to compete in a certain sport. But as you can see, shapeshifting is more than just an ace up a Kelpie's sleeve, it's something they have to cope with.

Does the shapeshifting ability differ between the genders? I already mentioned above the idea of only one gender being able to shape shift. But what if one gender can shapeshift into one form and the other can shapeshift into a different form? Or what if one gender can shapeshift into only one form and the other gender can assume multiple forms? One idea that I played with once upon a time was that the males of a shapeshifting race were born as humanoids that assumed animal form, while the females of that race were born as animals that could assume human form. At least that's the basic idea as I remember it, I think it got a little more complicated than that over time. *can't remember* There are tons of other ways you could mix it up between genders. Maybe one gender has better control over the ability than the other. Or maybe one gender can shapeshift whenever they like, and the other only at certain times. Or maybe men can only shapeshift at one time, and women at a different time. Or men can assume some forms at certain times and women can assume certain forms at certain times. Lots of possibilities to play with here

Does your shapeshifting race have any other special/magical abilities? This is another area in which you want to be careful of making your race too-conveniently omnipotent. Shapeshifting in and of itself can be a tremendously advantageous ability (though I've also shown how it can have downsides). Giving your race a bunch of other stunning powers might tax your readers' suspension of disbelief. A race that can both shapeshift at will and shoot lightning out of their hands seems a little too powerful to me. Unless you're making them the villains, in which case that would be quite a formidable foe. I think a balance can be found if you establish sufficient limits for all of the race's abilities. For instance if all the members of a race can assume mole form at certain times and only some special few of that race are gifted with the ability to cause earth tremors, it's a lot more acceptable than if every member of the race could assume mole-form at will and cause earth tremors at will. At least to me it is. *shrugs* And don't worry, there's a whole separate post about limiting special abilities that I plan on writing in the near future (this summer is kinda supposed to be my chance to write all the posts that I've been wanting to write for months but haven't gotten around to ).

What effect does age have on your race's shapeshifting powers? Is it an ability that they have from birth? Is it an ability that they grow into? Is it something that only comes with adulthood or *cringes* puberty? Or what if maybe children can assume multiple forms, but upon reaching adulthood can only assume one form? Or maybe the race can shapeshift as children but when they reach adulthood they have to choose a permanent form. Or maybe they can take on one form as children and more forms/a different form as adults. Or how about they can only change into hybrid forms (half-humanoid half-animal) as children, but as adults can make the full change? Or the reverse of that? Or what if they lose control over their forms with old age? Or if they lose the ability with old age? Or if the ability improves with age? I could probably go on, but this reaching the top of page three of the document I'm typing it in so I think I'll lay this question to rest.

Now for the question(s) that Limyaael really focused on in her rant.
How does the race's shapeshifting abilities affect its culture/daily life? Limyaael was all for mingling human culture and animal culture since shapeshifters have both forms. For instance, how would possessing a wolf form influence the government? Would it be a hierarchical pack-like system? What kinds of rules/etiquette would govern what one can and can't do in what form?

How does the shapeshifting ability affect your race's moral/ethical views? Here's where I differ the most from Limyaael on this subject of shapeshifter races, in fact this line of thought really bothered me for quite some time. She pretty calmly suggests the blending of human morality with animal morality. For instance, marriage is foreign to most animals so maybe a shapeshifting race wouldn't really be big on marriage or fidelity. She mentioned animals like the leopard that only come together to mate and then separate and how a race of leopard shapeshifters would behave socially. Like I said, this thought did some damage to my spiritual life for awhile, which is why I'm not linking anyone to the original article (don't want to be a stumbling block). But I came out of it realizing that most of those kind of thoughts came from her agnostic worldview which says that right/wrong is all subjective. For Christian writers, I would say be creative and careful about how you let the animal part of the shapeshifter race's life influence its culture. Of course we are dealing with fallen races, so it could be that in their fallen sense of morality they adapted some immoral practices from the animal world. I mean, humans in our worlds are big on promiscuity without ever having lived in animal form, so it's not hard to imagine that the animal perspective could cause some additional ethical/moral hurdles.

How does the ability affect structures?This is another point that Limyaael brought up. She used the example of a hypothetical race of were-horses. They probably wouldn't prefer stables, sleeping out in the elements wouldn't work for their humanoid forms, and their horse forms would have issues with the confines of normal human structures. So, in light of the fact that members of your race spend part of their lives as animals, how does that affect the structure of their homes?

