Shapeshifters Species

Shapeshifter Customs

Shapeshifter Customs

All sapient species have many unique customs, peculiarities of their cultures, history, and way of life that are specific to them and their sense of racial identity. This article lists some that are unique customs to the shapeshifter species, in no particular order.

Cultures of Impermanence
All aspects of shapeshifter life are guided by a single mentality: all things change, and nothing is permanent. It dictates their lifestyle, their craftsmanship, and their attitudes towards the human world and Mushroom Kingdom world in general.

From the isolationist tribes (clans) of the Frozen North, when it comes to material possessions, shapeshifters value impermanence and making and using simple implements that can be easily discarded and replaced with little difficulty. They prefer to use natural materials such as wood, bone, ivory, and thick furred pelts, and have very little access to or use for more permanent materials such as glass and worked metals. This doesn't mean that their methods are in any way crude; rather, they’re incredibly efficient, making functional tools and materials with very little extraneous effort. Their craftsmanship is elegantly simple, with very little decoration or overworking.

Shapeshifter aesthetic when it comes to decoration always involves enhancing the natural lines of the objects/structures/etc being decorated. As a result, it’s often not always apparent that the object is ‘decorated’ at all, so much as remarkably elegant. There is almost no representational work in shapeshifter art.

Despite their overall mindset of ‘easily replaced’ with regards to objects and tools, shapeshifters are practical. Anything that they don’t make themselves is acquired through trade, and they’ll seek out the finest craftsmanship available rather than settling for poor-quality goods. Things worth trading for are seen as sufficiently valuable that they should be treasured accordingly. The most sought-after goods are high-quality metal blades and salt for preserving winter stores. These sorts of goods are often considered tribe versus individual property and are held by those who live more fixed lives in a tribe’s semi-permanent settlement.

Nomadic Lifestyle
Shapeshifters are a largely nomadic species, traveling across large territories that formally belong to a pack but often overlap with lone individuals or couples. They make very little in the way of longterm structures, in keeping with their cultural values of impermanence; packs will typically live together during the temperate months of the year when food is more readily available, and then disperse for the winter months to better handle sparse food conditions.

The most permanent structures used by shapeshifters are their winter dens, small dwellings dug into hills and embankments that provide a stable place for the cold months. During the summer months the entire pack follows a slow route between these dens, stocking them with food as they go in preparation for the cold months. When in need, any shapeshifter is always welcome to use one of these dens regardless of whether they belong to the same pack or not; dens and their stocked food supply often serve as an emergency refuge for wounded shapeshifters incapable of hunting or foraging for themselves. The only requirement is that the individual using it replenishes the supplies before moving on.

Interactions with Non-Shapeshifters
As a whole, shapeshifters are very reclusive. Many are more willing to deal with humans than with witches; shapeshifters view witches as too rigid and obsessed with preserving their own longevity, rather than accepting the natural ebb and flow of life. For the most part, the only major contact between shapeshifters and the other sapient species will be with carefully selected individuals for trade purposes, obtaining the few goods that shapeshifters can’t easily procure themselves. Other sapient species don’t treat shapeshifters with outright hatred, but find them hard to interact with due to the differences in mannerisms, communication, and finding a shapeshifter’s animalistic qualities and extreme powers of observation unnerving.