Primal Polymorphs

As the name implies, shapeshifters can be a varied bunch, and there are as many ways of life for them as there are different kinds of shapeshifter. However, one recurring variant involves the shapeshifters being portrayed as deeply tied to nature, lacking advanced technology, perhaps even animalistic in some way.

Though most popular with depictions of werewolves, werefolk, and other exclusively animalistic shapeshifters, it may also be applied to more atypical polymorphs who can impersonate humans, inanimate objects, or even elemental forces of nature.

The simplicity of the shapeshifter's lifestyle depends on the portrayal. In some cases, it's just a tradition that they don't have to abide by at all times, returning to a life in the wilderness only on special occasions. Other such shapeshifters may live full-time in small villages and camps far from advanced technology, either by preference or by necessity. Others still may lack human social skills or sport animalistic behaviors; some may even live alone in the wilderness, living so simply they may be mistaken for animals even when in human form... and a few literally are animals, either from birth or by accident — The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body, after all.

May overlap with the Magical Native American and the Druid. A possible form of Personality Powers.

Compare Working-Class Werewolves.

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Examples

Audio Plays

• Big Finish Doctor Who:
  • Downplayed in "The Holy Terror", in which Frobisher has picked up some behavioural quirks from his adopted Shapeshifter Default Form, hunting fish in much the same way as a real penguin would — even though, as the Doctor points out, he shouldn't even need to go hunting since the TARDIS is stocked to the gills with tinned tuna. Unfortunately, this leads to Frobisher misusing the console controls to create a hologram fish that he can hunt — whereupon the TARDIS goes on strike in protest, kicking off the events of the episode.
  • Zig-zagged in "Loups Garoux". The werewolves don't mind using modern technology like trains, but only a few of them are entirely comfortable living in cities, to the point that their preferred meeting grounds is a ranch in the desert. By contrast, their ancient forefather Pieter Stubbe despises humans for destroying the old forests, will only use technology by psychically forcing humans to operate it for him, and is gleefully devoted to restoring the old status quo of werewolves ruling over humans as apex predators. When he takes over the De Santos pack, his mental influence quickly reduces the civilized werewolves to a pack of frenzied monsters that he uses to conquer Rio de Janeiro in the space of a single evening.

Comic Books

• Transformers Windblade: The long-lost Cybertron colony world of Eukaris is inhabited by Cybertronians with animal alt-modes only. Compared to other worlds, it's very low-tech, with the inhabitants living in fairly simple stone of wood structures instead of the massive metal towers seen in cities Cybertron. Overall, they seem to avoid using technology (aside from their own bodies) as much as possible.

Film — Animated

• NIMONA (2023): The title character is a relentlessly chaotic Perpetually Protean Shapeshifting Trickster who operates almost exclusively through spur-of-the-moment decisions — though on the upside, her more primal viewpoint allows her to understand things that more civilized individuals have trouble accepting. It's eventually revealed that she used to live almost exclusively as an animal in search of companionship before she finally took human form and introduced herself to the human being she wanted to befriend. Said human was none other than Gloreth, the founder of the Institute a thousand years prior to the events of the movie.
• Wolf Children: Ame, one of the two titular wolf children, doesn't connect to human life and feels much more comfortable in nature in his wolf form. While his sister Yuki tries to adapt to human society, Ame begins embracing his wolf side, especially after he is mentored by an elderly fox. The fox dies, and Ame takes his place as ruler of the forest. His mother Hana accepts he's found his calling.

Film — Live-Action

• Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Doric is a shapeshifter with the power to assume a wide variety of shapes, including a fly, a worm, a mouse, a hawk, a cat, a deer, and even an owlbear... and as the team's druid, she's not only devoted to the preservation of the forest, but also blunt, lacking in social skills, and more than a bit on the misanthropic side.
• Underworld (2003):
  • Downplayed in the case of the Lycans; they're definitely Working-Class Werewolves, occasionally growl in anger, and aren't above the occasional fight for entertainment — prompting Lucian to yell at his underlings for acting like "a pack of rabid dogs" — but otherwise remain largely non-animalistic. They even have a Mad Scientist in their ranks. Most of their true sophistication is ignored by their vampire enemies, who believe that the Lycans aren't smart enough to have developed their own UV bullets and assume that the only reason why Lycans would stalk a human would be for food.
  • By contrast, the original Lycan strain (born from William Corvinus) are little more than animals, rendered entirely feral by the virus that created them, transforming only once before spending the rest of their lives as rampaging monsters.
• The VVitch: The eponymous villain is capable of numerous feats of shapeshifting alongside her usual magic, being first encountered by William and Caleb while in the form of a hare, later uses the shape of a beautiful young woman to lure in Caleb, and it's implied that she's been sneaking around the farm in other forms. She also lives exclusively in the forest, preys on animal carcasses like a beast, is often covered in blood and filth, and is usually naked in her true form. As such, she's set up as a direct contrast with the Puritan family, who desperately cling to civilization and fear the wilderness even before the Witch shows up. She's actually part of an entire coven of forest-dwelling witches, all of whom are depicted naked and feral.