Similarly, how does shapeshifting abilities affect your race's clothing trends? This is one I thought up on my own, and it's one worth considering. Unless your race's ability is one of those magical shapeshifting abilities that transforms clothing as well as the people themselves, you have to think about what happens to clothing when they shapeshift. Animorphs did a decent job of handling this by saying that regular clothes were unaffected by the change, but skin-tight clothing would change with the people so that they didn't have to worry about changing back to their human form without clothing. Thanks to movies like Twilight: New Moon, a number of tv shows have started focusing a little more on how clothes go bye-bye for werewolves (resulting in a lot of scenes where the werewolf teens/young adults feel like they have the freedom to parade in front of a camera without a shirt ) But it is something to consider. If they can't shift their clothes as well, then how do they handle the clothing situation. *hopes he didn't cross the line on this point* Would you be able to recognize shapeshifters by looking for animals dragging human clothes around? Haven't delved too much into this area myself, so I'll leave the work to you and your imaginations to figure it out for yourselves.

Another Limyaael question: How do they get their food? Do they hunt and eat in animal form? Do they grow their food/raise herds in their humanoid form? Do they hunt in their animal form and cook & eat in their humanoid form? Do they use a combination of agriculture and shapeshifting hunting? Here's one thought that I've always pondered: If a shapeshifter eats something in animal form that would not be good for their humanoid form and shifts back before it's totally digested, would they get sick? The inverse works the same way. I've heard quite often that chocolate is nearly fatal for canines. If a shapeshifter pigged out on the candy bars and then shapeshifted to their dog form, would they be in trouble? Thoughts to play with. I'll use my Kelpies as an example again. I tweaked their biology to such that their diet in humanoid form consists of the same types of grasses and plants that horses eat, though they also eat fish. In horse form, fish leaves the diet. And the grasses and such are not grazed in human form but rather cooked and prepared like normal produce would be. It could be that the shapeshifters raise herds/crops of the main foods that their animal forms live on. If your race transforms into an animal commonly used by humanoids for food, would they be vegetarian because they know what it's like to be hunted? *thinks that the vegetarian shape-shifter card has been played a little too often in fiction*

Are the shapeshifters the only occurrence of the animal form that they take on? So if you have a race that take on squirrel form, but your world have no squirrels, would the name “squirrel” refer to a person that takes on the form of a tree-climbing rodent with a bushy tail? Something to think about.

How do normal animals react to the shapeshifters? This is another point borrowed from Limyaael. Would the regular animals be able to tell a shapeshifter from a real animal? This especially applies in cases where the shapeshifters are not the only occurrence of that animal. Would the rest of the animals be able to tell a normal deer from a shapeshifter in deer form?

How do non-shapeshifting races view your race's shapeshifting abilities? Very similar to the question raised in the Race Abilities thread. Do they fear the shapeshifters? Disdain them? Despise them? Persecute them? Admire them? Ignore them? How do your shapeshifters get along with the other peoples in your world.

Now some questions for shapeshifting races with multiple forms:

Does the multiplicity of forms mean a person can shapeshift into multiple forms or that there are a variety of forms that members of that race can turn into?

How great is the variety of forms? Are there only a few forms common to the group or are there a vast number of possible forms in the group? You can have fun with this so that there are tribes of the same race based on what form they shapeshift into.

If each member of the race with shapeshifting abilities can assume multiple forms, where do these forms come from? Are they just something hardwired into the person's system? Do they just pick whatever form they want at the moment and turn into it? Do they acquire them in some way? In Animorphs the characters had to touch an animal to acquire its DNA in order to morph into it. Would be interesting to put a similar limit on your fantasy shapeshifters.

I could probably think of a lot more if I put my mind to it, but this post is four pages long (single spaced) already, which means it's going to be a massive post! I truly hope this is helpful to someone out there. I might come back and add more later; but for now: have fun, be creative, and be blessed!

In Christ,
Jordan

Thanks for taking the time to write all that out, Seer! It was very helpful.

For my Shapeshifters, it's a race-wide thing. The only thing that differs between each person is what they can shift into (one form for each person). The different forms are somewhat connected to genes, but not entirely. I have twins who can shift into the same thing, but another set of siblings are totally different.

Anyway, shifting is voluntary. However, some of my shifters (for complicated reasons) can only stay in their animal form for a few hours. After that, they have to wait 24 hours to shift again.

How age effects them depends on what they can shift into. Dragons, for example, get stronger with age, but a shifter who could become a 'normal' animal would get weaker. (As a side note, the 'normal' animals, like eagles, horses, wolves, etc. do exist outside of Shapeshifters. The magical animals don't. )

As for magical abilities... they can use magic. Each of them can control one element that is connected to their other form. My magic does have limitations, though, so they aren't all-powerful or anything.

