It's also, therefore, one of the few powers which will work nearly anywhere. Anyone with time can make a shadow where Pattern does not work, or Trump, or Logrus has no power. Luke found a blue crystal cave seemingly impervious to all of them, including magic.
Shapeshifting is a lot harder to stop. Oh, the Courts are well known for poisons and concoctions which can force a shapeshift, or prevent one, that is true. But there are precious few environments where shapeshifting simply fails to work.
Thus, it is the power that is the most reliable in that regard. On the other hand, shapeshifters have the threat of losing their form or identity permanently if shifting is carried to far, and there is the danger of things like chaos cancer to also contend with.
Note that some of the ideas for the partial basic shapeshifting go to Arref and Brian
Although the area is fine for oxygen breathers, the settlers still found a need to shapeshift to a minor extent to fully exploit the sea's riches. Thus, while full Shapeshifting is rare in Rebma (but not as rare as in Amber), a lesser set of abilities, called Rebman Adaptation, is quite common amongst the population. This ability for player characters is only open to those with Rebman ancestry.
It is not a conscious power, and it works everywhere normal full Shapeshifting does. The only way to really advance in Adaptation is to gain a greater control over one's ability to shapeshift, and so in essence, standard Shapeshifting, as per the ADRPG, is the only way to advance in this Power, although the Rebman would continue to have in his Human/Rebman form the advantages of regular Adaptation.
For example, it would NOT be wise to Trump from miles below the ocean's surface into the fiery plane surrounding the Keep of the Four Worlds if one were specially adapted for survival in the first of those places. Near instant searing of the lungs, blindness, and dehydration would be immediate effects if attention is not paid to the transition, and depressurization would create potentially deadly results. For higher ranked Endurances, this becomes less of a threat, but is almost always discomforting.
The GM should initially ask the player attempting such harsh transitions in environment if they have any preparations to make, like going to a more reasonable depth, etc, before using the spell or the Trump. Failure to do so can allow the GM to freely inflict upon foolish characters traditional diving maladies such as the bends, burst eardrums, sudden nausea or vomiting, dizziness, unconsciousness, and possible respiratory failure as natural consequences of rash behavior. Adaptation is not proof against character idiocy!
As with Shape Shifting, one's physical condition is of utmost importance when using Adaptation. Healthy, well fed characters with higher Endurance scores will be able to Adapt and survive sudden changes in environment far better than tired, malnourished, or characters ranked Human level in Endurance.
Since Adaptation does not cause one to change their personality in any significant fashion, high Psyche is not a requisite.
This ability the user to travel wherever one wishes within a watery environment, extracting oxygen enough for sustenance, and also lowering the amount of oxygen the body needs. This ability is of little use in breathing in non-oxygenated atmospheres, such as vacuums and alien world Shadows. The Power of Shape Shifting might be of more use here, allowing the character to Shape Shift into a being with different respiratory requirements. A side effect of this is that the character is able to speak while underwater, anywhere, and may henceforth hold conversations, use Trumps, spells, Power Words, etc...
Firstly, it strengthens muscles and adapts them to the motions most conducive to rapid, tightly controlled swimming. Adaptation gives the character some instinctual understanding of maneuvering in water, and maximizes their physical attributes to aid them in swimming.
Secondly, it allows the body to produce an oily film which is released through the pores, slippery and slick, which aids in making the character move unimpeded through the water. This ability does not impair motor functions or make the hands too slick to handle weapons or other items. It might be rendered useless if the body is covered with clothing, hence the scanty garb common to those in Rebma. The less impeded with clothing a Rebman is, the more this ability aids them in moving through the water.
Use Strength as a judge of the character's swimming speed, since Strength is a measure of muscle and it's applications, and speed and power swimming is a physical activity which builds and demands muscular ability.
This film quickly dissipates in outside air. One interesting potential use for it is in Strength Combat, where it might make a wrestler slippery and difficult to hold onto.
Endurance is the barometer of how much this ability will allow a character to withstand. Allow Human ranked Endurance characters the ability to remain in very cold (35-50 degrees Fahrenheit) water for long stretches of time without discomfort, Chaos Rank to survive freezing water or atmospheres (15-35 degrees), and Amber Rank the ability to remain in frozen waters for long-term periods of time. It is even possible that highly Ranked characters with this ability might be able to survive being frozen in ice for short time, hibernating until thawed.
Adaptation allows the character to survive without damage the changes in pressure that come from swimming downward, upward, or out of the confines of Rebma. It prevents cramping, deafness, depressurization, and other factors which characterize deep-sea diving.
With Adaptation, a character can swim freely up from the ocean's floor to the surface and vice versa, without the time consuming necessity of becoming acclimated to the gradual change in pressure.
This ability involves toughening the tissues of the body, alternately swelling them with blood and oxygen or dispersing them to meet the required pressures. Endurance governs the ability to resist these changes, and the ability of the body to adapt to differences in pressure. A Human Ranked character would be able to move down to about 200 feet or so beneath the surface without distress, and a Chaos Rank allows submersion up to 500 or so feet. Amber level allows the character to continue at depths of around 1000-1500 feet below the surface without harmful effects. Ranked characters may venture beyond this with some caution, with the points determining roughly the depths they might survive without considerable harm.
A character such as Corwin, with superiority in Endurance (if he possessed the Adaptation Power), would be able to survive depths unheard of, unexplored save for within immensely strong pressurized diving bells.
Rapidly changing from one atmosphere to another, can be devastating if the character is not prepared for the change.
Looking into the eyes of a character with this ability in use shows their pupils to be almost entirely black, similar to the way a cat's eyes dilate to allow night vision. The "flip-side" to this ability is that Adaptation allows the character to shrink the pupils to mere pinpoints, allowing only the slightest amount of light in. This is automatic and nearly instantaneous, preventing the Rebman character from blinded from a sudden teleportation or change in lighting. This may allow the Rebman to have some sort of immunity against blindness spells which rely on sudden changes of light, on the GM's discretion. At the very least, recovery from such is much greater.
Clued into regular tidal currents or familiar with the undersea topography, a character can navigate quite easily. However, this ability does not provide any clue to the whereabouts of a place the character has never been, and will not help find something if the character has no idea where to find it.
Consisting of a series of channels under the skin of most fish, the Adaptation power uses the human pores for this ability, allowing them to sense the presence and direction of changes in the flow of currents around them. Currents create vibrations in the channels (or pores) which are transmitted via the nervous system to the brain where the information is processed like other sensory input. Altered currents register differently, and can be easily detected.
This ability can be turned on and off by the character, and with concentration can be used aboveground to detect the movement of air about the Rebman. Drawbacks to this power is that clothing hampers it, and rain renders it similarly useless.
Not everyone in Chaos is a skilled shaper.
Shapeshifting is one of the things that defines Chaos, of course. With ever changing environments, Ways which change and mutate in sometimes unprecedented manners, having the ability to have alternate forms is as close to a necessity as you will find.
Not everyone, in Chaos, has shapeshifting ability in equal measure. Chaos lost its best shapers, its best at changing its form during the Lessiman Secession. Some say that the dilution of Chaos' shaping ability is actually a sign of decadence, a loss of power of the ancient Hegemon.
The truth is, some bloodlines are better at some things than others, and shaping is one of them. While perhaps 3-5 percent of Chaosians cannot shift at all (a number that would likely be larger if not for stillbirths and the likely scenarios where such mutants are killed by their parents), another 30 to 35 percent of Chaosians do not have full shapeshifting. They have Common chaos Shapeshifting: