A Calculated Risk

Inhuman Forms

Throughout your journey so far, you have encountered many living things: some tame, some out for your blood, and others very different from you. You seem to be able to absorb these creature's essence into your form when killing them, allowing you to change your body into something else: Perhaps a pig, or a skeleton, or a squid. Unfortunately, you are unable to become another human, or any creature whose power is significantly greater than your own. Most forms you acquire can be used to prevent monsters from attacking you, although some creatures have natural enemies of their own.

You can, in principle, stay in your new form forever, but staying in the same form for too long will have consequences. As your current body familiarizes itself with more forms, you start to feel more comfortable with your shapeshifting abilities, and are able to stay in an inhuman form for longer without potential consequences.

It is only a basic theory at this point, but you suspect the resistance you feel when shapeshifting between forms is due to different types of magic interfering with each other. Your shapeshifting ability is body-based or life-based magic, whereas the magic you use for your day-to-day spell or alchemy recipe is mind-based magic. The body and mind are, of course, closely linked, so ultimately one form of magic has to win in the end. You have drafted a recipe for a Potion of Unhindered Magic, in an attempt to deal with the interference. However, as far as you are aware, the potion seems to have no effect when you are in your human form...

Inhuman Abilities

While experimenting with your new forms, you have discovered you can use many of the same abilities you have observed in the creatures themselves. As a bat you can fly, as an enderman you can teleport, and as a creeper... well, best not to go there. [check your Changeling action keybind] You have also discovered a way to utilize your squid form which is not seen in nature: you can utilize the squid's hunting instinct to find resources in the water, much the same way as you would with a fishing rod.

Humanity Lost

Unfortunately, after staying in an inhuman form for too long, your worst fear becomes true: Your humanity itself drains away. You become stuck as that creature, and you must pay the price. In the confines of the body you are left with, your ability to use human magic is severely limited. Luckily, the Potion of Unhindered Magic seems to temporarily restore your magic.

But the new issues with your magic are not the end of your woes. Your new form has made irreversible changes to both your body and your mind. You may have a taste for different foods, become repulsed at the sight of meat, or find yourself no longer in need of water. In certain cases, what were once minor inconveniences become real problems. Zombies burn in sunlight, after all.

Worst of all, your permanent inhuman form may afflict you with strange new foreign thoughts and desires which erode away at your willpower. If you disobey these instincts, bad things may happen...

Prey Drive

So far, you have been able to identify one instinctive urge which is especially problematic: the urge to kill your natural prey. If you resist, the urge may overpower your mind until killing is the only thing you are capable of doing. But it may be best to resist the urge as long as possible. Once you have killed your prey for the first time, killing anything which is not your prey will only strengthen your desire to kill your prey again.