Shapeshifters/Selkies and Doppelgängers

[~Autumn Walker~]

Shapeshifters


These are humans or in some cases supernatural species who have the ability to change shape into an animal, this can be from using magic, a curse or a deal made with a demon. Some humans are born with the ability to change shape into an animal. The animal can be any species. Shapeshifters are not the same as Were-wolves. They cannot infect any one and thus turn them. Those born with the ability to change shape are normally from family’s who have been cursed and the curse continues through generations. Most have the ability to change at will, though the ability to do so gets easier with age and experience. Whatever the animal, when shifting you becomes the exact replica of the animal the same size. Shapeshifters regain full humanity when in animal form. When not in animal form the human at times can feel like they share their body with the beast, as if it is a separate entity.
Shapeshifters have enhanced senses and agility; they are stronger, fitter and faster than humans. Shapeshifters are mortal. They are not allergic to Silver like Were-wolves.


Some shape-shifters are able to change form only if they have some item, usually an article of clothing. Most of these are innocuous creatures.

Another such creature is the selkie, which needs its sealskin to regain its form. In "The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry" the (male) selkie seduces a human woman but does no further harm.

In some Native American legends, a skin-walker is a person with the supernatural ability to turn into any animal he or she desires. Similar lore can be found in cultures throughout the world and is often referred to as shapeshifting by anthropologists. The Mohawk Indian word "limikkin" is sometimes used to describe all skin-walkers

Mermaids are shapeshifters, who can spend their time on land but must, come the setting sun return to the water, in which they turn into a half human half fish.

[~Autumn Walker~]

Selkies

Selkies (also known as silkies or selchies) are creatures classed as shapeshifters. They are, immortal and do not age, though they are no invunerable and can be killed. They can transform themselves from seals to humans.

Male selkies are very handsome in their human form, and have great seduction powers over human women. They typically seek those who are dissatisfied with their romantic life. This includes married women waiting for their fishermen husbands. If a woman wishes to make contact with a selkie male, she has to go to a beach and shed seven tears into the sea.

If a man steals a female selkie's skin, she is in his power, to an extent, and she is forced to become his wife — a regional variant on the motif of the swan maiden, unusual in that the bride's animal form is usually a bird. Female selkies are said to make excellent wives, but because their true home is the sea, they will often be seen gazing longingly at the ocean. If she finds her skin again, she will immediately return to her true home, and sometimes to her selkie husband, in the sea.

Sometimes, a selkie maiden is taken as a wife by a human man and she has several children by him. In these stories, it is one of her children who discovers her sealskin (often unwitting of its significance) and she soon returns to the sea. The selkie woman usually avoids seeing her human husband again but is sometimes shown visiting her children and playing with them in the waves.

Selkies are not always faithless lovers. One tale tells of the fisherman Cagan who married a seal-woman. Against his wife's wishes he set sail dangerously late in the year, and was trapped battling a terrible storm, unable to return home. His wife shifted to her seal form and saved him, even though this meant she could never return to her human body and hence her happy home.


Powers/Weakness

Selkies can shape change at will, though if their seak skin is lost to them, or destroyed they can never return to the sea again. This makes them very vunerable if some one finds out exactly what they are, and in turn they are secretive and untrusting of many.

Once they reach adulthood they no longer age and retain their youthful looks for all time. They are immortal though they can die, recent global warming and pollution has lead to many A selie dying at the hands of humans destroying the sea and over fishing

[~Autumn Walker~]

Doppelgänger

A doppelgänger or fetch is the ghostly double of a living person, a sinister form of bilocation. A doppelgänger began life as a human, but through life events would be pulled into dark dispair, leading them to become malicious, twisted entities who enjoy meddling in peoples lives.

They can be seen as Stalkers almost, they will become obsessed with a person and in time change shape into that person, taking on the victims life until a time they choose to eiether stay as the victim or move on. If they choose to be the victim, the victom ends up dead.