Literature

• Early in Animorphs, Tobias ends up permanently stuck as a red-tailed hawk after a mission gone wrong. Over time, he grows so accustomed to living as a real hawk in the wild, he almost forgets what he looked like a human and seriously considers mating with another hawk. However, even when he gets his morphing power back courtesy of the Ellimist, Tobias still lives in the woods, eats mice, and only occasionally makes use of his human morph.
• In Camouflage by Joe Haldeman, the shapeshifting alien known as the Changeling has spent so many thousands of years away from its advanced technology, it's forgotten its old identity and regressed to an almost animalistic level of intelligence. By the start of the novel the Changeling has existed solely in the form of various animals — up until it encounters a surfer one day and decides to be human for a change. As such, the Changeling's first attempts at blending in are very crude, leading to numerous criminal misunderstandings before it finally learns the rules. Subverted in the case of the Chameleon, the other shapeshifting alien of the story, who is an expert in Humanshifting and has learned to blend in much more effectively than his semi-heroic counterpart.
• Played tragically in the Earthsea books. A cautionary tale every wizard student knows tells of a wizard who liked becoming a bear so much, one day he became a bear for real and killed his own son. The people were forced to hunt him down after that.
• In Adrian Tchaikovsky's Echoes of the Fall series, the various tribes are all capable of shapeshifting into the animal they revere, with a few unique individuals known as Champions capable of assuming an additional form or two. Given that the highest level of technology in the setting seems to be somewhere around the early Iron Age, most cultures in the setting tend to live in small villages close to nature, with the exception of the more urban Crocodile tribe. In particular, tribes who survive through marauding like the Wolf and the Dragon style themselves as natural predators in their attacks on less aggressive tribes.
• Hagwood: The Werlings live in Treetop Towns deep in the eponymous forest, living a much more primitive life compared to the humans and dwarves of the setting, who appear to be on a Mediaeval/Renaissance level. For good measure, their shapeshifting powers are primarily put to use in avoiding predators.
• The Hobbit: Beorn is Ambiguously Human — either a man who becomes a bear or a bear who becomes a man. He lives alone, off the land, mostly subsiding on honey while lovingly treating his ponies and other animals like his children. He tolerates visitors but prefers solitude in the wilderness... and when provoked, he's not above shifting to his black bear form and killing anyone who dares to threaten himself or his animal friends.
• The Nekropolis Archives:
  • Zig-zagged. The "Lykes" each have the power to assume a single animalistic form but despite their brutish reputation, they don't reject modern technology and several of them even sport cybernetic implants. On the other hand, their home district in Nekropolis is Wyldwood, a literal forest with a hunting lodge at its heart, and every year, the Lykes take part in a traditional Wild Hunt in they kill and eat specially bred live prey.
  • Darklord Amon, King of the Lykes, is a master shapeshifter who can transform in ways that his underlings can only dream of — even appearing Perpetually Protean when undisguised. He's also a strict traditionalist, living in the Wyldwood, hosting the Wild Hunt, and generally disapproving of more overtly modified Lykes... though upon finding that Matt Richter took out two cyborg Lykes, Amon is angry enough to extend the Wild Hunt to Matt and Devona.
• Red Dwarf:
  • Exaggerated in the case of the Polymorphs in Better Than Life. Though their ancestors were intelligent Genetically Engineered Life Forms, millennia of exile in the brutal wilderness of Garbage World gradually whittled away at them until their shapeshifting descendants were essentially little more than animals. As such, though Polymorphs can turn into anything from inanimate objects to beams of light, they are driven entirely by hunger, and even their human impersonations are motivated entirely by predatory instinct.
