Hengeyokai

The hengeyokai (also known as katanga in Malatra) were a race of intelligent natural shapechanging animals, able to adopt, animal, human, and hybrid forms. They were an incredibly varied, with many subraces based on different kinds of animals. They were found through Kara-Tur, living on the fringes of human lands. It was believed that hengeyokai combined elements of the material world and the spirit world. They believed themselves descended from humans and shapeshifting animal spirits or fey versions of primal animals, though some scholars of Faerie instead believed them to be either awakened animals infused with the magic of that plane or creations of the fomorians.

Description
In animal form, a hengeyokai was indiscernible from an ordinary animal of its kind, and only magic or careful observation of its intelligent behavior could tell that there was more than meets the eye. The animal form could be no larger than 2–3 feet (0.6–0.9 meters) in length.

In "hybrid" or "bipedal" form, they stood upright on their hind legs or rear limbs; their front paws, fins, or wings were transformed into fully functional hands; and their torso and head took a humanoid posture. Their body remained very animal-like, retaining fur or feathers, wings or a tail if they'd had one, and other distinctive features. They were as tall and as heavy as a regular local human,  usually standing 5–6 feet (1.5–1.8 meters) tall.

Finally, in human form, a hengeyokai entirely resembled a typical human, of the same height as their hybrid form. However, they usually had features reminiscent of their animal form, such as beady eyes and a long moustache for a rat hengeyokai or a long and pointy nose for a sparrow hengeyokai.

The animal form of a hengeyokai subrace was thought to never be as big as an adult human, though rumors persisted, especially in the south, that there were some subraces that had animal forms that could be larger than most men.

Abilities
Despite their variety of appearances, every hengeyokai had one feature in common—they had three forms: their animal form (of which they had only one), a human form, and a bipedal hybrid form that shared features of both. Their shapeshifting power was similar to the shapechange Their capacity was limited, however. At first, they could only change once or twice a day, but as they advanced in life, they could change more often. A hengeyokai who turned from human form to animal form might have to wait until the next day before they could turn back. They could not change at all if injuries taken in the large human or hybrid forms were enough to kill the animal form. It took some time (a full minute or several seconds ) to change form, during which the hengeyokai could do naught else. Armor, clothes, and possessions did not change with them. It was a real, bodily change, not an illusion and no form could not be detected as such,  though other forms of magic might identify them.

They were natural shapechangers, not lycanthropes. Unlike lycanthropes, hengeyokai had no relationship with the moon, never changed forms unless they wanted to, were not especially vulnerable to silver, could not pass on their power through inflicted wounds, did not heal when they changed shape, though they did frequently take on a superficial likeness to their animal when in human form.

Each form had several benefits and drawbacks for the hengeyokai, though they retained their personality, knowledge, skills, and abilities in all forms, though could not necessarily make easy use of them in all forms. Furthermore, each subrace of hengeyokai had distinct strengths, weaknesses, and features depending on their animal form.

In general, in comparison to the average human, most hengeyokai were considered less comely to other races, more intelligent, flighty and lacking will, or more agile.

Animal Form
In animal form, the hengeyokai was completely indistinguishable from a natural animal of its kind and possessed all the same abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. They could fight with natural armaments like teeth or claws if they had them, be protected by a thick hide or shell, and could fly or swim if their animal form was capable of it. Of course, they could not use weapons, wear clothes or armor, or manipulate items, and they could not cast any spells they knew. The smaller animal form was much less durable than the human and hybrid forms; injuries taken in those forms were twice as severe in this form. It was an average animal of its kind.

They also acquired infravision to a distance of 120 feet (36 meters) or low-light vision.

In this form, their ability to communicate was limited. As well as being able to speak the language of hengeyokai, they had the ability to communicate with regular animals, but this was necessarily rather rudimentary, depending on the other animal's intelligence. They could not speak any other language, but could understand it if they heard it and knew it. It was once reported that they could communicate with any animal, but later it was only animals of their own kind.

