tl;dr watch  sunkissedsatyr



i'll keep this short-- about four years ago i went through a really bad breakup. my exes stalked me relentlessly anywhere they could and spread some really malicious rumors about me. i lost a lot of friends because of them and got kicked out of multiple communities.

around that time, as part of several paranoid account moves across many websites, i subtly moved to  rubymasked. i stopped drawing most of my characters and pretended to sell some to my new account so i could still use them now and then, Mesquite in particular.

due to work, i haven't drawn much in the past two years, but i did finally, finally settle on what will be my permanent art username, stalkers be damned. i've been going by that new name everywhere else for the past two years, so i feel like i should finally make my FA name match since FA still doesn't have a native username change feature.

i'm going to be uploading all, or at least most, of my old art from here and rubymasked onto  sunkissedsatyr and uploading my new art whenever i manage to find the time to make it around my work schedule. i may even draw Raptor again now that i've stopped caring if my exes find me again. it won't be my sona again, but i've got some future art things in mind that need two characters, and it could certainly fill in for those...

so... yeah.

SHIFTERS

There are three categories of the Shifter races, sorted by level of ability. Though they are all Shifters, the three categories tend to stay fairly separated due to a sense of superiority amongst the more powerful two categories.


Pure Shifters
Lifespan: ???
Form: infinite
Social: varies
notes: one of Sira's two mentors and her adoptive big brother, Nakavi, is a pure shifter.

A pure Shifter is also known simply as a shapeshifter. Shapeshifters are the strongest of the Shifter races and are possessed of the longest lifespans. It is not all that uncommon for a shapeshifter to be thousands of years old, and they only finetune their abilities the longer they live.

Shapeshifters are the only shifters capable of changing their sclera color, making them the only shifter race that can pass as human and be accepted as such. Those that choose to often easily reach higher positions in human companies, charming their way through the ranks.

So long as the mass of the shape they seek to assume is roughly equal to their own, they can take on the shape of any creature almost perfectly, getting better and more accurate with age and experience. They cannot take the form of an inanimate oject, nor can they shift into anything considerably smaller or larger than themselves.

Every shapeshifter has a "default" form that requires no energy to maintain, and is usually the appearance they were born with. This form may have additional appendages, horns, feathers, fur, or scales, though it usually has a mixture of traits from the shifter parents that birthed it.


WERES
Lifespan: 100-2000 years
Form: human, animal, hybrid
Social: varies

Shifters who are limited to a single animal form and single human appearance are most often known as Weres, though "shifter" is still a widely used term. They may take almost any form in between their two limits, though most Weres prefer keeping some of their animal traits in their human form. Common features kept include ears, tails, and claws, though some Weres keep their fur or aspire to the most even blend between the human and animal, resulting in a dangerous anthropomorphic form. Weres almost always have thick hair that is rougher to the touch than most human hair, and more comparable to the fur of an animal.

Weres themselves are separated into many sub-races, among which the most common are werewolves, werecats, and wererats, though there are many other were races. Weres whose animal form is a larger species often appear to be a particularly small member of that species if their mass doesn't fall within the usual range for that species. Likewise, those whose animal forms are smaller species may appear to be abnormally large.


Werewolves
Lifespan: ~500 years

"Werewolf" is not a term strictly applied to wolf-shifters, but often used as an umbrella term for any Were whose animal form is canine in nature. Foxes, dogs, coyotes, dingos, and all related species fall under the werewolf umbrella, though the individual races usually refer to themselves with more accurate terms such as "weredog" or "werefox".

Most of the were"wolf" races are highly social, living in close-knit family groups. Young are often communally raised by the pack, growing up with a large number of aunts and uncles who are not actually related to them. Because of the strong familial connections between most werewolf races, it is not uncommon for a pack to number in the hundreds. Those living in human settlements take up several houses or floors in apartment buildings, and those living in the wild have massive territories that often overlap the territories of other were races.

Though the social tolerance of werewolves differs between breeds, werewolves in general are the most social of all the Were types. They thrive in cities as well as the wild, and even the more reclusive canine Weres usually live in the territory of a large pack and will participate in hunts or necessary fights.



Werecats
Lifespan: ~300 years

"Werecat" is the name given to any Were whose true form is feline in nature; this varies from any number of the middle-to-large sized wild cats, and includes several species that are traditionally extinct (a label used when the pure animal is extinct, but there are populations of shifters known to have that form) such as sabretooth cats.

