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Nov 20, 2009, 10:16pm

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Topic: About Shifters (Read 584 times)

Eclipse
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About Shifters
« Thread Started on May 26, 2006, 11:40pm »

Shifters are, to all appearances, human or animal, depending on what shape they choose to take. Some shifters take on some of the characteristics of the animal they can turn into. Some may have the same hair/fur color(if it's a normal human hair color for someone their age) or similar body structure(big-boned if a bear-shifter, thin and small if a cheetah-shifter, etc). These attributes will not be unhuman. No shifter in human form has animal ears/tail/claws/feathers/etc.

Some shifters may prefer one form to another, but nowadays many (if not most) are forced to keep one form, or to only change when told to. Regardless, all but a very small minority are kept strictly controlled in one way or another. Since there are no laws against cruel or inhumane treatment of shifters, so the way that owned shifters are treated varies greatly. Some are kept chained - either literally or figuratively - while others are allowed relative freedom so long as they behave well and obey. A very few have some rights, and some go to school or have a job (always low-paying or minimum-wage). Those shifters who don't have paid jobs serve their owners in other ways, from manual labor to acting as an ordinary pet. Most owners, however strict, do allow their shifters to go into the city. Whether this means with them or alone depends on the house, but since there is security around and the shifters can easily be apprehended if they try to run away, almost all owners are secure with the idea of letting their shifter go out alone for a while.

Physical:

A shifter's change lasts, in general, from six to ten seconds. They can try to rush it, but that hurts considerably (ordinarily, the only sensation is a strong tingling all over the body, like when one's foot falls asleep). They can also slow it down if they wish, but they cannot stop the transformation in the middle. To do that or to slow it down too much could mean death or serious injury (usually internal). While a shifter is in the process of changing forms, they cannot fight or otherwise move around. The change in musculature and the nervous system prevent that much coordination. They are not completely helpless, but activity involving much dexterity is impossible.

Clothing does not change with the shifter. Depending on the size of the animal form, it may rip or merely fall off when the change occurs. A shifter may not be forced to change forms. Extreme anger may make a shifter change their form, but preventing that change is no more difficult than holding back from hitting someone.

A shifter is not a human with an extra animal form, or an animal with an extra human form. They are both human and animal, but with the intelligence of a human and some of the instincts of an animal in either form. They are closer mentally to human than animal, but physically they are directly between the two. There are some deviants from this. Some shifters are almost entirely human (usually those whose ancestors had forgotten their bloodline), and others are almost entirely animal. The latter are rare, but there are incidences of humans found living among animals. These people raised among animals can rarely speak, and while some may be taught to live in human society, they are always run more by instinct than by human logical thought.

While shifters may be of any animal species, they do not need to find mates of the same species. A horse and cat shifter can have children just as easily as two otter-shifters could (just not in animal form). The child is always born in human form, and their animal form is often (but not always) the same as one of their parents. A shifter can also have children with a human or animal of their own type, however, the offspring are very, very rarely shifters as well. When a shifter mates with a human, the resulting children are shifters in about 1 in 10 cases. When a shifter breeds with an animal, the result is a shifter in only about one in every 20,000 cases. Occasionally, two humans may have a shifter child, but this is much rarer, and the child is a shifter in only about one in every million cases, and they rarely learn about their ability.

A shifter's animal form grows at the same rate as their human form. For example, if a horse shifter were seven years old, their horse form would still be a young horse, not an adult.

The Senses:

Shifters in animal form, just as their physical abilities, have the same senses as any normal animal of their type. In human form, many have ordinary human senses. There are a sizeable number, however, whose senses tend to mimic those of their animal form in some small way.

None have hearing as good as a dog's, or an incredible sense of smell, or echolocation. However, some shifters in human form do have slightly heightened or dulled senses. These senses are never beyond human ability though. If an animal has a bad sense (such as some bats' bad vision) it may carry over a little into the human form, but again, usually not much. Some shifters, like humans, have naturally bad senses (such as nearsightedness or deafness).

Some shifters also have an ability to sense whether someone they see is a shifter as well. There is no scent or visual signal, but sometimes a shifter can just recognize another shifter when they see them (they do not automatically know when a shifter is nearby if they can't actually see them, even in animal form). Humans never have this sense.

« Last Edit: Mar 2, 2007, 8:13pm by Eclipse »

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