I haven't really worked out their culture, so I have no idea when it comes to clothes, structures, and food. Since they can stay human for as long as they want, I'm thinking all those things will be the same as humans... except maybe clothes. I haven't worked out that problem yet.

I love shapeshifters, so this was a very interesting post. My shapeshifters don't have a culture, but the house and clothing aspect are both things I should probably think about. Well, I have thought about the clothes, and I think I have a solution for why they don't lose their clothes when they shift, but whenever I try to explain it, I can't seem to get the words to work right.

Anyway, thanks for the great post!

I have always been peeved at shape shifters because people always seem to be a gimmick and it always comes off as un-organic.
And also when shapeshifters turns into whatever and then turns back to human. Why must they always be a human that turns; wouldn't it make more sense for them to be neither?
Also when shapeshifter turn into several different things. That always make me wonder if they couldn't decide which thing they wanted it to change into, so just went with everything.

(Sorry about the long rant, Shapeshifters are one of my pet peeves. (This coming from a guy with shapeshifting were-wolves in his book. )

Thanks, Joe! You reminded me of another question I was going to ask but forgot:

What is your race's natural form? I mentioned earlier that I have one race where the males are humanoids that shift and the females are animals that shift into humanoids. What about a race of sentient creatures that can shapeshift? Just another thought to play with.

This may be a bit late to add on, but I have thought a great deal about many of the questions Seer posed. I have a great dislike of anything gimmicky or all-powerful, so I have tried very hard to stay away from that in my own stories. The foundation for my method of dealing is that the entire world is made of 'shape-shifting' creatures. Each person in the world has one creature form and one 'human' form. But they aren't humans or creatures per se. (so no one 'true' form. Both of their forms are as much them as the other) And because everyone can do it, it suddenly becomes a lot less gimmicky (What's the point of altering into your hawk form and flying over the enemy when there's probably hundreds of other alterers with winged forms as well?). And since altering is as common as say, sneezing, it really isn't used as that much of "Wow" factor. It's second nature to the characters, both bad and good.

For the clothes problem, I decided that anything the alterer is wearing and/or carrying as a human gets pulled into their creature form. This gives room for the interesting habit of tailoring weapons and clothing to their creature form, for ease of altering. So a fringed shirt might make it easier to morph one's arm into a wing.
And as an architectural student, structures plays a huge role in my stories. Each city/town is specifically suited to the surrounding landscape and the types of alterers who make their home there.
Because the alterers make up the entire population of my world, animals as such are few and far between, consisting mostly of fish and insects (and maybe hoofed herd animals such as cows and deer... haven't decided that yet.)
As far as interbreeding goes, anyone can marry anyone, but the child will have the creature form of one parent, and the color/markings of the other. (So... tiger-striped hawks!!)
For magic... I don't have any per se, but fire manipulators and sonic screams and howls have somehow crept into the story... so I'm going to have to go back and make sure I lay the groundwork for how such gifts work, who has them, etc. Or just delete them
Well, I think I've covered all the main points Hope my answers to Seer's questions help others out as they weave their way through the wonderful maze that is writing.

Wow! I like what you've described thus far, Farjag.Sorry for the delayed response, but I've been away from the internet for over a month and am still catching up on HW. Very creative

I haven't determined the age bit so much but my shifters (considering the age of my world) tend toward living in a culture more like their animal half (i.e. Otter people are active or sleeping and tend to live alone or in pairs, wolves have pack like tribes, eagles like to live high up). I don't really go for the special powers thing so much... Because they're races with dominion (like man) animals either fear, or are subservient to them.

I played the clothing card along the lines of the myths of Selkies (which I have). Only instead of shedding their pelts to become human, the skin becomes their clothing. Hawks have feathered robes, sharks wear sleek and rough clothes and alligators wear a hard leather. I may have that play into their ability to change but I don't know yet.

I can't think of which other aspects I've played with but I also managed to stuff traditional were-wolves in there. That was a neat twist.

Sounds cool, Riniel. I'd look forward to hearing more

Thanks Seer! And I like the realism you're putting in, Riniel, your clothes and habits, I think I've been following pretty nearly along those lines as well. But I like how you keep normal animals, that's an interesting idea I hadn't really thought hard about.

Love all that you guys have posted.
Only a select few people in my book get the ability to shapeshift.

Wow, that's awesome. Very analytical and detailed--exactly the mode of thinking I'm gonna have to force my brain into if I ever want to excel at this Fantasy thing.
I don't have any shape-shifters in my current novel, but reading this makes me want to throw a few in... or just write a new novel with a whole bunch of 'em.

Hmmm... A shape-shifting chiropractor that can become a sea sponge on the first Thursday of every month... Mebbe there's some potential there.