  • In Last Human, the Symbi-morphs were deliberately engineered to be more primitive than the other GELFs on the colony ship. Though intelligent, they behave like domesticated dogs, being slavishly loyal, unthinkingly eager to please, and psychologically dependent on their bonded masters. Though commonly "employed" as prostitutes capable of taking literally any form and fulfilling any sexual taste, Symbi-morphs are treated as animals by the rest of the GELF State, to the point of being "broken" before they can be used and even threatened with spaying as punishment for disobedience.
• "Shape"^note also known as "Keep Your Shape" by Robert Sheckley features a race of Voluntary Shapeshifters with a strict Fantastic Caste System that restricts them to a single shape. They've been trying to conquer Earth by sending scouts to create a portal between the two planets, but they've all vanished without a trace. In the climax, it turns out the scouts haven't been hunted down by humans as the scout commander believes, but have all gone native, preferring the freedom to choose their shape to the restrictions their culture demands... and most of them are living as animals or even plants on a long-term basis. By the end of the story, the latest team have all gone the same way.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • The Proteans are Blob Monsters with the ability to shape their bodies for a wide variety of purposes, and some can even be taught to effectively mimic human beings. However, they're not especially intelligent by human standards, maintain no written records apart from simple stone carvings, and prefer to live naturally in the wilds of their home planets.
  • The Pulra are another blob-like race of shapeshifters that enjoy merging with each other, even with other species — to the extent that some think they might be willing to become prosthetic organs. However, they prefer to live in insect-like colonies in the wild, and though they can understand technology like space travel, they don't appear interested in using it.
  • Implied in the case of the Shi'ido. Arguably the most powerful shapeshifting race in the galaxy, they are so introverted and secretive that many explorers are convinced that their rainforest homeworld of Lao-Mon is uninhabited, especially since there are no settlements nor signs of technology on the entire planet. As such, unless there's some vast underground city that no previous explorers have been able to detect, Shi'ido live in the wild, using their abilities to make themselves comfortable without the use of technology. However, they're not opposed to the use of technology, as many of them have left the planet and have made a living in mainstream galactic society — the most famous of them being Senior Anthropologist Hoole.
• Tales of the Frog Princess:
  • Downplayed by Haywood. He's human but spent thirty years under a curse that turned him into an otter. He says he got used to life as an animal relatively quickly, and by the time he's turned back, he's spent much more of his life as an otter than a man. While he's able to return to human society thanks to his friends, he doesn't do well in crowds and prefers a very simple life away from most people.
  • Similarly downplayed by Emma and Eadric. Emma was always a Rebellious Princess who preferred spending time in the swamp to the castle, though this was largely due to wanting to get away from her controlling mother and her attempts to marry her off. After being turned into a frog, she grows even more comfortable in the swamp and forest, but she's able to reintegrate into human society with no trouble, due to only having been a frog for a couple weeks. Eadric also has no trouble, despite having been transformed for about a year. However, both feel completely at ease in the wilderness and talking to animals, and Emma in particular seems to like being in nature better than at court. Once she learns to transform herself into a dragon voluntarily, she splits her time about 50/50 between being a human and being a dragon, seeing it as an escape from her human life. At one point, she internally admits that, if not for her beloved Eadric, she might consider just living the rest of her life as a dragon, free in the wild.
• In the later books in The Twilight Saga, especially following the events of Eclipse, werewolf Jacob spends many weeks living in the forest in his wolf form, as he finds it easier to cope with the pain of Bella rejecting him romantically. However, he eventually returns to living in human civilization.