Though werecats can thrive in cities, they vastly prefer living in the wild. Clans are usually comprised of fifteen to twenty individuals, living fairly nomadic lives within their territories. Because of this nomadic nature, Werecat clans have the largest territories of the known wild Weres, and they often share up to half of that territory with werewolves. Which sections of territory are shared shift with the seasons and "home base" of the clan; the overlapping area is most often the opposite side of the territory from the clan's current nesting site. This alternating sharing of territory allows both the packs (which need great amounts of space to support them) and the clans (which need to be able to travel to more prey-rich woods with the seasonal migrations) to support themselves with little conflict.

Werecat clans rarely settle in human towns like werewolves do, preferring to limit their contact with humans to trading goods and occasional hunting services. Cats that live in human towns or cities are far less social than their wild brethren, mostly due to the nature of a city. While they may share homes and apartments with their mates, young, or close friends, city cats never live in groups of more than five individuals, and they're most commonly seen in groups of two or three.

City werecats are sneeringly known as "domestics" by humans, and those whose families have lived in human areas for generations are smaller than their wild-born cousins, both in their human and animal shapes. "Kitten" is a derogatory term for werecats in general, but most often applied to city cats due to their smaller size.



Wererats
Lifespan: ~100 years

The shortest-lived and second-most social of all the were races, wererats thrive in cities and are rarely found in wild country. Though they do best in big cities where abnormally large rats are common urban legend (think New York or Baltimore), you'll find at least a handful of wererats in any human settlement with a sewer or underground train network.

In areas with smaller wererat populations, the rats are very family-oriented and usually socialize fairly well with humans (and their local werecats and wolves, with whom they have increasingly had to share their sprawling urban territories). Though they may live in separate homes, the female population of a town will often share childcare while the males serve as protectors. In cities, which tend to have wererat numbers in the thousands, the rats are more cunning, cruel, and devious, using underhanded means to acquire food or property they desire. Though they rarely cheat each other, they're well-known for cheating the humans in their cities, as well as ending up on the bad side of the other local shifters.


Werebirds
Lifespan: Unknown

Avian races of Were do exist, though they are fairly rare and difficult to find. They avoid human places, as the size difference between them and the regular animals whose forms they take is too great, even for large birds such as eagles.

Avian weres are fairly solitary, usually only living in mated pairs with young, though they may grudgingly share their territory with a local wolf or cat pack, or allow one or two young avians to live and hunt on the fringes of their territories.



Werebears
Lifespan: ~500 years

Another breed of Were that does best in the wild country, werebears are also mostly solitary. Though an individual or pair may sometimes live in a human town, these towns must be surrounded by or on the edge of a large enough forest to accomodate the large roaming territory these bears require. They are the second least social of all the shifter races, second only to the dragons.

While they will tolerate other Were races sharing their territory, they only tolerate their own kind during times of plenty, or when mated.



Weredragons
Lifespan: ~2000 years

Dragons are exceedingly rare, and despite their long lives they are slowly dwindling toward extinction. These are the least social of all Weres and the only type that will never touch a city. Some have managed to live in small hamlets, but only when such places are built on or near large mountain ranges where the dragon can escape and shift.

Very few of the surviving weredragons ever grow to their animal form's fullest potential size, which is easily larger than a small house. most of them are the size of large horses, though some African and Asian dragons have been seen rivaling the size of their local elephants.

The most territorial of all Were races, dragons will not share their territory with any other Were, including their own mates. Mated dragons have adjacent territories, but no overlap. They will spend time at the borders of their territories but barely ever cross more than a few yards into their mate's territory.



Beastkin/Blooded
Lifespan: 100-200 years
Form: human, with minor shifting ability
Social: varies

While in the past these individuals were known as shifter-blooded or dual bloodline, the more common modern term for those who have shifter blood but are not true shifters is beastkin.

A beastkin is any person who has a shifter ancestor and thus some minor shifting ability. Beastkin can never achieve even an anthropomorphic form, but they may be able to shift tails, ears, claws, or teeth with practice. Some beastkin don't even have that much ability, and only have physical traits that mark them as not fully belonging to their other bloodline.

Beastkin who are mostly human will have colored sclera like their shifter ancestor, but of a much paler, sometimes almost unnoticable shade. They may have thicker hair that is somewhat more roughly textured than that of most humans, and depending on their shifter bloodline they may have small patches of scale-like skin or patterning that would match fur if they had any.

Beastkin don't only occur through the mating of shifters to humans; dhampir beastkin have been known to exist, and any beastkin child of a Feral Were will be genetically half-demon like their Feral parent, as will their future offspring. However, the less shifting ability a beastkin has, the less likely it is to ever manifest its bloodline's Feral abilities.