These once-humans are forever tied to the phases of the moon. They will feel the pull of it leading up to the full moon, the time when they are at their strongest, and seem almost exhausted or muted during the new moon.

Shifters are stronger and faster than humans, and they have heightened senses to match their animal forms.

Shifters eat proportionally to their animal forms. For example, a werefox will not eat as much as a human, while a werewolf will need a great deal of food.

All shifters are vulnerable to silver and aconite. They are highly durable against all other kinds of damage, including magical damage and poison.

As a result of the energy needed for the transformation and handling their magic, shifters naturally have a higher body temperature than humans.

When wounded, they can heal more quickly than humans, and when they’re injured badly enough to lose a limb, the limbs can grow back completely, but the process is slow and painful.

As powerful as they are, shifters have not surpassed humans in number because female shifters have much lower fertility than the human average. In addition to this, a male shifter only has a minuscule chance of producing shifter children with a human and will only have half-blood children with a half-blood woman.

Shifters are mammalian, and almost exclusively apex predators. This includes both terrestrial and aquatic mammals, although aquatic shifters often spend their lives in the ocean in order to sustain their incredible caloric needs. They do not include supernatural predators. Shapeshifters of that ilk are usually half-bloods.

Control varies from shifter to shifter, depending on their mindset, willpower, personality, or other factors. During the transformation, the shifters with less experience, especially the afflicted, may have blackouts when they lose control. As they develop and become better at controlling their shifts, they may be able to retain memories of the experience, but it is not a guarentee.

There is no separation between human and animal minds, as shifters are a complete meld of human and beast. While some shifters may compartmentalize, potentially have no memory of their shifts, or create a mental distance of their own, this is by no means a universal experience. That said, in many ways, shifters tend to take on their beast form characteristics. For example, a werewolf may be more comfortable in a group while a weretiger prefers solitude. However, when shifters find each other and if they get along, the camaraderie often overrules the animal tendencies.

Although shifters are shaped by the various aspects of their supernatural existence, from the kind of beast they turn into to how they view their affliction, one must remember that shifters are just as much human as they are beast. Even those born to the life run the gamut of personalities, moralities, prejudices, and other human characteristics.

Due to their healing and regenerative abilities, shifters can often live upwards of two hundred years, although they clearly age in both animal and human forms.

When a shifter dies or is killed, they remain whichever form they died in. This quality has allowed them to stay firmly in the realms of myth and legend, with mundane hunters often finding nothing more than the body of a wolf, or a human.

A shifter cannot be reanimated as an Undying by any form of magic, their natural magic at opposition with otherworldly magic. They can, however, manifest as spirits either in their beastly or human forms.

The magic of a shifter is quite unlike ritual or blood magic. Very little is known about it as shifters are secretive and clannish about their abilities, and on death their physical forms become inert and useless to any other magic. Still, it appears to be magic inherent to the fabric of our world.

Unlike the other Paths, shifter magic is very physical in nature, and as such can use both their Strike and Cinder pools when utilizing their Path keywords. Naturally, using a different pool changes the nature of the magic, from something intangible to something physical, so be sure to flavor it accordingly.

Codes of Conduct

Shifters are subject to Oaths, Thrice Asked, and Favors in the Codes of Conduct.

With the ability to walk camouflaged in the human world, secrecy is, naturally, quite important to the average shifter for a variety of reasons, including the security of their human lives. Superstitious humans have historically hunted them and may do so to this day. Many shifters provoke it accidentally or on purpose, while others keep their heads down.

Shifter communities tend to be very small and close-knit, due both to their low numbers and the threat of persecution, but hostility or openness towards newcomers and outsiders tends to be unique to each group, much like human communities. Since shifters are just as varied as humans, some individuals may see a reason to use their abilities to their own advantage.

Historically, natural and afflicted shifters have not always gotten along. Natural shifters often see the afflicted as a threat to their safety and secrecy, with good reason. However, others see them as one of their own and like to foster them so they can regain control. This is a fairly individual character decision.

The Big Cheese. The transformative abilities of shifters are unique, powerful, and so perfectly mysterious that they cannot be replicated by other magics. Arcanists the world over have tried to unlock these incredible abilities and have universally met with failure and worse. The primary thing that sets the shifters apart from those who are able to cast illusions over themselves or practice minor shapeshifting magic is that they are the full package, instincts and all. Their bodies and minds are a meld between human and predator so complete that they often forget the difference between their forms, moving between them with a thought.