Live-Action TV

• Grimm:
  • Downplayed in the case of several Wesen breeds; though species like the Blutbaden and the Jagerbar have animalistic instincts that may require them to the mark their territory and may abide by traditions requiring them to hunt in the wild, they have no problem with living in urban environments. Blutbaden main character Monroe occasionally indulges in a few of these rituals, even helping out in a traditional coming-of-age ceremony for young Wesen at one point, but still spends the rest of his time as a mild-mannered suburban clockmaker.
  • "Let Your Hair Down" features a Blutbaden teenager by the name of Holly Clark living a feral existence in the woods, almost incapable of speech and even using her hair as a noose against intruders in her territory. It's revealed that she was abducted by a neighbor when she was young and escaped into the woods when she "fanged out" for the first time, ultimately staying there in a state of confusion over what she'd become. Thankfully, Nick and Monroe are able to get through her and the episode ends with Holly being reunited with her mother — and helping to bring her abductor to justice.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
  • Played with in the case of the Changelings. They're a Higher-Tech Species, but they don't seem to actually like using technology themselves, preferring to leave that to their allies while they spend their time on their wild homeworld as the "Great Link", an Alien Sea consisting of billions of shapeshifters in their natural liquid state, united as collective Hive Mind and living in a state of constant euphoria. Changelings generally only take independent form if they absolutely have to — for example, if there's a problem their genetically engineered Vorta minions and Jem'Hadar troops can't handle themselves, hence why nobody knows that the Founders of the Dominion are all Changelings until the events of "The Search".
  • Laas, a nomadic Changeling encountered in "Chimera", comments that he prefers the company of simple creatures to that of humanoids, and often spends time in animal form as part of a herd.
    "The truth is, I prefer the so-called primitive lifeforms. They exist as they were meant to, following their instincts. No words to get in the way, no lies or deceptions."

Mythology

• Celtic Mythology: In Irish mythology, the druid Fintan Mac Bochra was one of the first men to settle Ireland, ^note And in the company of a granddaughter of Noah, at least in later versions of the story retold by Christians; in the original myth, she's just Cessair, Fintan's wife (lineage unknown), and is on record as preferring nature to the company of other human beings — to the point of jumping into a river rather than spend another minute in the company of the fifty women who'd taken the journey with him,^note In many versions of the story, the only other surviving male settlers had died of exhaustion while trying to impregnate said women, and Fintan didn't want to end up getting stuck satisfying their needs as well and later living alone in a mountaintop cave where nobody could find him. Fintan also demonstrated numerous shapeshifting powers^note learned by speaking with animals, at least in some versions of the story: surviving a flood^note In the Christianized version of the story, it's actually the Biblical Flood by becoming a salmon, he remained that way for over a year before becoming an eagle, then a hawk, before finally reverting to human form — eventually going on to become an advisor to the kings of Ireland for the next five thousand years.
• Classical Mythology: Proteus, the shapeshifting Old Man of the Sea, eschewed the luxurious life of more prominent gods in favour of deliberate obscurity. He dwelled alone on the shores of a remote island, where he shepherded seals and lay down to sleep in the sunlight... or at least, he preferred to do that, but human heroes were always trying to capture him in order to use his prophetic wisdom to answer their every question, and no amount of Voluntary Shapeshifting he used could put them off.

