Beastkin

*Beastkin have extraordinary abilities derived from the animal world, allowing them to partially or fully transform into animals, granting them deadly fangs, refined senses, and other such traits. A beastkin treads the line between nature and society, living with a foot in each.*

Beastkin is a blanket term for any person who has gained the ability to partially or fully transform into an animal through any number of means, while maintaining a balance with their humanoid side. Most beastkin are born of werecreatures or have a werecreature ancestor in their lineage. The curse might not always fully manifest in the child of the werecreature pairing, giving the child the transformative nature of their lineage without a weakness to silver or a loss of control during the full moon. Born or made, werecreatures usually hold such beastkin in high regard, as they embody many of their strengths without any of their weaknesses.

Aside from werecreatures, there are various other paths to becoming a beastkin. In some cases, a deity or a nature spirit may grant a chosen individual the power to transform. Others have gained the powers of beastkin through a trick of the fey or an unusual reaction to polymorph magic. There are even rumors that some rare beastkin might be shapeshifting animals that somehow gained the form of a sapient ancestry, rather than the other way around.

If you want a character that treads the boundaries between rationality and instinct, at home in both society and the wilds yet set apart from both, you should play a beastkin.

## You Might...

* Prefer the companionship of a close group of friends.
* Feel an attachment to your inherent animal and seek that animal out to understand them better.
* Wrestle with your animalistic side and choose to isolate yourself from those who may not understand your unique nature.

## Others Probably...

* Believe you practice primal magic or have a direct connection to the natural world.
* Assume that you love animals, especially those of the same kind as your inherent animal.
* Worry that you will lose yourself to your feral instincts and attack others.

## Physical Description

Beastkin come in all shapes and sizes due to the countless combinations of ancestry and inherent animal. Most beastkin resemble a typical member of their base ancestry so closely that they are indistinguishable as a beastkin when in their humanoid form. On rare occasions, a beastkin is born with features that believe their animalistic nature at all times.

A beastkin's nature is more obvious when they are transformed into their hybrid shape, their features shifting to resemble the animal to which they are connected. The manifestation of these features varies from beastkin to beastkin, but typically, their teeth become more prominent, their skin toughens like hide, their hair lengthens, and their eyes reshape. Beastkin that can transform into actual animals keep some traits that tie them to their humanoid form, such as retaining their eye color.

## Society

Beastkin typically weave themselves into their ancestral societies, hiding their true nature as much as necessary. Some societies, particularly nomadic or frontier societies, are more accepting of beastkin, allowing them to live in their preferred form without judgment. Beastkin tend to live in independent communities with other beastkin and werecreatures with the same inherent animal, finding that their association with the same animal instills a sense of fellowship. These communities usually reside in or near environments that match the habitats of their inherent animals. Other beastkin instead live on the fringes of society or away from it altogether, preferring to live on their own.

Most people don't understand that beastkin don't have to contend with the curse of moon frenzy and loss of self, nor do they have any way of telling beastkin apart from werecreatures by appearance alone. Because of this, many people treat beastkin just as they would a werecreature who wasn't free of the curse and might eat them on a full moon. People who know of beastkin and can identify them as such are usually much less apprehensive about associating with them. Beastkin are sometimes given the misnomer of “skinwalkers” by those who are only mildly aware of their existence. This name is derived from ignorant rumors about the evil origins of beastkin, but beastkin reject this name both to distance themselves from the evil associations and to clarify the diversity among the countless beastkin types throughout Golarion.

## Alignment and Religion

Most lean toward neutral alignments, but beastkin can be as varied in alignment as there are animals in the world. Nininnamara solely represents Beastkin and all that they are so many worship her with ease though those with hate in their hearts may look towards Crescentmaw or Teine-Teine instead.

## Adventurers

Common beastkin backgrounds include animal whisperer, farmhand, herbalist, hunter, nomad, scholar, and scout. Because most societies tend to fear beastkin, they often become outcasts and are also known to have the bandit, charlatan, criminal, hermit, prisoner, refugee, scavenger, and street urchin backgrounds.

Beastkin often become barbarians, druids, fighters, rangers, rogues, sorcerers, and witches.