I have a very much houseruled companion, which has a shapechange virtue that changes per season, and has two other forms that can only be accessed in dangerous circumstances. She also derived her mythical powers from the river, so that theme should continue, and considering she can't even shapechange when not in he water (except when angered or cornered, see last form) some shape that is native near water is desirable.
Spring: Otter, Kingfisher, Salmon
Summer: Ermine, Osprey, Salmon
Autumn: Otter, Osprey, Pike
Winter: Ermine, Kingfisher, Pike
When underwater and on the verge of drowning: gain fish tail, webbed fingers and gills at the expense of a magical aura
When cornered or angered: grow a size, gain large claws which drip a filthy humour at the expense of a horrific appearance, poor anger management and magical aura (this shape will gradually worsen if used often)
Now, I have trained shapechanging, and will be able to take a new form soon, what would you think interesting? Something like a lynx, wolverine or wolf is interesting from a game mechanical perspective, but does not do well with the water part. An Aurochs would be an option (Wikipedia states they would like marshes and wetlands, and were only recently extinct in holland 1051, and not extinct in the danube river valley, where I come from) but might be a tad unwieldy (I'd estimate the male to be size +3, larger then shapechange allows, though it being a sexual dimorph helps quite a bit), A swan would be interesting, but double in function a bit with the other birds. A polar bear is interesting and sufficiently native to water, but I've never seen one. Do you have any other ideas worth pursuing?
I like that idea, the princess turning into a frog of sorts (though not really a princess of course). I'll have to see whether there are tales of shapechanging women into snakes, I like that imagery as well.
Maybe a shape from myth/legend, like mermaid, naiad, Stymphalian bird, something like that? Since the ability already appears to go beyond the RAW "mundane animal" definition.
Why do I suddenly find myself singing Smoke Gets In Your Eyes?
Turning into mist would be a very interesting option to do, I'll speak to the GM about it. (Smoke is less watery, and a mist billowing over the river or field would look nice).
I could also look into function.
I already have a flying form, a multifunctional form (ermine/otter), and a swimming form. Conditionally, I also have a combat form and a swimming and still be able to talk form. Maybe a stealthy form would be interesting or something I can fight in and not try to tear the place down. I have looked into great cats, but they stop on the wrong side of the black sea.
Bah. This is Mythic Europe. If it has a place for dragons and fairie, there is room for Lions as well. The earth and all its animals were created. God created lions, ergo they exist. Perhaps not in the area you live in, but surely you've read of them, seen pictures, etc. Heck, half the coats of arms of England feature lions.
One of the PC's in my current campaign wanted a skinchanger liger. My first thought was "lions are rare, tigers don't even exist, where the heck would a liger come from?" Then I decided "if I have no problem with hyperborean blood, why can't I find room for a liger?" One imagined exotic travelling menagerie from the east later, there were ligers in my campaign. They're incredibly uncommon, but so is hyperborean blood.
Totally YEAH. For that matter, even turning into something that the PCs doesn´t have a chance of identifying can be a fun part of the story all by itself.
You´re kidding? I mean since when does leopards have huge fluffy manes?
After a quick look at a few, most most certainly look like lions, some might be able to fake it as leopards if you ignore the lack of spots and a smaller mane, but overall im seeing lions and little else?
Ok found Warwick that could at least be called a panther(ie a leopard whose spots took over).
And if you ignore the manes on the arms of Edward IV, they can perhaps be called (snow) leopards.
And after also looking at some Scottish ones, i cant really say i´m seeing a real difference between them?
Since they became heraldic. I've just checked and the English call them lions, but that particular pose is called a leopard in French heraldry. I wasn't aware that in this case they'd not followed the French form.
(Which is interesting, because it means QI was wrong, because they had this as a question. Damn you Stephen Fry! Then again, it means I don't need to apologise for suggesting The Lion and the Lily to the other Normandy authors, so there's the upside.)
Just because some french herald drew a lion and called it a leopard doesn't mean lions didn't exist. Just that the french were confused. They also had the cameleopard, a cross between a leopard and a giraffe, aka the giraffe.
Also, there is the norman "richard coure d'leon" (my french spelling is poor these days) which would seem to suggest they'd heard of the species.
Maybe leopards are Pliny the Elder's "straight maned, timid lions" and lions are the "curly maned, agressive lions."
"Quite Interesting". youtube.com/watch?v=qFMG9eh1ST8
Never heard of it before actually. Which is a bit surprising since this is the kind of series i might expect SVT to buy from BBC.
I found the spinning carosal behind the guests distracting, but otherwise, facinating show. My only previous exposure to Mr Fry was the series where he visited all 50 USA states. The casual way he tossed off the name of the desert where the nazca lines are found made me pine for escape from the intellectual backwater I reside in.
QI (aka Quite Interesting) is a quiz show, of sorts, on the BBC where the contestants are penalised for coming up with the generally perceived "correct" answer to a question, which is often wrong according to their researchers - who do, occasionally, make mistakes. The contestants are also rewarded for providing "quite interesting" nuggets of information, often unrelated to the question.
Try searching for "QI" on YouTube for some examples.
