Playing a shifter is no doubt fun and challenging, especially when you have the opportunity to take your character through a First Change. While playing a werewolf is great, though, not everyone wants to be a wolf.

Are There Other Options?

Yes! Many. Practically as many options as there are species of animals on the face of the earth. How’s that for choice?

Enter the Changing Breeds, giving you a plethora of shape-shifter options for your RPG.

What Are The Changing Breeds?

Just because this group of supernatural characters can shape-shift, don’t let that fool you into thinking they’re just like their werewolf Urathan cousins. The Changing Breeds (or Ferals as they’re sometimes called) have mindsets, beliefs and societal patterns that are very different from the werewolves.

Technically, yes, even werewolves are a Changing Breed, but while Uratha lean towards the spirit realm and their duty to protect humankind from the dangers that leak through this spiritual world, the Ferals are more grounded in the mundane. They have no mythology or societal taboos like the Uratha. They live in the here and now.

Some Folk Are Born With It

Shape-shifting characters have amazing abilities. Some can control fire, others can read minds, and some can even return from the dead.

The Uratha get most of their abilities (or “gifts”) through bargains with the spirits or by learning them from others of their kind.

When learning from spirits, they have to find a spirit who possesses the desired ability, and then convince the spirit to teach it. The spirit might demand an offering or make the petitioner perform a series of tests.

Not all spirits keep their end of the bargain, though, so it’s a huge gamble for the Urathan. The spirits don’t like the Uratha much to begin with, either.

Changing Breeds have innate abilities. They don’t need to be taught the gifts they have within. However, while a Feral may have many amazing gifts, they might never know they have it unless they can figure it out on their own.

Rage and Fury

Urathans are notorious for their tempers, called “Rage”. This is a blind anger that, once invoked, forces Uratha to destroy anything in its path that moves. They see nothing but a haze of red and they want nothing more than to kill.

Ferals have two distinct forms of anger, Fury and Berserk. Fury isn’t bloodlust like Rage. It’s a combination of fast, hot anger usually born of irritation that leads to a slow-burn reaction filled with spite.

Anything can set off Fury. A Feral could get angry at a careless co-worker tossing a piece of trash on the ground, retaliating by shredding the report on that co-worker’s desk. He could also wait for that person to leave the office at night and attack him as he walks through the parking lot.

To humans, the reactions don’t make sense. To the Ferals, it’s perfectly clear.

Berserk is a response to the fight-or-flight syndrome. Depending on the Breed, a Feral will either react with all-out rage like the Urathan (predators typically react this way) or they’ll bolt (more common in prey species).

Running With The Pack

To werewolves, pack is everything. Pack is the support system, it gives spiritual strength, and pack replaces the family a character may have had to leave behind.

The Changing Breeds have no pack. Some, like the elk and horse shifters, might run in herds, but overall, Ferals are a solitary bunch and can take or leave the company of their own kind.

This isn’t to say that Ferals are anti-social, shunning others of their kind. They do form groups for specific reasons and stay within that group for as long as they see fit. These groups are mostly formed of Ferals of the same species as well as much larger, diverse groups called “Bands”.

Ferals could go for years without seeing another of their kind. If a Urathan were forced to do the same, he could literally die of loneliness quickly.

Communication

Ferals communicate differently. The Changing Breeds rely more on touch, body language, tone of voice, emotions, and scent than the average human does. Many Ferals are also quite blunt when expressing their views and don’t have a grasp on the complexities of human social behavior.

Abstract concepts are very difficult (but not impossible) for them to grasp. A Feral might think nothing of picking up a pile of bills left on a table in a diner as a tip. He might not think much about reading a diary if it’s been left lying about. Hey, it was there, right?

Changing Breeds are very visual and rely heavily on patterns and images. A claw mark scratched into a tree on a park trail might not mean anything to a passing human, but to a Feral, it’s either a clear warning to keep out or sign of an intruder in the Feral’s territory.

A Challenge For The Player

As you can see, playing a Changing Breed takes a lot of thought. You have to force yourself to think like the animal half of your character at times, which brings on all kinds of conflict for you to explore.