Shifters

This weekend we are looking at shifters, humanoids that are a mix of human and lycanthrope.  While similar creatures exist in some capacities, they are more prominent in Gal Hadre they are probably actually more common than Vrak, but a huge percentage of Vrak are adventurers.  As their tie to lycanthropes is important to any discussion of shifters, there will be some discussion of lycanthropes.

What do I mean by a mix of human and lycanthrope?  Well in Gal Hadre lycanthropes come in one of two forms: infected and natural.  Infected requires you to be bitten or have your blood and a lycanthrope’s blood mix. Natural are the children of infected, but at some point the influence of the lycanthrope wanes, unless inbreeding among those who are natural lycanthropes happen.  Shifters are the point between the connection still being enough to create a full lycanthrope and it being so weak that you only get humans.  Generally several generations of shifters will occur before the lycanthrope blood is too weak to have an effect.  Perhaps because they are a weak form of natural lycanthrope, shifters are much more resistant to becoming an infected lycanthrope than humans.

 

 

 

So then what are shifters if they aren’t lycanthropes or humans?  They are humanoids that can take on some aspects of an animal.  The animal is related to their lycanthropic heritage and depending on the strength of their blood they can partially shift, gaining at least one animal aspect while shifted.  Shifters with more lycanthropic blood can shift for longer and take on more animal aspects.  Shifters, unlike natural lycanthropes, can’t stay in a shifted form indefinitely though training can increase the duration they can remain shifted potentially up to several hours a time.  Shifting and remaining shifted takes energy, so if a shifter pushes their abilities to the limit they will be exhausted when the shift ends.  Unlike infected lycanthropes, shifters are not forced to shift at certain times.  They do share weaknesses to silver and any spells developed to target lycanthropes.  Not all shifters descended from the same type of lycanthrope have the same abilities, a clan of shifters descended from werewolves would have some members that have claws, others with a bite attack, enhanced senses, strength or running ability, those with stronger connection to their lycanthropic ancestors could have any combination of these abilities.

In Gal Hadre, there are lycanthropes of any predator you can think of, werewolves are the most well known, but wererats are actually the most numerous and actively hunted.  Wererat infestations very quickly get out of control as their population can increase as much as five times each month; this means that within 6 months a single wererat in a city can turn into thousands.  Werebears, weretigers, werelions and werecrocodiles are all reasonably frequent as purebloods go.  Shifters can be descended from any type of lycanthrope, but due to how short the average wererat lifespan is, rat shifters are much rarer than their pureblood counterparts.  Wolf shifters are probably the most common type in most areas. 

 

 

 

The majority of shifters can be found on the Delosian peninsula, as the city states there are dominated by lycanthropes and their blood has spread through that land.  There they occupy much of the middle management and elite military positions, for the pureblooded are not common enough to fill any but the most senior positions and rely on the shifters to carry out their will.  In Delos there is a distinction between High Shifters, who can take on multiple aspects of an animal, and low shifters, who can only take on one aspect.  Many Delosian shifters are warriors trained from a young age as guards and to break formations of soldiers, they are among the shifters most trained in their abilities and can sustain them for extended periods of time during battle.  They can effortlessly flow from using weapons to their innate abilities in battle.

For some reason, likely linked to their blood, dragon magic seems to come naturally more frequently to shifters than any other sentient group other than Vrak.  Shifter mages tend to be more open about their heritage than other shifters, it gives them an intimidation factor that gives them an edge against rivals.  Many people who have knowingly encountered a shifter have only ever met shifter mages, thus some stories claim that all shifters are mages, tales that shifters rarely take efforts to dispel as most people will think twice before messing with a mage.  Shifter mages frequently specialize in battle magics and find service with kings and other nobles.  A radical group of path of the manifest beast mages use their magic to work with their innate abilities, claiming that they are seeking to become a new, enhanced version of their kind.

 

 

Off the Delosian peninsula, most major cities have small groups of shifters who often go to great lengths to disappear amongst the human masses and generally do so with great success.  Other shifters can be found in the most remote and isolated villages and hamlets, usually with one or two purebloods  In those villages, everyone is usually a shifter.  Shifters that leave their homes often find work as mercenaries or guards, using their shifter abilities to catch opponents off-guard at critical moments in a fight.

Shifters generally don’t face significant prosecution, if only because much of the population believes them to only be a myth, or maybe are a weird human-offshoot that only exists in Delos.  Despite that, they often don’t advertise their heritage, in many cases because they are worried about being mistaken for Delosian, who don’t always have the greatest reputation.  Sometimes though, shifters get caught up in the hunt for a lycanthrope, and then the purging can become extensive.

What do you find most interesting about shifters?  Would you want to see a blog post specifically about lycanthropes in all their many forms?  What other Gal Hadre topics do you want to see covered in the near future?