From:	"Mark L. Neidengard" <mneideng@****.CALTECH.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Paraanimals
Date:	Sun, 22 Feb 1998 10:34:42 -0800

According to Jeffrey Mach:
>> The fox that emerges is male as
>> well, not quite full grown in maturity. It looks up to the camera man, and
>> yips once. Immediately, the effects re-occur, but in reverse.
>
>Got no preoblem with Fox Shapeshifters. In fact, the Companion has rules
>for making up Bear, Fox, Leopard, Seal, Tiger, and Wolf PC Shapeshifters.
>An interesting question is, what is there relation to the Japanese
>Kitsune? In their legend, there are two animals that were common
>shifters, the Kitsune (fox) and Tanuki (Racoon). However, depending on
>the story, they weren't limited to just changing into human form. Anyone
>know of a Paranormal Animals of Asia book? I would assume in Asia, that
>you would have nearly no Wolf shapeshifters, while Fox Shifters would be
>significantly more common. And how about Native American Coyote
>ShapeShifters?

Well, once the can of worms of shapeshifters is opened, why not go for _all_
the tanuki, kitsune, and bakeneko and similar creatures? These were common
enough in Japanese folk mythology that "bakemono" (literally "transforming
thing") is the most common that they use where the English-speakers would use
"monster". And why not grab all the Native American shifters? Hell, why not
grab the South American ones? Eastern European myths also have lots of
transforming beasties.

Of course, the problem is where to _stop_. I mean _sure_, it's possible to
throw every mythological object of superstition on the books into the scenario,
but pretty soon there's no room for the normal humans, you know? I'm not
objecting to the use of all this mystical stuff exactly, but I'm going to
advocate caution in bloating things too much with a _glut_ of shifters or other
similar creatures...
--
/!\/!ark /!\!eidengard, CS Grad, VLSI http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/~mneideng
"Fairy of sleep, controller of illusions" Operator/Jack-of-all-Trades, CACR
"Control the person for my own purpose." "Don't mess with the Dark
Elves!"
-Pirotess, _Record_of_Lodoss_War_ Shadowrunner and Anime Addict