Ah the cloth examiner! You make me laugh fair play!

One of my own shifters took a somewhat different philosophy. My understanding of it was something similar to a monk, perhaps. Rather opposite to Tarich's approach, mine was that the shifter was one identity. All he was, was Will. While typical beings associate themselves with their physique, their mentality, their emotions, the shifter identifies himself only by his will. Thus, in every form, no matter how wildly different it physically is, he is the same. My understanding was that this concept of being permitted the shifter to take numerous forms at will, because he didn't identify himself by his form.

Its not just some, "Hey, I'm not -really- an undead, I just look like one" thing. Its more like the shifter views himself as a body-less entity, or at the very least, a morphic one.

That's not to say that my character couldn't change in time. Or that different forms wouldn't have a different effect on his psyche.

That's my interpretation of it-- But I'd say its mostly up for flavor.

Hector Zaeron sought to use his shifting to ascend from the human condition. But he didn't just want to become an animal, or a monster - although he often did, assuming forms and emulating the creature in their natural environment. The lone wolf, a patient tracker and cautious hunter. The dragon, an apex predator which dominates a vast territory with type-specific adaptations to the climate. But it was all for something more than that. Hector is a druidic follower of Malar. He believed in a form of balance exemplified by the eternal hunt - a "circle of life" sort of thing. This concept grew to consume him - or maybe he grew to want to consume it. So he advanced and refined his shapeshifting for the sole purpose of becoming The Hunt. No longer a man, or a beast, or a man who could become a beast, but a formless, abstract piece of a greater concept.

Dogma: Survival of the fittest and winnowing of the weak are Malar's legacy. A brutal, bloody death has great meaning: "May you die an old man" is an insult among Malarites. The hunt is the fulcrum of life and death, and the focus point of life is the challenge between the hunter and the prey, the judgment of who may live or die. Malarites are expected to view every important task as a hunt and to remain ever alert and alive. They must walk the wilderness without trepidation, as Malar does, and must show no fear in the hunt. By being bold, they expect to win the day.

Malarite novices are charged as follows: "Savagery and strong emotions defeat reason and careful thought in all things. The strong must slay as frequently as possible and exult in the doing if they are to survive and achieve dominance of the pack that society truly is under the polite veneer it maintains. Taste the blood of those you slay and never kill from a distance. The glory and danger in the hunt should be told to all in grand tales. Work against woodcutters, farmers, and all fools who seek to cut back the forest and slay beasts because they are dangerous. Suffer no druid to live, for they believe not in survival of the strong, but in a weak-minded balance that allows the inferior to survive and often to rule. Slay not pregnant wild creatures, young wild creatures, or deepspawns so that dire beasts to hunt may always be plentiful."