*Saves this to read again later*

I have a race who hatch as dragons, but are able to take humaniod form when they are ten days old. They don't have babies, but the hatchlings learn and develop within their eggs for one to two years. When they hatch they look and act between 10 and 15 years old. *Needs to figure this out.*

I'm not really sure how the culture will be just yet. The whole planet is one race, consisting of different colored dragons. I may make their certain "magic like" abilties specific to each tribe.

~ZA

Currently, my shapeshifting races gain the ability on their coming of age. My shifting races need a token of their animal in order to shift. Similar to American Indian comings of age, where certain tribes expected their young men to return with an eagle feather, the young adults are sent out to gain their token. Perhaps it is a feather, a bit of fur, or even a tooth. Whether or not killing the animal is allowed or necessary varies culture to culture. The individual token may play a part in the shifters appearance when in animal form, but they do not always need that specific token, though it is very important to them. Some pass their tokens down to others when they die, often trading with the younger so they still retain the ability to shift in the afterlife, but with a more youthful symbolism since they are starting fresh again.

I like the idea of one gender shifting into one thing and the other shifting into a lot of things...that explains Jo. *will ponder that*

I've been working on a shapeshifting people called the Fiolat that basically just have the ability to change their bodies however they would like, but only at a fairly low level. If you want to grow another finger, you have to will the specific necessary bone structures, tendons, flesh, etc. to grow. If you want to turn yourself into a bird, you need to know how a bird's body works so you can shift yourself into the right sort of bones, internal organs, feathers, etc. If you get it wrong, and the body you've shifted into doesn't work somehow, you could easily die. Also, there's no easy way to revert yourself to your human form. Once you've shifted, you can't just snap back. You need to shift again into a human form, and if you can't remember exactly how you used to look, you won't be able to use the same human form. Also, shifting in and out of human forms tends to make Fiolat infertile, among other issues. I have one character who tried to shift his leg as a child, but wasn't able to properly. He then tried to shift it back, but he wasn't able to do that, either, and so the leg was left crippled. If he can ever figure out how to shift it back, he could have a proper leg again, but he's really bad at large-scale shapeshifting so I doubt he'll learn.

This people, then, need to study animals they want to shift into carefully. They also need to teach their children safety rules for shifting so they don't accidentally kill themselves or render themselves infertile through careless shifting. Only older, well-studied Fiolat would be able to easily take on a variety of forms.

Since it's quite easy for Fiolat to make small adjustments to their bodies - say, change eye color, or smooth out wrinkles, or grow fur in order to stay warm - they would likely look different from normal humans and have many odd cultural practices related to their abilities. They would also be able to literally adapt to different environments - in a cold place, as I mentioned, they could grow fur; in a hot place, they could learn cooling techniques by studying the local animals and then figure out how to shift their own bodies to use them. Also, some kinds of injuries could be healed by shifting - if you get a bad cut, for instance, you could just shift yourself to grow skin over it or do other things to help it heal. A really skillful shifter might be able to heal all sorts of internal dysfunctions. As a result, Fiolat would likely live longer than humans.

Anyways, I thought it was an interesting idea, and I've enjoyed imagining how Fiolat society would function.

I wonder that the can shift at all. One would have to be an expert in anatomy and physiology. Do they have to get the appearance, or also the function? Do they have to know about the individual cells and hormones?

Can they do plants and rocks then?

It depends. If you just wanted to look like a certain animal, you could just shift your outer parts so they looked like that animal. If you wanted to behave like that animal (e.g. fly, run really fast, etc) then you'd need to shift inner body structures.


I think (I'm not sure though, I'm still figuring it out) this depends on how alien the structure is to the human body. So a mammal that functions relatively similarly to a human being would not be too tricky to shift into; you could think pretty high-level. But if you wanted to shift into an insect, you'd need to be more specific because your body doesn't naturally know how to produce those sorts of structures. Maybe some Fiolat are also more naturally suited to some types of animals than others...


I'm toying with the idea that they can shift into any sort of life. So plants, but not rocks. I like this idea because it would have all sorts of odd effects on society. Is your family hungry? Have your husband shift into a tree with fruit growing on it and harvest the fruit!

It's Biblical,too

........Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine......and your children like olive shoots around the table......

Bobby! Stop rooting into the cushions, and eat your brussel sprouts!

Stahp. You guys are killing me!


I like how the Fiolat can't just shift into whatever on a whim; they have to put some thought and study into it or else suffer the major (and perhaps rather odd-looking consequences). That's really cool and encourages responsible behavior. I'm fascinated to see what you do with these.