Tabletop Games

• Ars Magica: House Bjornaer magi have unique powers of Animorphism and a preference for protecting the wild places of the world. Their Home Base is an Enchanted Forest that they share with powerful Nature Spirits, and many Bjornaer become animal spirits at the end of their natural lives.
• Dungeons & Dragons: "Wild Shape" is one of the signature abilities of the nature-attuned eco-warrior Druid class, allowing them to assume the form of creatures with the "beast" creature type.
• Mage: The Ascension:
  • The Verbena were originally drawn from paganistic traditions such as the druids and continue to revere nature to this day, being the most likely of all the Traditions to disparage modern technology. They are also masters of the Life Sphere, allowing them impressive feats of transformation and longevity.
  • One of the hardline Verbena sects, the Lifeweavers, take the Tradition's worship of nature and shapeshifting to its logical conclusion: they prefer to live solitary lives in the wild, tend to go completely naked, dislike most forms of civilization, are stereotyped (wrongly) as animalistic to the point of madness... and of course, they spend vast amounts of time in other forms, obsessively experiencing life as wolves, eagles, insects, even trees. Even the ones who visit cities — like the "Shapeshifter" character template — do so only as chameleonic drifters, adopting multiple identities just to know what it'd be like to experience the "modern wilderness" as a different age, sex, or race.
  • The Madzimbabwe of The Sorcerer's Crusade are one of two Disparate groups based among the tribes of sub-Saharan Africa. Unlike the strictly urban ritualists of the Ngoma, the Madzimbabwe prefer a rural existence as tribal witch doctors and specialize in shapeshifting, to the point that they've even been able to develop a halfway-friendly relationship with the local Changing Breeds. Less pleasantly, they've drawn an unhealthy amount of influence from the Garou Nation's Impergium, to the point that they're in the habit of using their shapeshifting powers to cull society of "expendable" individuals.
  • One of the Infernalist templates in The Sorcerer's Crusade: Infernalism, the Wildling, is essentially a Wild Child that uses the Life Sphere to make herself one with nature in the most horrific ways. Largely incapable of human speech, unwilling to wear clothes, and prone to fucking wild animals, she enjoys shapeshifting into beastly forms so she can hunt down human intruders in her territory.
• Mage: The Awakening:
  • Shapeshifting spells are powered by the Primal Wild, the platonic ideal of nature unbound, so mages with an affinity for it tend to be more in tune with the natural world than the trappings of modern society.
  • The Orphans of Proteus legacy take it a step further: they can innately take animal (or plant or mineral) forms and communicate with animals and Nature Spirits, and almost all of them take to the wilderness, sometimes abandoning human speech entirely.
• Magic: The Gathering: The Changelings of Lorwyn have no true society or culture of their own. Instead, they roam freely around the world, reflexively taking on the shapes and living the lives of the creatures that they encounter.
  Today it flies with the flock. Tomorrow it may wake to find them gone, its body in an unfamiliar form. — Avian Changeling
• In the Old World of Darkness crossover game Midnight Circus:
  • Enforced in the case of Dimitri Babinov, an Ursine-born Gurahl — or at least he was a Gurahl until he was captured and press-ganged into Koba's Clown Show. A combination of Koba's Wyrm-given powers and the entropic influence of the Midnight Circus itself has gradually worn down Babinov's consciousness until he's been reduced to non-sapience, believing himself to be nothing more than a tame bear.
  • The Tab of Flesh is a liquefied Nosferatu child-vampire capable of semi-Voluntary Shapeshifting, but thanks to all the traumas he's suffered over the course of his unlife, he's been reduced to an almost bestial level of existence on the fringes of the Circus. He's still intelligent enough to refuse child victims, but compulsively hides himself from view, instinctively shies away from light, cannot speak coherently, and is treated as little more than a guard dog by his masters.
• Pathfinder: The Primal spell list (mostly used by Druids, but also by some Sorcerers and Witches) from 2nd edition has more polymorph spells than the other lists, including Animal Form, Dinosaur Form, and Dragon Form. Druids of the Wild Order also get the Wild Shape focus spell, which doesn't use spell slots.
• Vampire: The Masquerade:
  • The Gangrel clan not only possess a clan-unique Discipline of Protean, allowing them to shapeshift into wolves, bats, mist, earth, and even fire, but they're also the most animalistic of the thirteen clans. Solitary, territorial, and individualistic, they're one of the few clans that are comfortable outside cities and are even in the habit of abandoning their newly Embraced children in the wilderness as a rite of passage to test their survival skills.