Hybrid Form
In hybrid or bipedal form, the hengeyokai was an animalistic humanoid, and this was very obvious. With their new hands and body, they could use weapons and manipulate items, wear clothes and armor, cast spells, and were fully durable. However, they could no longer move as they once did or use any feature of their animal form: a carp hengeyokai could no longer swim like a fish and a sparrow hengeyokai could no longer fly like a bird, and they lost any natural armaments or defenses. They walked or ran as fast as a human. A hengeyokai's bipedal form gained some of the abilities and/or attributes of its animal form, such as a thicker hide or the ability to fly. They could wear light or medium armors, but not heavy armors. They often also gained some physical enhancement according to their type, if they didn't possess it in all three forms.

They retained infravision to a distance of 120 feet (36 meters) or their low-light vision.

In this form, they could speak any language they knew, not just the hengeyokai tongue but also human languages, and also communicate with animals as they did in animal form.

Human Form
In human form, the hengeyokai looked like a completely ordinary human, apart from some distinctive feature reminiscent of the animal. They could pass as a human, walked or ran as fast as a human, could use weapons and manipulate items, wear clothes and armor, cast spells, and were fully durable. Of course, they could also no longer move like an animal or use any feature of their animal form.

However, they lost their infravision.

In this form, they could speak any language they knew and the hengeyokai tongue. However, they could not communicate with animals, though they could still understand that they said.

Personality
Hengeyokai were by-and-large a reclusive and secretive race who preferred to live alone or in very small communities. Understanding that they were different from humans, hengeyokai usually made no attempt to fit into their society or remain among them for very long. Most hengeyokai avoided contact with other sentient races, with the exception of the spirit folk. Nevertheless, while hengeyokai were wary of strangers, those who showed them true kindness were rewarded with close and long-lasting friendship.

Rather, they believed they were closer to the spirit world, and had more affinity for spirit folk when they encountered one another. The feeling was mutual and the two got on well. However, they did not venerate the spirits as humans did, instead viewing themselves as equals. Hengeyokai shamans engaged their power via partnership, not worship. Similarly, they lacked religion, but might follow schools of philosophy much as some monks did.

Wild at heart, hengeyokai broadly tended toward chaotic behavior and were firmly independently minded. They valued both their own freedom and the freedom of others greatly. The greatest insult one could give to a hengeyokai was trapping them in a cage. Seeing a slave or a trapped animal was abhorrent to them. In addition, the different subraces of hengeyokai tended toward good or evil behavior according to their own natures.

Hengeyokai also frequently shared personality traits with their animal type. For example, hare hengeyokai were peaceful yet quick to take fright, while monkey hengeyokai were especially curious. Moreover, humans tended to treat hengeyokai according to their animal types, shunning those they thought to be evil.

A hengeyokai would adopt different forms according to their needs and the situation. Their bipedal or hybrid form was their most natural and comfortable and gave them the best language capacity and eyesight; it was also useful for intimidating others. Their animal form was preferred for exploration, scouting, chasing another, or fleeing, and not for combat, unless they had no better weapon or defenses in their human or bipedal/hybrid forms. The animal form was also an effective disguise but was at risk of being mistaken for a regular animal and hunted or trapped. The human form was usually taken for passing among humans. and often for battle, and the hengeyokai fought more viciously and more tireless when in this guise. However, hengeyokai also often used their hybrid forms for battle, owing to its strengths.

Endeavoring to make their lives as uncomplicated as they could, hengeyokai had few possessions and usually had only a little money to get by on. Anything more, they traded away for practical things like food or weapons, or else donated it to those who had more need. As their armor and equipment did change forms with them, they often had to make arrangements to store or transport what possessions they did have when changed shape.

Society
Rather than come together in big communities or settle villages of their own kind, hengeyokai favored living alone or in small bands that were only loosely organized. The average hengeyokai band numbered anywhere up to twenty individuals, rarely more than that, with males and females in equal ratio and equal status and ability. The leader was often a bushi of either sex. The more experienced or capable members usually departed to travel on their own. In contrast to humans and other races, hengeyokai did not form clans, had no wish to possess lands or titles or positions of authority, and never founded noble families or took over strongholds.

