I’ve had this question for awhile now. Is shapeshifting a lot more common than I thought it was? Obviously Druids shapeshift and Medivh and Kadghar could as well but I always thought that was thanks to the staff of Atiesh. However, in BFA there is a Troll shaman who flies to your location as a bird and then changes back. Does this mean that, lore wise, a mage can cast polymorph on themselves or a shaman can change into more than just a ghost wolf/raptor?
1 Like
Polymorph generally inhibits movement/action, so there’d be few good reasons to use it on one’s self. A shaman certainly can change into whatever the hell they’d want; raptors and wolves are just classic (orc) shamanistic animals, and are reflected as such ingame. Realistically, a tauren’s ‘should’ be a kodo, and a draenei’s an elekk, etc.
And a dwarf should be a keg.
It can roll.
2 Likes
Magic in general has a lot more overlap to it in lore than what we see in game, and this includes shapeshifting. It’s part of one of the magical schools that all magic uses to an extent, that being Transmutation, but the methods are generally different. It’s not necessarily a Mage casting Polymorph on themselves.
What sets Druids apart, at least those of Cenarion branches and even, to an extent, the Gonkian branches (the Zandalari seem to be an exception to this but I’ll get to them later), is that they don’t simply turn into a specific animal, but rather an embodied aspect of that animal, or the idea of it. This is why we never see, unless glyphed, Druid forms out in the wild, because Druids aren’t becoming any specific animal but rather the idea of that animal, which is why they get/need the blessings of that animal’s spirit, or a link to a Wild God who is tied to that specific animal.
The Thornweavers, for example, have no such Wild God blessings, and so they use their own variant of Druidism to craft forms that mimic the animals instead. Meanwhile, Zandalari Druids aren’t really Druids in lore, but rather Loa priests who are gifted the use of the forms directly. Only those tied to Gonk, the Loa of Shapes, have access to multiple animal forms like Cenarion Druids. Darkspear Druids seem to straddle the line, since they do have unique forms that don’t appear in nature, buuut that might just be due to Blizzard mucking about with their own lore.
Basically, changing one’s shape is doable by many different forms of magic, Druids just do it in a more potent and in-depth way.
3 Likes
My sense is that when a mage polymorphs someone, they have none of the muscle memory necessary to operate their new form. If you were suddenly a sheep, you’d have absolutely no idea how to walk properly.
The special power a druid has is that they actually know how to be an animal. Atiesh replicates this with an incredibly complex enchantment, far beyond a regular polymorph.
A shaman isn’t really “shapeshifting” in the traditional sense. They disconnect from material reality and become a spirit. Muscles and tendons and nerves don’t really factor in at that point.
2 Likes
Trolls priests and witch doctors can take the shape of the loa they worship. Many troll druids were priests beforehand and already knew a shape before gonk, shirvallah, and other loa taught them the rest
To be fair, I wouldn’t be surprised if some mages had developed a variation of the Polymorph spell that made it possible to retain control while in the new form, as well as cancel the effects of the spell at a whim. Mages create variations of spells more often than we really realize. The ease with which Jaina uses Mass Teleport is because she made a variant of Mass Teleport that was significantly less taxing to use, for example.
I always figured the Raven form used by Medhiv and later Khadgar was a variation on Polymorph.