Every shifter transforms into a specific animal that must be a mammalian apex predator.

The time it takes to shift is measured in heartbeats--the faster a shifter’s heart is beating, the quicker the transformation. The average is 30-60 slow heartbeats and a shifter can often count them as they go.

Shifters cannot speak in their animal form unless they take the ‘speak’ keyword, which allows them to communicate physically or through one-way telepathy if they so desire. They can speak poorly in hybrid form.

Newly afflicted and inexperienced shifters always experience their critical fail shift rolls as a blackout. They go completely feral. The ranks above that are able to remember but still can have blackouts (player’s choice or decided on a dice roll).

A shifter can transform a number of times up to the number of dice in their Cinder pool before they begin to experience side-effects. A shift in either direction counts towards the limit: animal to human, or human to animal. After that, a shifter runs the risk of entering a feral state of mind, where the animal urges become more prominent than the human control, no matter their form. They are not mindless, but instinct reigns and impulse control suffers.

Both natural and afflicted shifters have the potential to pass on their condition. As noted, they can pass it on in their offspring, with 100% transference in couples where both partners are shifters. The child will always be the same species as the mother in couples with two different shifters.

The other method of affliction is far more violent: while a shifter is in animal form, they are infectious. If they inflict a truly grievous wound on another person, there is a chance of passing on the affliction, although the victim would not know until the next full moon. That said, in most cases, these kinds of attacks result in death.

If your character is attacked by a shifter and you would like to see if they are infected or not, leave a request in the Mod Request thread.

Being mauled by a shifter doesn't mean the affliction can't be cured, so long as the cure is administered before the next full moon, which is the day their transformation is complete and the affliction is irreversible. The cure, if you can call it that, is a lethal dose of wolfsbane–also called aconite–that could cure the afflicted human as well as kill them.

Shifters heal rapidly. A small cut may disappear instantly, gone beyond the initial sting of pain. For an afflicted shifter, the first full moon offers a complete body regeneration - missing limbs, organs, other injuries regrow or become completely healed. All shifters possess the ability to slowly regrow severed limbs, although the process is naturally painful and difficult to hide.

Afflicted shifters find their strength developing further as they hone their skills as a shifter, the curse twisting the natural boon of shifters. Their strength increases, enabling them to lift a standard SUV over head and run at the speed of a cheetah, but with human endurance.

The Aspect of a shifter is an ability or a knack that allows them a little something extra from their base abilities. This is a minor ability, so it will not be very powerful. These Aspects can be related to their species or the Path keywords and can take on a magic adjacent flavour, although shifters do not have magic in the sense other Paths do. Shifters deal in physical skills and abilities, so the Aspect generally follows that trend.

Some examples of Aspects can be a feline shifter with exceptional balance, to the degree that they never fall or lose their balance in precarious positions. Using a keyword could be creating an Aspect using Pheromone Charm, where a shifter has the ability to soothe the fears of others around them.

Although shifters tend to group together (or stay solitary) in similar ways to their animal counterparts, this does not a pack make. Highly attuned shifters have the ability to reach Concordance with another being. This is the ability to bond with another, human or supernatural, because the emotional harmony between the two are strong enough to trigger a magical tie. These relationships can range from close friendship to lover, and it is not limited to one being. In a group with a shifter and several non-shifters, the shifter will be at the center of the metaphorical wheel.

At a distance, with concentration, the shifter is able to sense the general location of their bondmates, while sudden and powerful emotional or physical distress from the other person will come across automatically like a danger-sense. A disturbance in the Force. When bondmates are gathered together, the connection is stronger, with the shifter experiencing faint empathic insight about each person.

The Concordance is benign, and reflects the strength of the relationship. Should the relationship fade, so too will the bond, although it can always be reignited. Only two Shifters can experience the full extent of it, while Concordance between a shifter and another human or meta-human will be one-sided.

Because of their powerful healing factor, shifters are able to soak a great deal of physical damage, except in the cases of silver. On contact, silver weakens a shifter and wounds delivered by silver weapon stymies their supernatural healing, meaning that such wounds will heal at a normal human rate. When touched by silver, a Shifter receives a -1d6 penalty to Strike.

