Basic Information
Shapeshifters are people or creatures who can transform between two or more shapes.
Your three basic categories of shapeshifters are:
- Doppelgänger - Creatures who can take any shape they want, and use it for nefarious purposes. A form of supernatural identity theft.
- Lycanthropy - A monstrous transformation involving the beast within. Often involuntary, possibly part of a curse or disease, and may include significant body horror.
- Shape-shifters fast and wise animals - creatures who have more than one form that comes naturally to them. Often overlaps with a trickster archetype, and is generally the least sinister version of shape-shifting.
Additional ideas and tropes can be found at Shape-Shifting.
Also related to, but technically distinct from shapeshifters are those who have been transformed by a third party, often as a punishment for wrong-doing. These aren't truly shape-shifters as they don't control the ability and have no expectation that they will ever transform again. (There is a little grey area, as some lycanthrope style shapeshifters also don't have any control, but they at least have the horrifying expectation that they will shapeshift with lunar cycles or other specific circumstances.)
Sources
Game and Story Use
- You'll find ideas for including shapeshifters in your campaign on the various pages linked to above. Each explores a subtype of shapeshifter in greater detail.
- A storyline with two or more shapeshifters of different types could prove interesting. You have one truly sinister shapeshifter who is the true villain of your story. A second shapeshifter of a different variety is innocent, but also a suspect, mostly because they've hiding their true nature as a shape-shifting creature.