Animal Shapers

If it was difficult for the players to get an understanding of the Tree Clans, it was doubly so for the Animal Clans, for they were sparse and shy. Although many of them played parts in the rituals for the queens of the Horse People, their participation was often dominated by the patron Tree Clan. The Wolf King, for instance, fathered Tamiu and Cuadhe, yet most of their interaction was with the White Holly, to whom the Wolves were bound. However, Tamiu's cousin, who had fathered Cuadhe, was Tamiu's constant companion and stayed with Cuadhe until he died, despite the problems with living among domestics.

The other famous relationship between a human and an Animal Shaper is between Tamiu's other grandchild, Teig Angwaranacc, who rescued one of the Owl People from sure death. She stayed with him constantly unless Teig traveled too far out onto the Plain of the Horses away from the woods where Tyllu had her Clan. However, it must be said that humans of the time of the Invasion, which corresponds to about 4000 years ago on Earth, were much closer to all animals. Animals were more plentiful in those days and even domestics were more "wild" than those who are penned up in factories today. However, humans lived in a rich environment of wild creatures upon whom they depended for hunting as well as domestication. Yet I have heard that our interaction with animals has made up so much of our mental structure and our language, that the fear these modern days is that we are losing something essential of our mental nature in losing the wildlife that surrounded our ancestors. I believe, strongly, that this was the purpose of Anieth, to re-connect us to this past. Which is why I decided to play characters very close to this belief, all Animal shapers.

I was curious as to how other shapers learned and changed shape. I had never seen any shapers running around in half-human shapes except those who like to sport antlers or horns or pelts of some kind very like the ancient drawings of Pan and other human animals. I did not like this, for I felt that the animal was sacred and was a state of mind into which we dove and swam. Yes, that we carried this part of us was true, yet it was seductive and careless to fall into it too closely and begin to identify more heavily with the animal rather than the human.

I discovered that shaping was very individual. Most shapers preferred what I called "muting" the shape almost like a dream shape in between that was ghost-like. In this picture you can see Tyllu doing this. This was the favorite method of shaping by birds. Shapers were marked by the "pelt" or a dress of feathers in the case of birds. I believe that this was one reason why some feared multi-shapers, for the Clans depended on ready identification of other shapers. One wanted to know if one was dealing with a bear shaper or an owl shaper and often one abused that knowledge with disrespect for the "lesser" animals. I will admit to wearing a wolf pelt as one means to keep my brutish neighbors from harassing me!

I became fascinated with animal shaping stories on Earth. European mythology is rife with stories of skins, or feathered cloaks allowing the shaper to change. Many times, the way to keep the shaper human was to destroy the pelt. This was not the case in Anieth, but it may have been the case among half-breeds with animal mothers. I do not know, for any human half-breed taking on a shape of an animal never was able to control the shaping. They were often killed before they could learn anything of control, a practice which made me furious. Shapeshifting among the Trees was a death knell, something done at the end of life under heavy ritual, despite some magi who practiced the illusion of the Tree. Among Animals, the shaping was a very private, clannish activity that was not shared among strangers. Yet there were stories all over Anieth of Animal shapers who spent too long as animals and lost their souls, so to speak, going wild and forgetting even close relations.

Animal Clans in the South

Some Animal Clans were more notorious than others in their interaction with the humans. For some reason I cannot fathom, some of them were intent on seeing just what they could get a human to do under the influence of a charm. Humans found Animals magical and irresistible, which is why many of us found teasing the humans to be disrespectful to us all. Not to mention distasteful. As the Elk were hunted out in the lands around Nava and across the Avena, the Fallow Deer Clan took over their territories. The Fallow were not clients of the Ash, but clients of the River Birch. One of the most famous of the Fallow Deer Clan was a shaper of charm so strong that she became addicted to collecting Bucks. Over the years she became jaded and tried to charm other shapers. Of her many children, the most well known were her nine daughters, called the Nine by most of us. They were all capable of charm magic, the eldest most so. The above illustration is from a story in which they charmed a human and the dire consequences that followed on this wicked magic. Once their mother, the White Doe (Bán Eilit) showed that she could force the humans to do whatever she wanted as well as many other shapers, the River Birch began to respect her. They called upon her in situations where unusual punishments were invoked or uncooperative people needed to be taught a lesson. However, most Animals with charm were not this gluttonous and few made of it such the hobby as the White Doe.