Good, experienced hengeyokai sometimes took it upon themselves to watch over and protect a human settlement or just one family. They defended the area from outside threats and ensured the inhabitants were overall in good health. They lived on the fringes of the human community until it was in danger, whereupon they quietly moved to deal with the threat, oftentimes completely unbeknownst to the settlement's residents. In thanks, the humans might give them offerings such as food, gifts, and services, which were enough to keep the hengeyokai living comfortably, though they never felt one with the community. Meanwhile, evil hengeyokai instead preyed on such communities, earning fear and hatred; they played cruel pranks on humans, extorting offerings from those they preyed upon in order to leave them alone.

All subraces of hengeyokai shared their own common language, called "Hengeyokai". They could speak it in any form. It used the alphabet of the Common tongue. In addition, they had a supernatural power to communicate with animals of their own kind, dependent on which form they were in. They could learn and speak local human languages and trade languages like Common or Trade Tongue, again dependent on their form. They might also learn the Giant and Goblin languages, as well as the language of spirits. They adopted names suiting local human cultures.

With little interest in a sedentary life as a commoner or expert, hengeyokai were often adventurers, their activities driven by simple curiosity or wanderlust. However, while there weren't many hengeyokai artisans, a few nevertheless had incredibly skill and a natural talent for art. In particular, they were known for their colored woodcuts (nishiki-e) which were valued at up to 1,000 ch'ien by collectors of art; and for the guardian figures (kongi rikishi), which were stood at the entrances to temples.

A hengeyokai could train as a bushi, kensai, shukenja, or wu jen and they cross-trained easily as wu jen. Originally, they were never ninja or samurai, as these were exclusively human professions. Hengeyokai fighters were most often crabs, dogs, foxes, raccoon dogs, and rats, with a tough and ferocious martial style. Rangers were usually cats, cranes, foxes, hares, monkeys, raccoon dogs, rats, or sparrows, using their talents for stealth in scouting and spying while rogues were cats and rats operating as burglars and raccoon dogs as brutish brigands. Veteran hengeyokai of any stripe might dedicate themselves as shapeshifters.

Hengeyokai loved practicing horticulture and telling stories, and physical activities of all kinds, like climbing, running, and swimming.

Ecology
A hengeyokai's diet was broadly the same as that of a human, but with a preference for foods their animal forms consumed. For example, a sparrow hengeyokai favored grains and seeds, while a cat hengeyokai was a heavy meat-eater.

It was reported in Shou Lung, by no less an authority than the Dragon Lord Mei Lung Cheng Shan, that hengeyokai were the product of rare unions of love between nature spirits and mortal humans, as were spirit folk.

When reported to have an ordinary lifecycle, hengeyokai achieved adulthood at around 40 years of age and reached middle age at 100 years, before being considered elderly at 150 and venerable at 200, and living up to 500 years.

However, it was also reported that for their first 100 years of life, they lived only in animal form, especially intelligent and long-lived, but little different from any other animal of their kind. After this, they entered adolescence and could take their hybrid and human forms, but their memories of their past life were vague. They were quite long-lived—frequently living past the age of two hundred.

History
Being reclusive sorts, hengeyokai didn't have much of a cultural history. Native to Faerie, they first entered Toril in the wake of a massive war between the eladrin and the fomorians where evil hengeyokai served the fomorians as spies and assassins. After the eladrin emerged victorious, they went on an almost genocidal purge of all hengeyokai, causing the species to flee Faerie en masse. They then lived in peace on Toril for many millennia.

When the Tuigan Horde threatened Kara-Tur and later, when Tan Chin attempted to invade Shou Lung, many hengeyokai emigrated west into Faerûn with yet more traveling west after the Spellplague of 1385 DR. Many rat hengeyokai left the Tenmei province of Kozakura after a costly war with local korobokuru. During the civil war in Kozakura, most of the hengeyokai population remained staunchly neutral, though some acted in defense of innocents caught between the warring factions.