  • Efrain Sortano (AKA the Zookeeper) of Mexico City By Night is a surprising case of this, given the Tzimisce clan's reputation for Old World nobility and scholarly pursuits. One of the few non-Gangrel to have learned Protean, his mastery of both the Discipline and Vicissitude allows him to become almost any animal imaginable. These days, he prefers to live exclusively in animal form and doesn't even remember what he looked like in life; in fact, he's so enamored with animal life that his territory is the zoo in Chapultepec Park — hence his alias.
  • In the Gehenna scenario "Fair Is Foul", one of the seven Apostates serving Lilith is a master shapeshifter by the name of Ikopabe. Believed to be either a Gangrel Methuselah, the forefather of the Akunanse legacy, or even the Monster Progenitor of the Laibon, he's not only mastered Protean but an African shapeshifting Discipline, Abombwe. And as his profile reveals, he's very primal: he loves to hunt, struggles to comprehend lying, abides by a strict code of honour, and almost never speaks... and when he does, it's in an ancient African dialect that only Lilith and the other Apostates are old enough to remember.
  • Ennoia, the Gangrel Antediluvian. Even before she was Embraced, she is said to have grown up as a Wild Child abandoned by her mother and literally Raised by Wolves (at least in one version of the story). As a vampire, she is often depicted as a wild and sometimes even monstrous figure made all the more ominous for being the undisputed master of Protean. Taken to the logical conclusion in the Gehenna scenario "The Crucible Of God", in which Ennoia has gained such mastery in Protean that she manifests entirely as the ground beneath people's feet... and she's so alien and so hungry that she can't even operate on a vaguely human level, instead simply levelling cities with Protean so she can feast on the vampires inside.
• Warhammer:
  • Human wizards who practice the Lore of Beasts can take animal forms and usually prefer the wilderness to human company, thanks in part to the mental and physical effects of their magic alienating them from humans.
  • Beastmen Bray-Shamans can also use the Lore of Beasts and are, if anything, even more animalistic. Beastmen despise all but the simplest forms of civilization and the shamans of their tribes are no exception, openly glorying in the murder of priests, the ruin of sacred places, the destruction of relics, and even defecation on altars. As such, their shapeshifting powers are often put to use in spying on their human enemies and spreading chaos among their cities in advance of an attack.
  • Dryads are Nature Spirits that take the form of ambulatory plant-people and are capable of shapeshifting into various forms for both subterfuge and combat: they like using their powers to pose as beautiful women so they can lure in prey, but once the target gets close enough, they take on the aspect of a tree that can allow them to most effectively overcome their opponent — birch for stabbing, oak for resilience, willow for throttling. For good measure, they're just as technophobic and xenophobic as the rest of the Wood Elf army... but take it to another level altogether by hating even their Wood Elf allies for invading their forest.
• Werewolf: The Apocalypse:
  • Most of the Garou Nation prefers to live in the wild, existing as tribes gathering around Caerns, revering Gaia and the Wyld, and worshipping tribal spirits in the form of totems. Given that modern technology and society are essentially creations of the Wyrm and the Weaver, most Garou strongly dislike interacting with either one. For good measure, werewolves can be born from humans or wolves, meaning that a significant portion of the Garou populace started out as ordinary wolves before they learned to think and shapeshift.
  • The Red Talons tribe takes this tendency to its logical conclusion: they're so opposed to human influence that they tolerate no Homid members whatsoever, and quite a few of them would gladly see a return to the days of the Impergium in which the Garou regularly culled humanity through brutal attacks.
  • Subverted in the case of the Bone Gnawer and the Glass Walker tribes, both of whom prefer urban environments and — in the latter case — surrounding themselves with technology, much to the aggravation of their more traditionalist brethren in other tribes.
  • Many of the other Changeling tribes of the Fera are also stereotyped as living simply in the wilderness, either as tribes or as individuals. In the most extreme case, the Rokea are so devoted to the ocean that they almost never leave it unless they absolutely have to, regarding those of their kind who live on land as a bit on the weird side. They're also almost exclusively born from sharks and in the practice of murdering any Homid Rokea they find.

