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Running Skinwalkers

Triggers

When you create a skinwalking character, come up with 5 "triggers" for each form. These are conditions or events that can cause one soul or the other to gain control of the body. You can make a single trigger more powerful by taking it more than once; just note the number of slots it fills, from 2 to 5. (See below for a list of examples.)

Any time a trigger enters the character’s vicinity, grab one die for each of the triggers currently in effect for each form. The player rolls for whichever form they want to be in, and the GM rolls for the other. Whichever gets the highest singe result is the form the character shifts into. Ties go to the form the character is presently in.

You may notice that this means skinwalkers cannot change shapes whenever they want to. Something in the environment has to change first. This is not a fact that skinwalkers want the general population to know about. (It’s a secret. Shhh!!!) Here are a few possibilities...

The Change

Philosophers say the soul is a field of aetheric force that organizes matter within the body and animates it. They cause healing by pulling bodily tissues back into their original shape when injured, and cause growth by pulling new material into the body through digestion.

The two souls inside a skinwalker constantly pull the body's tissues in two different directions, one towards the human form and one towards the animal. When the balance of power shifts, the newly dominant soul literally tears the body apart and rebuilds it in its own image. The process is phenomenally painful, though it causes no actual damage. (Strangely, injuries are not healed by the change, but persist between forms and must heal at the normal rate.) It can take anywhere from a few seconds to couple of minutes.

Often, the two forms bleed into each other. Werewolves in human form may have bushy eyebrows, thick body hair, yellow eyes, pronounced canines, or exhibit lupine behavior. Naga are well known to foster serpentine features like slitted eyes, forked tongues, scales, and fangs. In animal form, most skinwalkers retain their human intelligence, even if it's used for inhuman purposes.

Clothes and equipment are not affected and, in some cases, actually damaged by the change. The skinwalker's body mass also does not change, so most animal forms are abnormally large. This difference isn't so significant for werewolves, but Naga make exceptionally massive snakes. Of course, this only increases their threat potential.

Blessing or Curse?

Sharing one body doesn't guarantee that two souls are always going to see eye to eye. Those skinwalkers whose souls exist in harmony are called "blessed;" the personalities and goals of their two forms are effectively the same. Those whose souls are constantly at odds are called "cursed;" their behavior in one form is often radically different from their behavior in the other. Most players will probably create blessed skinwalkers simply because they're easier to role-play.

However, if you want to create a cursed skinwalker, make sure you describe both personalities in equal detail. You might not think there's much to detail about an animal soul, but you'll need to be able to make all the same decisions for them that you would for a human character. Are they aggressive? Clever? Fearful of humans? Does it resent having to share a human's body?

In either case, the animal form always confers a few blessings of its own. To reflect these, a skinwalker's animus should have its own Traits; they're created and rated as normal, but only apply when in animal form. Here are a few examples for each of Erebus' two most common shapeshifters:

Contagion

Killing a skinwalker is always a dicey proposition, since the animal soul tend to "jump" to new bodies. After all, that is how the skinwalker became a skinwalker. Animi spread bits of themselves to other souls like a contagion, usually by spreading bits of their bodily tissues to other bodies. Blood, saliva, meat, or anything else that can spread disease can spread a skinwalking soul just as well.

When its current body dies, the animus is attracted to these bits of itself. The strength of the attraction may be influenced by proximity, time since the spread, the amount of tissue spread, or the type of tissue (blood is better than saliva, for example). The animus "jumps" into the body with the strongest attraction. Unfortunately, this is often the person who killed the creature, or a survivor of a recent attack. Either way, the victory is bittersweet.

The best way to handle it is by GM fiat: If you want a character to become a skinwalker, make it happen. In fact, you can do this to any character who has ever tangled with a skinwalker and failed to kill it; eventually, the creature will die and its animus will jump to a new host.

It's not unheard-of for people to try becoming skinwalkers on purpose. The obvious method is to capture a skinwalker, drink its blood or eat its flesh, then kill it. This is easier said than done. Other have crafted rituals based on known skinwalker triggers: the lunar cycles, wearing animal skins, imitating appropriate calls, and so forth. The goal is to create an animus by generating an attraction between a normal animal soul and the magus. Whether or not this technique works is left to the GM.

If the new skinwalker is a play, and blessed, let them create triggers and Traits. If they're an NPC, or a cursed PC, the GM should do the work on their own. In fact, newly cursed skinwalkers don't even have to now about their condition until their first change. Even then, they may not remember what they did. It might be interesting to send your players after a vicious werewolf only to discover that it’s one of them!

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