The Magic of Anieth - Shapeshifting

Genetics

Despite the abilities of some Shapers to dazzle people with illusion, as was the case with the Thorn King here, shapeshifting usually followed precise rules and was inherited.

Rule One: the mother of the shaper must be a full-blooded shapeshifter for the child to be able to change form.

Rule Two: the child will take on the shape of the mother. If the mother shaped a rowan tree, the child will look like one of the Rowan clan and shape the Rowan tree.

Rule Three: if the child has no shapeshifting father, the shaping is involuntary. It can be provoked by severe emotional states, the onset of puberty, or injury or fire. A test of half-breed shaping can be performed by bleeding the half-breed or burning them if the less severe tests do not provoke the shape.

The longer one takes the shape, the more like the shape one becomes. This can be fatal for the Tree shapers who not only "put down roots," but lose almost all consciousness. Partial shaping of trees has been performed, like that of the Thorn King in this illustration, but it is very risky and not encouraged. However, Tree shapers tend to become more like their trees as they age, particularly the women, who seem more vulnerable to shaping and find it easier to do. Some Trees consider it a sign of dementia, immaturity, illness or weakness to take on the shape of a tree in any partial form. The very old people such as Tenga of the Holly and Nion Naoú of the Ash, not only are very tall, but often brittle, have wooden like skin or other treeish characteristics.

Most children can take the shape of a sapling and come out of it again. They are taught from an early age to take on the tree shape and to learn to come back out. Yet, for an adult, it is almost impossible to "put down roots" and then take them back up again. It requires a strength of will that is beyond that of most Tree shapers and a physical control that is beyond what most can handle. There are stories of shapers who have taken on the tree form and then have come back out, the most famous of which is illustrated here when a Rowan took on the tree form at An Doras to protest a decision made by the Oracle. It caused the Oracle to refuse to read the future for many years. The Rowan came back out of the form almost a year later.

The nearest we can get to feeling the call to take root is to go up to a tree and put your hands on it. Stand with your eyes closed and try to feel the energy of the tree. It can also work to hug the tree or stand with your back to the trunk. Listen to the leaves and the small sounds of the bark. Sensitive people will feel more and more that they are one with the tree as the consciousness expands to enclose the tree. Lucia said that all she had to do was touch an Earth tree and she could feel her consciousness expand so much that she became the world. None of the rest of us were that sensitive, but the feeling can be remarkable. I often envied the Abernathys who became tree shapers in the Game. I felt close to the character that I played, but to be an animal or a tree was remarkable. Raissa never tried to be a tree, but the multi-shapers may have had that talent.

Half-Breeds

It was rare for Trees to "cross over" or take on more than one tree shape. I knew of two of them. There are exceptions to the tree similarity of the mother, but these were extremely rare and must have take a great strength of will to maintain and both the boys I knew who took on two tree forms fought very hard to take on the father's shape. As children, they shaped the mother's shape.

Among humans, the most common instance of half-breed are in the form of abandoned children on the border. Often these children can hide out on the border until they must be hunted down by the Kings. It is not known of a case where a half-breed remained sane if the father was human and the mother was a shapeshifter. I have heard of the story of Imig, a slave to the witch Calli Ivkys, but I believe this to be a story, not truth. It is thought that her father might have been a half-breed. Her son passed all the tests for sanity, which lends credence to the fact that he was not the son of a full shapeshifter, yet there was no record of Imig "losing" her form, unless she had remarkable abilities beyond our ken.

The ban on half-breeds seemed harsh to us at first, until we saw what it did to those who were victims of mixed marriages. All the instances on the border were of animal shapers mating with humans; it was unheard of among the Tree Clans except for the case of Imig and the case of Lorg Arinn and Lucia Shields. Some of the Trees were convinced that Lucia's child would not maintain sanity, yet she had full ability to shape at will. Her daughter also came under suspect, but also learned to shape at will.

One of the King's responsibilities is to patrol the border and take half-breeds into the King's Court where they may be tested. It is also his duty to kill these half-breeds which leads the people to believe that he is tainted over time. I have not known this to be the case with any king, but belief is not reality, as we say.

It was more common for half-breeds to exist between different Clans. These people where generally shunned and often abandoned at birth. It was almost unheard of for them to become multi-shapers; certainly unheard of among the Trees, rare enough to be legend among Animals.

Animal Shaping Techniques

Shapers had two ways of shaping. One was the way that took the transparent transition as a kind of "ghost state" that you can see in this owl shaper. The shaper dissipates the shape to the size one is shaping into and then solidifies into that shape. This is helped by the aid of a "skin" or the feathers or fur of the animal one shapes. Often shapers were roughly the same size as those they shaped with the exception of bird shapers. Shaping birds was much more difficult for one had to break the barrier of dimensions. Here, a woman shapes an owl and below a woman shapes a deer.

The other technique was much more difficult and was one that the multi-shapers adopted. It involved "thinking the animal" or turning into the animal from the inside out, almost like turning one's skin inside out. Again, this was easier when one was wearing the pelt of the animal one shaped. However, Bleid perfected the technique of carving the animal he wanted to shape, knowing each feather or lie of fur until he could will his mind to become the animal and his body would follow. His son took on the shapes of seven animals this way.

Luaith, when she was pregnant, could not take on a shape without endangering her child, so to change shape, she willed her spirit into an image of the animal. It was an image that had real substance to it, but it left the shaper in a deep sleep, almost a coma. It was the "dream of the deer" as she called it. This proved to be a useful way to shape for her and her son when their lives as shapers were threatened, for they could not be killed in the animal form, but only back in the safe place where they had hid to send their soul out into the dream. Luaith says that she invented this way to shape while weaving and being angry that Bleid could run off whenever he wanted and she could not. She wove the images of the deer in her mind and passed through the loom and took on the fabric of the deer or the other shapes she enjoyed.