the Mestaclocan (Mind/Nature Shapeshifter)

[Sailor Vulcan]

The Mestaclocan are a race of magical shapeshifters who roam the land in pursuit of wisdom, personal growth, and discovering others of their kind. No one knows where they came from, but it is said that you are most likely to find a Mestaclocan in the jungles and mountains of Etheria.

A mestaclocan, instead of summoning creatures normally, takes on their forms. Basically, they summon creatures attached to themselves instead of the zone, without giving them action markers. During the Upkeep phase, the mestaclocan chooses one of the creatures attached to themself to be their active form for the round. Regardless of the active form, the mestaclocan is still a mage, can still cast spells, and has the ability Blink X: by paying X mana, you can Blink X, where X is at most the number of forms that the mestaclocan has attached to themself plus 1. See ACG's custom codex.

All enchantments that target a mestaclocan instead target their active form. All damage that would be dealt to a mestaclocan is instead dealt to their active form. When one of their forms takes damage equal to or greater than its life, that form is destroyed, and the Mestaclocan reverts to their original form, which is incorporeal. A mestaclocan can only really die in their original form, which has 10 life.


Channeling is 9.
Original form cannot gain armor. Equipment that targets this mage only targets its original form.
Trained in Mind and Nature. Nonliving creatures cost triple.

What do you think?

Edit: I just realized that I had forgotten to include the wikipedia link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapeshifting#Powers

The Mestaclocan is a shapeshifter from mayan mythology that I found out about from reading the wikipedia page on shapeshifting. I did not invent the thematic concept myself. You (probably) have the early mayans to thank for that.

[ACG]

I like it! I've been playing around with the idea of a shapeshifter mage for a while (themed as the Howl, since they are already canon), though as Nature/Dark rather than Nature/Mind. The problem I've always had is why you would want to shapeshift rather than simply summoning the creature directly. You address this, though:

All enchantments that target a mestaclocan instead target their active form. All damage that would be dealt to a mestaclocan is instead dealt to their active form. When one of their forms takes damage equal to or greater than its life, that form is destroyed, and the Mestaclocan reverts to their original form, which is incorporeal. A mestaclocan can only really die in their original form, which has 10 life.

I think this is a nice incentive - the creatures you become are your armor. So while you have fewer actions, you are extremely hard to kill and can be very unpredictable (once you have a lot of creatures, your opponent could be facing anything next round).

In fact, you might want some disadvantage to make up for the incredible ability to survive and prevent the mage from just loading up on 'meatshield forms'. Since this is a Mind mage, upkeep costs could make sense.

On the other hand, 10 life/incorporeal is a pretty big disadvantage once the creature is stripped away, since there is no way for you to heal, and you can't shift again until the next round. Maybe it is fine.

I'm not sure if Blink is the best secondary ability for this mage. Also, as has been discussed elsewhere, Blink X > Y is not necessarily always better than Blink Y, since you might return to the zone that you left and have less control over your destination. Thematically, I can sort of see the Mestaclocan appearing randomly in different places, but maybe there is something better you could do.

Edit: Just saw your post on why blink works well with nature/mind mages. Sounds good, though you may want to be more explicit about the thematic justification.

A few questions:

1. You said that equipment only applies to the original form. If you are shapeshifted, can you still use your equipment? If not, then I assume your equipment is also not targetable, right?

2. Can you still choose to summon creatures normally?

[Sailor Vulcan]

Oh I almost forgot. I probably should give the Mestaclocan the subtype "spirit".

I'm thinking that the Mestaclocan are descended from a multiracial clan of nomads (mostly humans and elves) who, in their quest for enlightenment and personal growth,  found a way to partially ascend to a higher plane of existence, allowing them to travel between the mundane realm and the spirit realm. They are not fully ascended so cannot travel in the spirit realm for long stretches of time, but they can flit in and out. The older and more powerful mestaclocan's can pass through the spirit world more frequently. (they've learned more creature spells, so can take on more forms, so the maximum value of X in their Blink X ability is higher.)

When not in their original form a Mestaclocan's equipment is both unusable and untargetable. However, while it can't be used or targeted, equipment spells can still be cast on a mestaclocan while they're not in their original form.

You cannot summon creatures normally. However, I'm thinking a form with the familiar trait should be able to temporarily detach from the mestaclocan that controls them and use their creature action (by paying mana equal to their level plus one). I'm also wondering if it would be a good idea for the mestaclocan to have a spawnpoint that can summon creatures attached to friendly mestaclocan.