Shapeshifting
The Lunar Exalted have two separate magical skills granted them by Luna: their Charms, intuitive but powerful abilities, and an inherent ability to change their shapes, refined through Knacks. Both are integral to the lifestyle of a Child of Luna.
Shapeshifting
The Value of Changing Shape
Disguise is the simplest use of Lunar shapechanging. Want to look like that guard? Bite him. Need to be an inconspicuous horse? Hunt down a Marukani swift. In most cases, a Lunar disguising herself through shapechanging doesn't require a roll—as near perfect it is, nobody usually suspects anything. Only when the character must interact with people who know her victim well is there a chance. Perhaps the Lunar doesn't know that the guard always trades insults with his replacement at midnight or the doyenne who owns a noble steed has trained it to kneel for her when she whistles. Even then, people usually give the imposter the benefit of the doubt, because it has every blemish and feature of the original.
Beyond disguise, a Lunar might change shape for access to abilities that only another form can have. This is rarely the case for human shapes, but birds can fly, wolves have powerful noses, barracuda swim underwater and eight-tailed mole hounds can dig like the wind. A coral snake has poisoned fangs, while a gecko can climb anything. When a Lunar uses these innate abilities, it should manifest as automatic success or, when a roll is dramatically appropriate, bonus successes ranging from +1 to +3.
Lunars can also use their forms to gain bonuses in other respects. A Steward who becomes a monkey should receive a small bonus to Athletics due to increased flexibility. Taking the shape of anything small or nondescript, such as a mouse in a cellar or a cat in a city's alley, adds to a character's Stealth attempt to hide or blend in. Tiny creatures benefit significantly more from cover, gaining Defense Value bonuses from things as small as rocks or branches.
Having a broad library of creatures is like having scads of Charms the character doesn't have to buy. Use that to its greatest advantage.
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Spirit Shape
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War Form
Some of the Lunar Exalted also have a third true form, called the war form or the Deadly Beastman Transformation. In this form, the Lunar becomes a hybrid of man and beast, usually monstrous and several feet taller than the largest human and with great strength and resilience. Most Lunars prefer to enter combat using the war form, knowing that it affords them a tremendous advantage. Lunars who have a war form must spend five motes to don it.
Changing into the Deadly Beastman Transformation sends most mortal armors away into Elsewhere, and many weapons become too small to effectively use. Most artifact tools and weapons remain useable in this form, but only moonsilver armor is flexible enough to change with the Lunar into the war form. Moonsilver armor actually adopts a different shape ideal to the bestial man-beast form. Some characters have smaller war forms, closer to a human size, in which they can use normal armors.
A Lunar can spend as much time as he wants in his war form, but wearing it makes an open statement to other Lunars (and other entities who can recognize it) that the Steward is ready for battle to break out at any moment—perhaps even eager for it. Few Lunar Exalted would visit the territory of a Lunar or god in the war form, knowing that they are likely to be met with force rather than warm greetings. On the other hand, the war form can be a calculated insult, suggesting that the offended entity cannot keep its territories safe to visitors or lacks the power to force the Lunar into a more socially acceptable shape.
Despite the frequency of war forms that are terrifyingly huge and intended to tear through enemies in battle, some war forms are simply person-sized or even of slighter builds. Not all warriors, after all, focus on sheer might.
Other Shapes: The Sacred Hunt
Were Lunars limited to a spirit shape and a war form, they would never have received the renown for their versatility and mastery of disguise they touted in the First Age. Lunar Exalted can wear the shape of anything and anyone living. But a Lunar must first earn the right.
To earn a new shape, the Lunar must hunt and dedicate the pursuit and kill to Luna. The hunt typically takes, at most, six hours: The Exalt must find a superlative example of the animal he wishes to hunt, chase the animal to the ground and slay it at the climax of the hunt. The Silver Pact calls this the sacred hunt, or the blood hunt.
Targeting a species with the blood hunt requires a simple (Wits + Survival) roll and a point of Willpower. Each success on the roll reduces the required time by one hour, to a minimum of one hour. If an animal is rare in an area, the ritual hunt may take longer and may have a higher difficulty. Animals that cannot be found in an area are not valid targets for the sacred hunt. Once the Lunar declares the hunt, he cannot rest or pursue any other goal until he completes it or he fails. Lunars instinctively know the ins and outs of the hunt.
Once the desired animal lies at his feet, bleeding its last, the Lunar tastes its heart's blood and gains mastery of the creature's form. From that point on, the Lunar can take on the shape of the precise animal it killed by spending three motes of Essence. The Steward becomes a perfect facsimile, including any scars or distinguishing marks.
A Lunar is not limited to just one example of an animal. He may have two or more, with different colorations to confuse pursuers or for different purposes. (Small lap dogs are good for sneaking around as a prefect's pet, while big hounds are more effective in battle.) Each additional form requires another day and another hunt. Just because the Lunar must find an ideal animal to hunt does not mean that he must always hunt the largest, strongest and fastest. If he wishes to find a small, skulking bear instead of a massive, mountain-shaking grizzly, he must simply find the most perfect example of an atypical animal. It is effectively the same process.
Shapes, once learned, do not age. No matter how long since the original victim's death, the shape the Lunar knows does not grow old or weak. The shape's hair and fingernails may grow, but only time spent in the form contribute to such growth. Skin may tan, but only when that shape is actually under the sun. In either case, any changes to the false shape disappear once the character re-dons that shape—letting a shape tan, then shifting to another form and back produces a shape as it appeared before it tanned. With Changing Plumage Mastery, Lunars may control these aspects of their shapes. While in another shape, the character's true forms age but do not otherwise suffer the passage of time—hair and nails do not grow, skin does not tan (but may eventually wrinkle), etc.
Not all creatures are valid victims of the sacred hunt. Beasts that have been tainted by the Wyld are too unnatural for the Stewards to master their shapes without the Luna's Hidden Face Knack. Also, some creatures are too small or large to hunt with the basic ritual: Any beast smaller than a housecat or larger than a moose is considered an invalid target without Humble Mouse Shape or Towering Beast Form, respectively. Attempts to hunt invalid targets with the blood hunt result in a rejection from Luna. The Lunar immediately knows that the attempt failed and does not spend the Willpower, though he does lose the 15 minutes or so necessary to begin the ritual.
There is a sacred hunt for human victims. Not all Lunar Exalted know it, unlike the rite for animals. Some Stewards consider it distasteful to take human forms. Most consider it too useful to quibble over the morality of it, however. With Prey's Skin Disguise, the Lunar learns to take on the shape of other humans (and humanoid creatures) and knows the ritual for claiming one. Just as for animals, the character takes on all the qualities of the human whose shape he takes—appearance, scent, voice. He gains the target's Strength and Stamina. Other Shifting Knacks allow Lunars to master other forms.
In no case does a Lunar gain anything other than the target creature's natural abilities when he dons its form. Some targets might have Essence-based powers. Constant or effortless powers usually function, but anything that requires Essence expenditure to activate does not. Lunar characters may begin with a collection of shapes by taking the Heart’s Blood background.