I was thinking. If, say, a wolf shifter shifts to metahuman form, do they sweat as a metahuman does (since canines don't normally)? If so, do we just assume sweat glands appear as part of the transformation? If not, how do they prevent overheating? Active cooling via mana effects? Panting even in metahuman form?

afaik shifters take on not only the shape but all the abilities of their metaHuman race so yes, I think you can safely assume they do sweat and that sweat glands are formed as part of the transformation from one form to the other

"A wizard did it" - The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror X

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/MAGIC!2.jpg

This is pretty much what I think of whenever something involving "magic" gets thought about a bit too hard. Whatever answer you come up with that allows you to continue to have fun while possibly suspending your disbelief and stretch your imagination closer to infinity is the correct one.

I feel like making something up, so I am going to say that the process by which a shifter changes shape allows for the dissipation or insulation of heat... wait for it ... by changing shape; to have more or less movement of air/water/etc over/through the surface of their body covering.

Qtf.
Besides biological morphology aside, the real nutter about the shape-shifting is where the difference in masses goes. Some of the shifters and drakes have a difference in form masses of several orders of magnitude! To say nothing about the great dragons who can assume a metahuman form of a mere fraction of their natural one. Perhaps there's some sort of Wolverine style "Metaplane of Meat" lurking about. Or maybe one could explain its a sort of massive exploit of quantum phenomena, to literally conjure up living tissue out of "virtual" particles. Lots of fun character goals and plot hooks abound trying to explain that stuff.

Due to the dual-natured nature of shifter excess is stored in their aura in astral space when not "in use" ... or something like that

An Eagle shifter in his natural state has several anatomical features that are totally absent from in his human form (like several bones involved in the flight muscles anchoring or vascular adaptations to reduce heat loss though the legs) and inversely his human form add things like tooth or a completely different excretion and reproductive system.

So the addition of sweat glands is IMHO no more illogical.

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What I'd like to know is if a Wolf Shapeshifter in Human Form is warmer than your average human, as a canine's body heat range is higher than a human's.

Be a good way to test. 'Course, you could just make them hold a silver coin or some such. But, well, Silver is expensive, thermo-equipped cybereyes are cheap.

I think a silver coind would still be cheaper than thermographic gogles.

The way I understand, shifters shift into a perfectly normal metahuman form. That includes sweat glands, teeth cavities and whatever else your typical metahuman has.

Also, to anyone thinking where the excess mass goes/comes from - same place spirit's physical form comes from when it materializes.

I have a 99.9% pure silver coin that ran me under $100 - a thermographic scope is around 3-4k right now. I would agree with that.

Forget the coin, bullets will be cheaper and you don't have to wait to be sure before firing. Just unload the clip, if they start healing, then slap in the silver bullets and call in the airstrikes. It's the only way to be sure.

Really though, I don't see any problem, when they shift, they form sweat glands, when they are in canine form, they're in canine form. They'll expend heat like a canine, panting, etc.

I suppose that's fair. There's just so much biology to change. I love the idea of shapeshift magic, considering how deep the idea runs in a lot of traditional cultures, but logistically, I mean, it's one hell of a spell.



This actually doesn't bother me as much, because there's so much magic out there already that could be interpreted as masking mass for inertial purposes, like a spirit's Movement power or the Levitate spell, that the mass issue may not be a big deal for a lot of purposes. What bothers me about that is that if it's just some kind of inertial manipulation, a dragon's body as a metahuman should still be extremely dense compared to a normal metahuman body, and I'm not sure how to handwave that.

You've all got a point that this is overthinking it, but I'm actually doing it to come up with personality quirks for an otherwise extremely well-integrated domestic dog shapeshifter PC (using wolf stats). She'll sort of have a foot (paw?) in both the human and Awakened worlds, and I'm trying to play up that she doesn't entirely fit in in either. So I'm wondering how a creature with such a strong sense of smell is likely to react to suddenly getting all sweaty. Although I suppose her sense of smell may not be that good in human form, but she may react strongly to it when she shifts back.

Alan Moore's Miracleman series talks about this - basically there's an alternate universe that holds the unused forms, and you transfer your consciousness to the different form, pull it out of the alternate universe, and store the old one there.

Considering the kind of smells many canines seems to find appealing, I'm not sure it would be bothered much...

The key (and most difficult part IMHO) is to keep hints of canine behavior in human form - things like sniffing a newcomer or dominance tests - tempered by an understanding of what a human should do rather than just a guy who happen to be able to shift into a wolf.

There was a Shadowrun novel with a shifter cop that showed some of that.

Running Wild goes on about that, too.
Game-wise, those are just negative qualities that can be bought off.

Or blame it on Asperger Syndrome.

And, yeah, that was a good novel. "Of course I wouldn't mark the boat. I did that where I was supposed to, on the side of the building."

Yeah...I imagine given the extreme acculturation a shifter who'd grown up with a human family would have, I'm thinking she may either deliberately avoid some of those behaviors or at the very least understand that humans find them strange, but at the same time, just often enough to throw people off, she may do something that's a tell.

You make a good point that she probably won't care about the smell of sweat, except possibly as a precaution against detection as a shadowrunner. I'm thinking of giving her Allergy: Perfume, however, and I remember my dog just hating floral shampoo. I imagine a lot of "pleasant" herbal smells might agitate the hell out of her.

They become 'human' shape so they get human glands. I mena look at how it goes in the other direction. Human looknig hsifter goes to wolf form and they get a snout and furry- they're not snouted and furry in human form, right?

They probably cool down the same way as the rest of the 'punks do in Shadowrun.

Ice Cold Brews at the nameless scuzpit in the Barrens.

You have to punch the bartender in the neck to get the cold ones. And you have to beat up the bouncer to get to the bartender to punch him. On the bright side, no ID Check!