Questions tagged [shapeshifters]
Questions dealing with creatures that have the ability to change their body form into someone or something else, voluntarily or involuntarily. Consider also the [chimera-folk] tag.
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Is there a credible way a shapeshifter could gain/lose body mass when changing forms?
Shapeshifters are creatures which are able to, based on will or some sort of external stimuli, change between different forms while still remaining the same individual. Sometimes they retain the same ...
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How would a dragon be used in a modern military?
The military of (insert nation here) has finished training its latest asset: an adult dragon. Let's call him Private Firestorm. He's got everything the top brass wants from a soldier: he's ...
- 4,992
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Anatomically Correct Werewolves
Could werewolves exist in a realistic world?
All that is required for an accepted answer is the ability to change shape over night. Bonus points will be awarded if you can explain a bite spreading ...
- 56.3k
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Why do only clothes stay in an animal transformation?
I have a race in my world that has the ability to transform into animals at will. For reasons of practicality, the animals do not wear clothes and the clothes disappear during transformation. For ...
- 7,547
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What sounds would be common for both forms for a human/wolf shapeshifter?
Here's a world much like Earth, except it's inhabited by a race of shapeshifters. On one side of the appearance divide there is an appearance much like a large Earth wolf; on the other is an ...
- 29k
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Shapeshifters - Shared language between human and animal forms [closed]
Some background on the shapeshifters in question:
Shapeshifters can shift between a human form and a single animal form; all the members of a given group of shapeshifters shift into the same species ...
- 838
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How can I make humans NOT WANT to investigate how a supernatural ability works in an intelligent, non-human creature?
We've had a few questions where answers state, to a lesser or greater degree, "humans would investigate this ability to figure out how it works" in another creature with abilities not readily ...
- 29k
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Shared language between humans and wolves - Alternatives to scent
This is a subsidiary question to Shapeshifters - Shared language between human and animal forms. There is some of background information in that question, but none of it is critical for this question.
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66
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How to verify or establish identity where shapeshifters exist
No magic exists in this setting beyond what is explicitly described in this quesiton. The setting is vaguely European medieval. The question centers around a town large enough to support a nobleman ...
- 17.5k
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Would a squad of soldiers who can shapeshift into T. Rexes be useful in a modern battle?
Take a country in the modern day, like the U.S., which routinely makes use of weapons such as guns, artillery, drones, tanks, et cetera. Now imagine that everyone in one of its elite squads of ...
- 936
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How to Interrogate a Memory-Stealing Shapeshifter?
There are shapeshifters who can perfectly replicate a person, and eat their brains to absorb all their memories. These shapeshifters are cunning and predatory, and so humans form extremely close knit ...
user69867
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How do we catch a shape-shifter
Some Background
The government is very good at catching people. Even the few who can keep away from them are forced into a life of running. Many years ago, a teleporter named Dave was discovered and ...
- 56.3k
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What are some ways to explain how a shapeshifter retains his/her mental capacity?
Magic conveniently "explains away" many things associated with shapeshifting, but in the course of some of my fiction writing, I endeavor to include some slightly more plausible explanations when ...
- 1,031
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Lycanthropy & clothing
In a medieval fantasy setting, if you had to regularly deal with transforming into a beast that's taller, stronger, and that have a much larger build overall than your frail priestess body, what would ...
- 183
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Preparation for Lycanthropic Transformation
So, I'd love to have werewolves in the world I'm building, but as it's a sci-fi setting I don't really want them to be magical. I can stomach some pseudoscience, but I want the process to be as ...
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Reasons to voluntarily change into a fantasy race?
So one of the biggest quirks of the world I'm building is that, along with supernatural powers suddenly becoming real in modern day, the human race is granted multiple separate opportunities to ...
- 5,161
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What would be some realistic social reactions to a shapeshifter?
I'm working on a story where the main character gains the abilities of a shapeshifter. In this case, defined as a human who can become any non-human animal, indistinguishable from the real thing, and ...
- 1,031
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Increasing the density of the human body
A lot of people are probably familiar with this sort of handwavium in fiction when it's asked where a shapeshifter's extra mass comes from. Most choose to ignore that question. In works that pretend ...
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How to Train Your Mimic (or, why would a Mimic be capable of domestication)
I'm making a world where I want domesticated Mimics to be a thing.
These Mimics are pretty similar to the original concept of D&D Mimics: shapeshifters that imitate objects, and hunt by imitating ...
- 29.2k
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Does a human-animal transformation also transform DNA?
If a human were cursed with the need to transform into a specific animal (i.e. a canine), would his DNA change after the transformation?
I would appreciate help in answering this question. This is ...
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Anatomically Correct "Stranger Things" Mindflayer's Monster
Background, with potential spoilers:
In the Netflix show Stranger Things...
If we skip the psychic stuff, there's still a pretty interesting creature there. To qualify as a Mindflayer monster, an ...
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How would a modern military deal with an organized uprising from a group of werewolves?
I remember hearing in a discussion about modern geopolitics and military strategy how modern terrorist groups for a Western liberal democracy. The technological advantage most modern militaries have ...
- 14.2k
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How quickly could a "shapeshifter" lose mass, realistically?
Shapeshifters and mass... ever the bane of realistic science fiction.
Basics:
Let's say someone is changing shape (for whatever reason, voluntary or involuntary, it doesn't matter for this purpose). ...
- 14.5k
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What could be a plausible scientific explanation for a man who can transform different parts of his body into different parts of reptiles?
Laws that must not be broken and/or worked around:
Conservation of energy
Conservation of mass
Square cube law
Thermodynamics
No FTL
Essentially, I'm trying to make a character with similar abilities ...
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