However, the White Doe's interference did not end with tormenting her neighbors. She put her one surviving son in the place of the Elk King at the initiation of the Red Princess, LiHara. The Ash were very "live and let live" and never interfered with their clients, unlike most of the other Tree Clans who oversaw the initiations of the queens. Herne, at this time was but a boy and LiHara was ashamed, so ashamed that she never did tell anyone of her daughter's father. Yet her mother, Queen Ula, began to suspect the princess when her powers were so different from that of the Elk. When the Nine Fallow Doe, the daughters of the White Doe, arrived in the Druaccii strongholds to find their friend, Queen Ula knew them, and stripped them of their powers.

However, there was an Elk King living at the time of Herne's majority. The Elk had moved down out of the north, fearing the Zelosian incursion. They did not do well in the hills and fens of the Ash country, but a few survived. My son took on the shape of the Elk when he was larger, he admired the Elk King so as a child. My wife also took on the shape of the elk, called, in Europe, the red deer. The Fallow Deer Clan lived only west of the Avena, but on the east side, and up into the Slevrana Lia, lived the Roe Deer. They were not numerous, but lived in the camps of the Silver Birch, their patrons. Like the Silver, the Roe suffered greatly during the push of the Lasian League into the mountains. The Zelosians adopted a burn policy that Korutos would not obey, despite his losses on the Massona Road. The Lasian League moved into the area to "secure the situation," and burned thousands of acres of birch and pine woodlands, wiping out the Roe Clan and the Pine and most of the mountain Clans like the Cat, the Otter, the Roe Deer, the Ermine, Swan, and the Bear.

Animal Clans in the North

The Wolf Clans usually picked one of the three Holly territories and became involved in that Sub-Clan's particular social life. The Wolf People were gregarious, sociable, filled with humor and good will, great friends of the Rowan, with whom they traveled, and fiercely loyal to the Holly even though many of their people lived in the Grey Mountains with the Pine and Silver Birch. Unlike the Tree Clans, the Animal shapers tended to be more "primitive" in that they lived nomadic lives with rich oral histories, but little in the way of artifacts or permanent settlements. The Wolf people, in particular, valued travel over a wide range of territory and tended to own little or nothing. As humans they were adept hunters and fishers and workers of beads and stone, but they had no tents or other forms of residence. They did have stash caves and were jealous of these treasure troves, often hunting down and punishing anyone stupid enough to raid them. Bear The Bear Clans were in the southern slopes of the Grey Mountains, north of An Doras. The Bear people did not associate with the Oak Clans and lived in small family units off the beaten tracks of the Trees. They were more friendly with the Pine and the Silver Birch than they were with their sister Oak people. Although they roamed a wider territory, they tended to adopt one vally and build some sort of elaborate dwelling into a slope of the mountains. Unrivaled masters of stone and woodwork, few people saw their products because they focused on housing decoration and objects for personal use and shunned the large markets of An Doras.

Most family units consisted of several females of multiple generations and an older man and his sons. Most of the sons traveled out of the valley when old enough to want their own wife. They would pick a place to build a house and then visit other valleys to attract females away from their mothers to start their own household. Every summer solstice, the families would gather at the lake where they would dance until dawn, exchange songs and stories and jokes, and renew old family ties. Many of them kept track of lineages and stories on the great pillars in the halls of fire of their houses. Although tending to live in small family units, they loved to travel to visit one another and built elaborate guest homes for their friends.

Some Bear people were loner, like Mathin, a Bear shaper who befriended Lugh Aradarach of the Rowan and rescued Prince Raol from the Red Holly. For this he was banned from his territory north of the Bras. He went on to live in the Oak lands even though he knew he could be hunted. He rescued the Oak King's son, Dubh from torment by his brother and friends, and became lifelong friends with the half-breed boy. When Mathin died, Dubh was devastated, and kept his cave and wore his teeth as a necklace. The other famous animal shaper who befriended Dubh was Madra of the Red Wolf Clan. She would dare to cross the Bras to hang out with Dubh and his other half-breed friend, Tréan of the Holly and Rowan.

Madra was unusual that she preferred Tree friends to her own Wolves. She was constantly in trouble for it and was exiled from her Clan for her part in the Cuilinn killing that resulted in Dubh becoming Oak King. Like most Wolves, Madra had two toned hair and prominent teeth, pointed eyebrows and brown skin. Mathin, who was a light brown bear, had light brown hair and skin. Most Animal shapers tended toward the coloring of their animals.