CW: Animal abuse, body horror
In the New World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness, Skinchangers are a player character horror option about mortals that wear the skins of animals in order to become them. It’s an unusual, almost comical roleplaying option. Yet, wearing animal skins is given a depth of horror with the Skinchanger options that it’s stuck with me. In this series, I’ll touch on the four projects (two official, two community content) that developed this obscure character option, looking at how it has evolved across the different authors, and what is missing from the Skinchanger.
At the Storytellers Vault, Travis Legge, TJ Wilson, and Sam Young offer the latest take on this obscure character class in Beneath Shifting Skin. Their book offers an updated character Template aligning the 1st edition concepts introduced in World of Darkness: Skinchangers to Chronicles of Darkness Second Edition. With Beneath Shifting Skin, players get the fourth book supporting White Wolf’s niche horror characters, Skinthieves.
DARKNESS: WORLD VS CHRONICLES
The World of Darkness debuted with 1991’s Vampire: The Masquerade 1st edition from White Wolf. This world included all types of horror and ended with the in-game apocalypse in 2004. This led to the release of the new World of Darkness (later renamed the Chronicles of Darkness) the same year. In 2011, the original WoD setting returned. That means you have two gaming options, with varied mythologies and base systems, but close enough that you can see the parallels. You can choose from Vampire: The Masquerade (The Requiem), Werewolf: The Apocalypse (The Forsaken), and Mage: The Ascension (The Awakening), the trinity of White Wolf and Onyx Path Publishing’s World of Darkness (Chronicles of Darkness). Just under that top tier are beloved titles like Changeling: The Dreaming (The Lost) and Hunter: The Reckoning (The Vigil). Beyond those, there’s a list of other WoD/CoD settings, many widely known. But that doesn’t mean all of them stand out. There are a number of lesser known CoD mortal character options that were created by White Wolf and Onyx Path Publishing. Among those options are the Psychics and Thaumaturge (mystic) character options for CoD from World of Darkness: Second Sight. As well, there are the Psychic Vampires from Chronicles of Darkness: Hurt Locker. But, we’re going to focus on the Skinthieves first rolled out in the CoD standalone sourcebook, World of Darkness: Skinchangers.
WHAT ARE SKINCHANGERS?
Let’s start with a question that may not have an obvious answer even for WoD/CoD veterans, what are Skinchangers? Introduced in World of Darkness: Skinchangers for the New World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness 1st Edition system, this book dealt with a low-powered player character option. Sometimes called Skinchangers or Skinthieves/Skinthief, these individuals are shapechangers with the power to wear the skin of an animal and become that creature. They are not lycanthropes or any kind of undead, yet they are not quite mortals. Instead, they are a fringe of body horror able to be human or an animal or something more supernatural in the some of the Storytellers Vault options. These Templates offer a mortal character with a little something extra.
These concepts appeared in four books so far. Starting in World of Darkness: Skinchangers (a sourcebook for the first edition of Chronicles of Darkness, despite the name). The concepts carried on to the CoD 2e system in Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras (later split off into Dark Eras: Beneath the Skin (Skinchangers and Demon: the Descent), as well as Storytellers Vault options Borrowed Power and Beneath Shifting Skin.
WORLD OF DARKNESS: SKINCHANGERS
The original book was published by White Wolf in 2006, the same year that White Wolf was acquired by CCP. Skinchangers was authored by Chris Campbell, Jess Hartley, and Peter Schaefer along with Developer, Ethan Skemp, who also authored W20 Skinner SAS, a Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition sourcebook that touches on similar concepts. Published as a 126-page hardcover, Skinchangers gave you the mechanics and a short selection of animals that your character might skin and wear.
Among the offerings reviewed here, the original book does the most to hint at the darkness within each Skinthief. The book details more about their mindset and hints at the terrible ways they started down this path of limited power and lost humanity. The loss of humanity is seen through the killing of animals to steal their power; it’s the central evil of this character Template/Horror. Where it’s a unique option is in two respects. First, Skinchangers are still mortal/human unlike vampires or werewolves. Second, the characters are choosing to partake in this evil every time they skin an animal and wear their hide. Unlike the better known monsters of the CoD setting, these creatures have a choice, they can put down the power, they can be human and good.
While you can grasp the personal horror of this character Template, the book does not include enough content to spell out how you’d manage a Skinchanger campaign or what larger part they might play in your CoD chronicle. The core idea of this Template is, you skin a dog, you wear that dog’s skin and become the animal off and on until the power of the skin wears off and you have to repeat the process. In the cycle of doing this, you lose your humanity as your power is taken by murder. Clear, that’s the concept, but how do you spin that into a campaign? There’s only the lightest of hints.
Conceptually, Skinthieves are not like vampires in Vampire: The Masquerade, where you’re a reluctant wolf in sheep’s clothing. As a vampire, you have to feed on people but do so discreetly so you and all of the vampires are not found out. At the same time, feeding on people is robbing you of what humanity you have left and you don’t want that.
For Skinchangers, the narrative thread is harder to pick up. You skin animals and take their powers. They don’t make you incredibly powerful unless you wear an elephant skin or the like. The power makes your characters different, but not obvious. What do you do with that power? Lead a pack of dogs? Spy on unsuspecting families? Do an MMA meets cock fighting world of illegal bloodsport? Act as a Mage’s familiar? While there are options, they aren’t as obvious as other CoD options. In the end, World of Darkness: Skinchangers is not a bad book, but felt like it needed a companion supplement to flesh out the world.
WHAT’S TO COME?
In the second part of this series, I review the three Skinchanger books for Chronicles of Darkness Second Edition. I’ll look at why this concept continued into the new edition, what carried over, and what still needs to be done.
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