ATHANATOS: animal bodies
Animal bodies are cheap but very versatile host bodies, and they have the added advantage of being innocuous in many situations. Animals have a weak proto-soul, and a human or daimons soul can ride the body while the animal soul still occupies it, which means while the human or daimon soul is in control, the instincts and personality of the animal will alter its behaviour to some degree. Additionally, depending on how alien the rider acts and whether the animal is trained for these situations, the animal might fight the rider for control of the body. While it doesn’t have much of a chance of winning such a contest, it might mean that the rider is distracted during critical situations and looses some of his fine motor control over the body.
Many owners of animal bodies don’t want to deal with these problems, and remove the animal proto-soul entirely, a practice decried by druids, who as a rule do not want to let lasting harm to come to the animals they ride. While this practice removes any problems with controlling the host body, it means that the body will become comatose and die while not occupied with a soul. As a result, such bodies will usually be either placed in suspended animation or regularily possessed by a soul (usually a daimon) that causes the body to eat and fulfil any other functions required for the mainenance of the body. Additionally, the host soul is not as used to the body as the original soul, and thus it will be less able to use the body to its fullest potential as the original soul.
Also into the category of “animal bodies” fall some unusual mage-shaped animals, animals that were bred over generations with the use of magic. While these can hardly be called “natural” animals, in practice they function in the same way.
Sample Animal Bodies[edit]
Page: Cats
Page: Dogs
Page: Eagles
Page: Giant Bats
Page: Giant Spiders
Page: Tigers
GURPS Game Mechanics[edit]
In GURPS terms, when a soul rides an animal body, it acquires all physical advantages, disadvantages, and skills of the animal. In addition, the rider is subject to all mental disadvantages of the animal, although the self-control rolls become one step easier.
If the proto-soul of the animal is removed, the soul acquires all physical advantages and disadvantages of the animal, but not its skills. If the soul spends more time in the animal body than out of it, he will eventually acquire some of the mental disadvantages of the animal – first in Quirk form, and later as full-fledged disadvantages.
