Shapeshifters

Shapeshifters

Shapeshifters often appear human, but this is only one of their possible forms; they are creatures born from the natural world who can transform into animals, as well as hybrid creatures halfway between the two that grant them access to huge reserves of ferocity and instinct. Each type of shapeshifter can turn into only one creature, and they may be born either human or as an animal, leading to mixed societies with many different viewpoints. Most shapeshifters gather in their own insular societies, viewing even other shapeshifters with suspicion for their strange, often incomprehensible rituals and philosophies.

Almost all shapeshifters agree that they are the favored children of the planet and that they are charged with its protection and preservation, often putting them directly at odds with humanity as well as with the more destructive of other supernatural beings, many of whom they consider evil by virtue of being living pollutions that affect the entire world. Millennia of wars and disagreements about policy between different shapeshifter groups have prevented them from creating a coherent worldwide force, which is probably the only reason that they haven't been more influential as global warming and vampiric machinations run rampant across the planet.

The Warm Breeds

The Warm Breeds are those shapeshifters that transform into mammals, most of them landbound and usually tailored to the environment in which they live, allowing them to meet and bond with natural animals of the same type. Warm Breeds are by far the most numerous of shapeshifters, especially the Garou and Bastet, who between them make up the bulk of still-living shapeshifters for the entire planet. This can often cause the Warm Breeds to consider themselves the rightful or at least default rulers of the shapeshifter world, which understandably creates a certain amount of friction with the other breeds.

Ajaba	Apis	Bastet	Bunyips	Camazotz

Garou	Grondr	Gurahl	Kitsune	Nuwisha	Lutra (these are otters)	Ratkin

The Bastet

The Bastet are werecats, transforming into the world's greatest feline species as well as into prehistoric nightmare versions of them that very few living beings could ever have had the misfortune of meeting in the wild. More secretive and insular than their canine cousins the Garou, they tend to avoid committing to political action or warfare unless there is a considerable amount for them to gain.

Bagheera	Balam	Bubasti	Ceilican	Khan	Pumonca	Qualmi	Simba	Swara

The Garou

The Garou are the most famous type of shapeshifters in the world: werewolves, transforming into various different species of wolf from the meekest urban-adapted curs to the most horrifying of ancient dire wolves. They are indisputably the most numerous and also the most powerful of shapeshifter groups, and are often the only ones in any given area (either because there simply aren't any other shapeshifters around, or because they have driven them away to assert dominance over their territory).

Black Furies	Black Spiral Dancers	Bone Gnawers	Children of Gaia	Croatan	Fianna	Get of Fenris	Glass Walkers

Ogichidaa	Red Talons	Shadow Lords	Silent Striders	Silver Fangs	Stargazers	Uktena	White Howlers

The Dragon Breeds

The Dragon Breeds are shapeshifters who transform into reptiles and fish, including crocodiles, serpents, raptors, and even extinct dinosaur-like creatures that lurk only in the most remote corners of the world. They are among the most ancient of all shapeshifters and are often inscrutable to the other breeds, who find them slow to action, uninterested in minor matters, and unlikely to appear unless something very important is going on.

Alcoes (these are falcons)	Ao	Corax	Mokole	Nagah	Quilio (these are eagles)	Rokea	Squaman (these are fish)

The Hengeyokai

The Hengeyokai are the shapeshifters of Asia; although they often have a lot in common with their western cousins, they have their own much more complex political organization and tend to be uninterested in the political and philosophical concerns of the rest of the world. While many Hengeyokai transform into similar creatures to the other breeds, they are not opposed to the western shapeshifters but likely to be mortally offended to be considered the same type of creature.

Aarang (these are orangutans)	Hakken	Kumo	Nezumi	Same-Bito	Tengu	Zhong Lung

The Insect Breeds

The Insect Breeds are among the most obscure and feared of the breeds; each transforms into an insect or arachnid, but whether they do so by becoming a massive nightmare bug or by dissolving into a seething swarm of normal-sized ones, few onlookers can handle being around them for more than short periods of time. Industrious and entirely focused on their own politics, they rarely interact with other shapeshifters, although they maintain that they do very important and necessary work to balance the universe in their own way.

Ananasi	Brucus (these are locusts)	Formicii (these are ants)	Isopo (these are termites)	Misiquo (these are hornets)	Tenea (these are moths)	Thyrsi (these are bees)

The Prehistoric Breeds

The Prehistoric Breeds are spoken of mostly in the past tense; shapeshifters that turned into creatures that are now extinct, they are presumed to be extinct as well, and even if a few still exist around the world, they are barely hanging on with no animal population from which to draw new recruits and a human population that hardly even remembers them.

Bird Kings	Bristlecreepers	Khara	Lizard Kings	Murex (these are ammonites)	Portellua (these are megatheriums)	Pouch Kings	Qyrall

The Mockery Breeds

Created by Pentex and other forces that want to accelerate the war between the shapeshifters and the forces of pollution and destruction, the Mockery Breeds are not true shapeshifters; rather, they are either humans who have been infected with a disease that gives them a hideous approximation of the same abilities as native shapeshifters, or they were once other shapeshifters who have been experimented on and twisted into new and horrible forms. Most of them are severely physically disabled, mentally ill, or both, and generally have difficulty functioning other than to fulfill their masters' occasional commands.

Anurana	Kerasi	Samsa	War Wolves	Yeren

The World Beyond

Not only is it likely that there are more shapeshifters around the world than are known to the greater community, but it is likely that there are vast numbers of breeds that have gone extinct as well, some from the depredations of climate change and industrialization, others from the intermittent warring of those shapeshifters who are too territorial to share their haunts with others. Rumors surface regularly about strange shapeshifting creatures, especially in less industrialized areas, and even the shapeshifters themselves admit that they could not rule out the existence of werebadgers or werejellyfish without further research.

Due to the expansionist and militaristic tendencies of the werewolves, many shapeshifter breeds are marginalized in their own historical homelands, and others have been completely wiped out by warring and outright genocide. Many werewolves work to redress these sins as much as they can, but others are just as eager to assert themselves as the dominant shapeshifters worldwide as their ancestors were.