All shifters will feel the pressure to transform on the full moon. On the flip-side, transformation will be very difficult on the new moon.

All shifters are resistant to poisons except in the case of aconite. When ingested or injected aconite causes lethargy, dizziness, unconsciousness, and eventually death in high doses. A shifter dosed with aconite will not be able to shift into or out of their beast forms, remaining stuck in whatever form they were in when they were poisoned. The blocking of their shifting abilities also manifests in a full-body ache, as if they were suffering from a high fever.

Should a shifter's skin be touched by aconite, it will sap their strength, but it does not block them off from their shifting. On extended contact, aconite causes the fur of a shifter in their beast form to fall out, as if rubbed raw, while a shifter's bare skin will react by spidering black veins around the area of contact. Any exposure to aconite is painful, but it gets worse the longer the shifter is exposed. Touch alone cannot kill a shifter, but it weakens them considerably.

Attunement is the alignment of mind and body, in all aspects. Using the Cinder pool, this ability can affect resisting a shift or pushing a shift. It can affect how much a human acts like an animal or how much the animal can act like a human.

Both natural and afflicted shifters use this ability. There are a variety of applications: a natural shifter may use it to determine how fluidly they move between forms, while an afflicted shifter may use it to keep their cool during a tense or hostile encounter.

A shifter can transform half the number of dice in their Cinder pool, rounded down before they begin to experience side-effects. After that, should a shifter push past their limit, they risk of falling into a feral state of mind, where the animal urges become more prominent than the human control, whether they are shifted or in human-form. They are not mindless, but instinct reigns and human-level impulse control is absent, where they behave like the animal they transform into. When a Shifter is Feral, each use of a Path Keyword reduces their Luck by one (1).

If you are not utilizing the dice system, this Feral Incarnation is still the consequence of pushing past their limit, but is up to you when and how it happens. All we ask is that you keep these details relative to their rank. For example, a lower ranked shifter would go into feral before a higher-ranked one.

At the Hyrd (Dabbler) and Mundian (Apprentice) ranks, a shifter can gain a combination keyword. These keywords can only be used in combination with a keyword from the path keywords. These have various mechanical effects, but they can also have purely flavour effects, based on how a player wants to interpret the combination keyword alongside the path keyword it is 'cast' with. They can also only apply to others, not the shifter themselves.

To get a successful use of a combination keyword, you must succeed in a Strike or Cinder roll for a path keyword of your choosing and a Cinder roll for a combination keyword. The impact on the playing field can come in two flavours, an Exceptional Success on the combination keyword roll allows the effect of the combination keyword to be applied to all allies, while a Complete Success allows it to be applied to one specified ally.

• Bolster: Add 1d6 to the target’s Strike pool.
• Resilience: Add 1d6 to the target’s Cinder pool.
• Fortify: Add 2 to target’s Luck. It cannot exceed the target’s maximum Luck.
• Bastion: Add 1 to target’s DC.
• Synergy: Lower the Threshold by 2 for the target’s next roll.

A shifter can use combinations keywords for up to half the number of dice in their Cinder pool, rounded up, but if they exceed this number an Attunement roll must be made. If the roll is a Partial Failure or lower, they become feral. If they succeed and do not go feral, any new use of magic must be followed with another Attunement roll. When feral, they cannot use combination keywords.

Both successes and failed rolls with a Combination Keyword counts towards the limit.

Path Keywords

Shifting Keywords*

The size and shape of a shifter is considered to be on a spectrum the shifter controls, based on the size/shape keywords they have access to. Based on which type of shifter the character is, they start with different access to these keywords. See Growth & Advancement for the Afflicted and Natural Shifters for more information.

The shifter's mind-affecting magic. Intended to bring a swift end to the victim, it is much more brutal than hypnosis, and there is no element of command. The subject is simply unable to move, as if rooted by overwhelming fear, unless they succeed on their resist roll. Since this magic is less an enchantment and more of condition, it is not affected by sunlight or sunrise.

This magic is innately physical for a shifter, often linked to sound, although it is not limited to a shifter's voice. When using this keyword, it must be linked to a physical act, or used in combination with another keyword.