Shapeshifting

Shapeshifting is the act of changing your body’s form. Shapeshifting power is common in the Courts of Chaos. There is a Shifters Guild for those in Chaos who want to improve their skills. The best known shapeshifter is Rainbow, the head of the Dancer’s Guild of Chaos.

There are two paths to advanced shapeshifting. Chaos-side, and Order-side. Chaos-side is an inhereted trait (originally a survival trait at some point for some of the Old Lords) but it can be latent or skip generations. Order-side can be a studied trait, but might need to be inherited, there has not been much research into this, as to yet.

Chaos-based Shapeshifting

Basic shapeshifting is your body’s automatic system trying to provide you with a form that will survive in your current condition. This pretty much happens without thought on your part, and while might not be the most elegant solution in any given circumstance, usually just keeps adjusting until it finds a form that works. Good stuff helps in this case, in the shifts being quick, unobtrusive, and more correct (needing less adjustments) bad stuff, well, gives you the opposite, cycling through possible solutions, and settling on not-necessarily the best form for the needs of the moment, or oscillating between two necessary, but contradictory solutions.

This is really useful since the environment of the Courts of Chaos is not necessarily consistent one step to the next, and a number of the “ways” or normal short-cuts go through places that shapeshifting is just such a natural solution, that most chaosians treat it like wind-blown hair. Occasionally it is noticeable, but normally not even worth a comment, and yet, there are some folks really hung up on how their hair looks. It’s as automatic as your heart beating, and just as unconsciously controlled. If someone knocks you out, you don’t devolve to your base form that might drown or suffocate without water over your gills or anything. If you are moved, your body’s autonomic shapeshifting process (under all but the most extraordinary circumstances) will shift to cope with your new circumstance.

It means you can’t decide “I need to be a wolf” and become a wolf, but, if you happen to be in a circumstance that running fast on four legs, while covered in fur, is what is appropriate to the circumstance, you might end up wolf like, or cheetah like. Good stuff might cause the form to match others in that environment better, and bad stuff might make you a jackal amongst the lionesses.

There is always a base form (for some odd and unknown reason, most people’s base form is chandroid in nature), that, should the circumstance preclude the ability to shapeshift will resumed. Also, most revert to that base form upon death.

Order-based Shapeshifting

Basic shapeshifting starts by learned how to change basic things (like making your fingers longer, and then back again, while maintaining functionality) then learning specific shapes, and how each of them is supposed to work, and how to transition between them. Sometimes the learning can be painful, and, there have been a number of times that fucntionality understanding can be enhanced via medical studies, scientific understanding of physics, biology, and chemistry. The more detail learning that exists, the more successfull the shapeshifting can be.

One usually progresses by learning how a new form works, and safe steps, to go backwards and forwards between those working forms. The transition stages are often unstable, and unbalanced, but sometimes, they are steps in the path toward a final form (See also White Wolf, shape-shifting between their various forms.)

Advanced Shapeshifting

Advanced shapeshifting is the convergent point of both paths. It is a Chaos-side learning to take control of an autonomic system, or a Order-side learning to shift more fluidly with the circumstance, trusting in their knowledge and body to be able to cope.

It also can get you into more trouble, for one can take on a shape too completely, such that the you is lost, or take on a shape with no ability to shapeshift (or a talent for shapeshifting that just hasn’t bloomed yet) so the ability to shapeshift back out is lost.