A section of Faerie moved closer to the Sheng Ti province of Shou Lung shortly after the Spellplague, which empowered the spirit folk and hengeyokai of the region, but despite this the two races remained completely loyal to the Emperor and, in gratitude, they were allowed to enter the civil service in 1396 DR, which had previously only been permitted to humans. Few actually took the opportunity but it remained nonetheless, despite groups who actively opposed the move.

Lands
Though they could be found pretty much anywhere in Kara-Tur, hengeyokai typically lived on the fringes of human civilization and wilderness areas,     close to both human settlements and to unsettled environments. These regions let them take human form and go among others when they wished, and escape into the wilds and be alone when they wanted. They were often mobile, uprooting and leaving when civilization expanded into their old home. They had no realms of their own, nor even communities or villages. Their houses were simple, even crude, but sturdy constructions of wood and stone.

They had a particularly large population in the Ama Basin of the Northern Wastes. They often served as protectors and sometimes as menaces of the local human clans, who believed them to be potent nature spirits and respected them greatly, though not without a little fear or hate.

In Shou Lung, the Sheng Ti province was the home to a large number of hengeyokai by the mid–14 century DR, with many clans found there. They were so populous and accepted here that they could roam freely in the cities, even in bipedal animal forms, unlike anywhere else in the empire. In fact, some whispered the Sheng humans gained their small and elegant stature from contact with the hengeyokai. The Men of the Woods, a mixed band of humans, hengeyokai, spirit folk, and korobokuru dwelled in the forest of Shen Hua in the Hungtse Valley.

In Kozakura, hengeyokai dwelled in isolated enclaves across the islands. The more populous were the fox hengeyokai of northern Shinkoku, the monkey hengeyokai of southern Shinkoku, and the rat hengeyokai of Tenmei.

In Malatra, the White Monkey tribe of Purang people included monkey hengeyokai among their number.

In Faerûn, populations could be found living along the Golden Way in the Great Dale, Rashemen, Thesk and along the Dragon Coast

Almost every Shou town in Faerûn had some hengeyokai living in or near it (though in places like Nathlan, hengeyokai were careful to remain in their human form). A rare few struck out away from familiar surroundings to live in Cormyr, the Dalelands, the Western Heartlands and the North.

Subraces
There was great variety in the hengeyokai race, owing to the variety of animal species in the world. The most common subraces were: Other kinds of hengeyokai included:
 * Carp hengeyokai
 * Cat hengeyokai
 * Crab hengeyokai
 * Crane hengeyokai
 * Dog hengeyokai
 * Drake hengeyokai
 * Fox hengeyokai
 * Hare hengeyokai
 * Monkey hengeyokai
 * Raccoon dog hengeyokai
 * Rat hengeyokai
 * Sparrow hengeyokai
 * Badger hengeyokai
 * Crayfish hengeyokai
 * Caiman hengeyokai
 * Hedgehog hengeyokai
 * Impala hengeyokai
 * Ostrich hengeyokai
 * Pangolin hengeyokai
 * Snake hengeyokai
 * Spider katanga: Spider katanga looked out only for other spider katanga, and viewed most other species merely as food. Thankfully, their numbers seemed restricted entirely to the Malatran Plateau, though occasionally, a Mother of a Thousand Young emerged from the populace and birthed a mass of new spider katanga to threaten the other races living on it.
 * Tiger hengeyokai
 * Weasel hengeyokai

Goblin rats and hu hsien were cousins to hengeyokai.

Notable Hengeyokai

 * Emperor Kai Tsao Shou Chin of Shou Lung, one-quarter hengeyokai, unsuspected by all
 * Nuska Ohm Wy, a monkey hengeyokai thief and trickster in T'u Lung
 * Devuri, crayfish hengeyokai shukenja and priest of a temple in Kataburiin Malatra
 * Xax Chung, a hare hengeyokai and the hero of Koje
 * Wetuji, a cat hengeyokai kensai renowned even to humans in Kozakura
 * Onoye, a monkey hengeyokai monk, founder of the Monkey Style martial art

Appearances

 * Adventures:
 * Mad Gyoji
 * The Flowers of Flame