Candidates arrive at a blasted, foggy wasteland of half-glassed rock, riven by innumerable cracks and canyons. There are no bridges, most magicks are unreliable and flying through the low hanging cloud cover is instinctively a bad idea. Potential initiates climb down the slippery sides of canyons and up, over and over, their destination a small, steep-sided mesa that glows fitfully through the mist. As they approach, the air is filled with inhuman screaming and rumbling growls. On the mesa itself, the noise is monstrous, titanic.
A wooden shaft over five feet across rises from the center of the mesa where it seems to have been driven by some unimaginable force, and disappears into the fog thirty or forty feet up. Fresh blood, steaming the cold air, runs down the pole and forms a pool at the base that takes up almost two thirds of the mesa, even trickling over the edge past the cracked and shattered stone. The smell is horrible... wonderful... intoxicating... The pole vibrates, rippling the pool, as SOMETHING shakes it, the source of the roars and screams. Perhaps it can be glimpsed occasionally, a beast the size of a Tyrannosaur... or a Titan; impaled on the pole, clawing at it, struggling to live, aching to die -- it's shape a constant inconstant.
There is no ceremony. The candidate drinks of the blood and submerges himself in the pool. Successful candidates slowly and agonizingly assumed the shape of a hunting beast -- a killer. The Unsuccessful continue the change, faster and faster, until they finally burst apart in a spray of their own blood which slowly dries to join the rest of the crimson dust that covers the mesa.
[15] Blood Initiate
[5] Learned Forms
[5] Automatic Shift/ Primal Form
[5] Fast Regeneration
[5] Great Beast: enhanced, shadow walking form
[5] Share Blood: heal or shape shift others
Note: Blood Initiate powers are mostly an alternate track of Shape Shifting open to people (a few people) who were not born of shapeshifter stock.
Blood Initiate: able to assume one wholly animal form and a composite form, both with Extra Hard teeth and nails and Weapon Resistant armor; able to Shift Wounds.
Learned Forms: all of these are beast forms.
Automatic Shift/ Primal Form
Fast Regeneration
Great Beast: the primary (first) beast form enhanced to Armor Vs Guns, Double Damage, and other effects as appropriate. Also includes the equivilant to the Seek In Shadow item ability in the Great Beast form.
Share Blood: able to fast-heal or shape shift (to a learned form, the primary is easiest) others by feeding them some (say a pint) of the Blood master’s own blood.
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