>
> I am not sure that all hsunchen peoples use the same method of
> intergration, however. That said, they could resemble each other
> mechanically, it may be similar or it may be a mix of acquired
> abilites, secrets, or something else entirely. It is not, according
> to Greg, as simple as the "I just change" that the Puma Folk get
> (lucky bastards).
>
> Jeff
>
I always kind of liked the idea that the available practice spirits were tied to parts of the body, and that when you released the spirit from a fetish you transformed that part of your body as part of the magic. So your "Raccoon's head" spirit might have the abilities of 'see in the dark' 'smell food' and 'curious,' and when you called upon those normally you'd get a bit of a racoon look. But if you totally released the spirit (to add the spirit ability to one of your own), you would get a racoon head for the duration of the magic.
So to fully transform you'd need the required ~4 spirits (I imagine it would vary, but at the least head, body, and legs, some traditions may have arms/legs seperate, or have tail, horns, or whatever), and release them all--fully transforming you, but exhausting your magic until you could re-bind them.
I like it for a few reasons:
- Everyone can do some degree of transformation, but not everyone
would have the spirits for a full transformation
- A full transform becomes a big deal, which seems dramatically
appropriate.
- It has some continuity with how things were handled in RQ (at least
RQ3, I'm not sure how it was done in RQ2).
- It more or less follows existing animist rules mechanically, just
having some difference in color.
Not saying that it is the best way to model it, or that I think it should be the only way, just that it is one way that I like.
Regards;
-Bryan
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