Changeling

All words that appear in **bold** have in-game files which can be accessed by typing “info <topic>” once you’ve joined the guild.

## About the guild

The Changeling guild is based around adopting the **forms** of various animals to fight in. Forms come in various temperaments: Some are tough and can shrug off blows, others are agile and dodge them, others are aggressive and can focus on inflicting damage. There's an entire **biome** tucked away in the Changeling **pool** for you to search out and discover the forms that suit your playstyle.

Changelings rely on their **intrinsic** abilities, **skills**, and their animal forms over armor and weapons.

## Location

The Changeling pool is located in Pinnacle near the entrance to Chaos. (cot,n,w,n,n,e,n,w,enter)

## Quick start guide

* **com**: chat on the guild line
* **info**: access the guild help files
* **skills**: shows you the skills you can raise. As you raise your skills, your **complexity** (guild level) increases
* **intrinsics**: lists the powers that a Changeling will always have (regardless of current form) and the required skills to use them.
* **lore**: gives you information about an enemy
* **absorb**: takes the materials from a corpse to replenish **stamina** and **protoplasm.**
* **bioextract**: (you'll learn this after raising a few skills) extracts bioplasm from a corpse which is stored within a capsule so you may use it later to restore protoplam and stamina. Bioplasm can be shared among Changelings and there is a place in the guild (down from entrance) where you can borrow bioplasm or donate your excess.
* **morph** <form>: Shift to another known form. morph alone will consume protoplasm to heal your current form.
* **powers**: list various other powers that Changelings have

You'll start with two forms: your original **human** form as well as your new native **slime** form. Both of these forms are always available to you and do not cost **form points** to advance. Your human form is handy if you need to wear armor or wield weapons for a quest. While being able to wear armor is a perk of your human form and you're not penalized for it, wielding a weapon in combat will mean you will not make any progress towards your form familiarity or Changeling skills.

To really experience life as a Changeling, you'll want to seek out the Changeling **biome** inside the **pool**. You'll find it along the top of the pool. Once in the biome you can examine the various animals to see their attributes. When you find one that appeals to you, you can study it to learn how to take its form. While the creatures in the biome are somewhat tame, be a bit careful because they can kill you if you're very low-level. Check the shop for bioplasts or ask on the guild line to get some. Then it's time to go out into the world and kill things. The **newbie** info file has some areas you can start out in.

## Tips

* There's no "best" form. Working on your slime form has benefits, so consider this in addition to your animal forms. While you're in the biome, you'll need an a form capable of flight (like a bird or flying insect) to fully explore it.
* At first, since you're unfamiliar with your form, you will use fairly large amounts of stamina when you fight. As your form familiarly goes up, your stamina use will go down.
* morph by itself will use protoplasm to heal your current form.
* **bioluminesce** will use a small bit of stamina to generate light.
* The info files are pretty expansive and it's definitely worth taking the time to read them.
* If you're in an avian form, you won't be able to "get" anything. You'll need to use **swoop**.
* Changeling's prime stat constitution, so keep this high. The priority of the other stats is spelled out in *rcost*.
* **instinct** will fire after every hit, so so you should immediately do "instinct 999999 morph" so you will always use morph as often as possible to heal.
* **instinct2** should be used to bioconsume if your stamina or protoplasm is low. Also see the mud-wide *reflex* command (**help reflex**).
* **liquefy** doesn't always works, but sometimes it will save you, so it's a good option for the mud-wide *panic* or *reflex* commands (**help panic** and **help reflex**).

## Forms

Each form in the biome had three dispositions: agility, aggression, and toughness. Agility determines how often a form dodges, aggression determines how hard a form hits, and toughness determines how much damage a form can take. Each form also has a form group, which is one of: amphibian, annelid, arachnid, avian, crustacean, insect, mammal, mollusc, other, reptile.

When lookin at a form in the biome (or at your own **form** command) you will see which disposition is the highest and which is the lowest; the one not mentioned is somewhere in between. While most forms have the same total overall stats, forms with special abilities will have slightly lower total stats.

Full list of forms

### Agility

* extremely slow
* very slow
* somewhat sluggish
* average agility
* agile
* swift and agile
* very swift and agile
* extremely swift and agile

### Aggression

* extremely docile
* docile
* lacks aggression
* average aggression
* aggressive
* very aggressive
* vicious
* extremely vicious

### Toughness

* extremely frail
* very frail
* frail
* average toughness
* robust
* tough
* very tough
* extremely tough

## Status string

At the end of the Changeling HP bar is a set of letter which indicate the active powers a Changeling is using. First of all, there is a single character (B, N, or D) which indicates the current state of the chaotic flux's affect on us (Beneficial, Neutral, or Detrimental). This affects our overall combat ability. The second set of character indicates the active guild powers. All can be **info**ed. They are:

* **A**: adrenalize - increases damage at the cost of stamina
* **P**: perform - repeats an action each round
* **H**: hyperproliferate - Uses spell points to boost protoplasm regeneration
* **D**: dissipate - Actively counters incoming damage at the cost of stamina
* **G**: augment - Modifies your form to increase an attribute
* **B**: bioluminence - Glowy!
* **V**: perseverance - Uses stamina (less than dissipate) try and maintain your form
* **T**: thermotaxis - Uses stamina to actively super heat or cool your body to inflice fire/ice damage. If ANSI is on, it will be red for heat nd white for cool.

## Bioplasts (Deprecated)

Before changelings mastered the art of containing bioplasm in a single physical vessel, each corpse consumed produced a single bioplast. For historical reasons, the following description of bioplasts is left:

```
Changelings can use the '''bioextract''' ability to create '''bioplast'''s to use to regenerate Stamina and Protoplasm.  They come in a variety of qualities ranging from:
* Dark
* Murky
* Turbid
* Opaque
* Cloudy
* Milky
* Translucent
* Transparent
```