Video Games

• Diablo II: The druid class has the ability to turn into a werewolf (for greater speed and agility) or werebear (for greater strength and stamina).
• Dragon Age: Origins:
  • The shapeshifting mages Flemeth and Morrigan live in a tiny hut in the swamps of the Korcari Wilds, dress in crude homespun robes, and are occasionally mistaken for Chasind folk by the more "civilized" peoples to the north. At least part of this is due to their need to avoid the Templars, though it's clear that the two just don't like people — to the point that Flemeth made a game out of hunting down Templars intruding on her swamp. Meanwhile, Morrigan strongly dislikes handshakes, lacks social skills, disapproves of the controlled lives of loyalist mages, and prior to joining the Warden's team, she preferred to observe others from a distance as an animal... unless she felt like stealing something shiny.
  • The Werewolves of the Brecillian Forest prefer to gather in packs and live as animals, even though they retain their minds and can still speak — though only their leader Witherfang can still assume a humanoid form. For good measure, they generally come across as animalistic and consumed with rage, refusing to negotiate with the Dalish Elves to the point of waging a war of annihilation against them. This is because the Dalish leader Zathrian is directly responsible for transforming them into werewolves and using them to make himself immortal.
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: If you spare the werewolf Sindig during the "Ill Met By Moonlight" quest, he promises to live as a wolf, away from civilization, in order to avoid repeating the incident where he transformed involuntarily and murdered a young girl in the town of Falkreath.
• Knights of the Old Republic: Taking part in the Genoharadan missions will eventually result in you being sent after Rulan Prolik, an assassin and master shapeshifter. Though Hulas fears that he may eventually move to Coruscant and endanger the Senate, Rulan seems content to enjoy his off-hours on wilder planets, amusing himself by hunting the local megafauna while armed with nothing but his own powers. His current stomping grounds are the Shadowlands of Kashyyyk, where he's more than willing to indulge in Hunting the Most Dangerous Game when sapient beings stray into his turf, toying with his victims like a cat before slaughtering them in a horrifically animalistic fashion — to the point that the local Wookies view Rulan as some kind of Eldritch Abomination.
• The Secret World:
  • Zig-zagged in the case of Cucuvea. A mystic known mainly for her ability to transform herself into an owl, she lives the life of a Solitary Sorceress under a tree in rural Transylvania, wears clothes made from leaves, makes tea out of bark, and dislikes modern technology. Plus, she only ever leaves in owl form. However, it turns out the reason she dislikes modern tech is because she's old enough to remember the impossibly advanced Magitek of the Third Age and finds 20th-century computers and cameras primitive by comparison.
  • The werewolves are reduced to semi-sentient beasts by their first transformation, a fact that the vampires exploit in order to domesticate them into attack animals. It takes decades before they regain enough of their minds to resist their instincts and vampire indoctrination, and most of them don't live that long. Questgiver Trian is the lone exception to the rule.
  • In "Who Horrifies the Horrors?", werewolves are sent fleeing in terror from a shapeshifting monster known as the Dark Woods Horror. On top of being more powerful than the werewolves, it's little more than a rampaging beast incapable of reasoning and driven to brutally slaughter everything in its path. It's the result of the Orochi Group's experiments in spreading lycanthropy to children, allowing them greater shapeshifting powers than true werewolves — but also driving them incurably rabid.
• Warcraft:
  • Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos: The nature-attuned Night Elves have two shapeshifters among their ranks: the Druid of the Claw and Druid of the Talon, who can turn into a bear and a bird respectively.
  • World of Warcraft: The Druid class, available for the less civilized, more primal races such as night elves, tauren, and trolls, as well as the werewolf-like worgen, have several shapeshifting options: a Cat form for great agility, a Bear form for great strength, a cheetah-like Travel form, a seal-like Aquatic form and a bird-like Flying form for fast travel on land, water, and air, and Treant and owlbear-like Moonkin forms for improved spellcasting. Morphic Resonance is at play, as the beast form retains some of the druid's racial features (pointy ears and purplish color for nigh elves, horns for tauren, tusks for trolls, etc.).

Western Animation

• Love, Death & Robots:
  • In "Good Hunting", the huli jing are essentially sapient super-agile foxes in their true forms; they live in forests and under rocks, maintain fox-like hunting tendencies, and can be very casual about being nude even while disguised as human beings. Unfortunately, the British occupation and industrialization of China results in huli jing like Yan losing their powers, leaving her trapped in a human form full-time, unable to support herself except through prostitution. However, after Yan suffers Unwilling Robotisation at the hands of the Governor, Liang is able to use his mastery of technology to let her shapeshift again, allowing her to resume her hunts — this time preying upon British rapists.
  • A major plot point in "Shapeshifters". Decker starts out abiding by protocol, maintaining only a few animalistic habits like travelling barefoot and occasionally voicing misgivings of the human marines' dependence on technology. However, after Sobieski is killed, Decker disobeys orders and hunts down the enemy werewolf responsible — naked and using the full extent of his powers. Once he's done, he buries Sobieski with a farewell of "see you in the wild", before deserting the marines out of disgust for their Fantastic Racism, instead opting to live alone in the deserts of Afghanistan from then on.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: The shapeshifting Changelings reside in a massive hive, and while fully sapient, act more like animals when attacking, hissing viciously and trapping their victims in cocoons. Following the group's Heel–Race Turn however, their new ruler Thorax takes steps to avert this, with the Changelings taking an interest in such things as art and theatre.
• Amethyst of Steven Universe is fond of shapeshifting more than the other Crystal Gems and while pretty civilized is characterized as very impulsive, irreverent and hedonistic compared to them. Most specifically, even though gems have no physical needs she indulges in things like sleep and eating with gusto, even eating things that aren't food. Her backstory also reveals that she was found in an abandoned site, essentially a Wild Child, and shapeshifted to mimic the forms of whoever she interacted with.

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