Appearance
Skin Walkers are large canids. They are taller than most earth canines, coming up to an average man’s hip at the shoulder approximately. They’re most often longer and lankier in features than regular canines, their build lighter. However, their body type varies.
They have any range of coats, patterns, and physical, canine attributes, but have a few distinct features. Their ears are very long, but semi-firm, not flopping entirely over but very flexible, often. (If you want shorter ears, they can be cropped or lost. If you want floppy ears, they can either have a genetic abnormality that makes the cartilage soft like a domestic dog's ears or they could have been messed up in pup-hood. Either way.) Most commonly, they have spindly legs with tiny paws. They also usually have very long tails. Their tails can range anywhere from stocky and short haired like a labrador to a long fox tail to a veritable curtain of silky fur. They're just usually long. (Though they can be cropped or lost if you want a nub. No biggie.) They tend to have longer fur either on their paws, rumps, or elbows, but it's not mandatory. The often longer fur on their cheeks and around their throats can be any length, ranging from short and coarse to practically a lion's mane, but are usually a mid to long fluff. They can have manes like a hyena, but it's not common and they don't have full scalp hair like a human, so they wouldn't have human hair styles.
Their eyes can be any color and are often striking, bright colors that glow in the dark subtly. (Keep in mind that, while any color is acceptable, dull colors like brown or gray won't look very nice as a glow.) While their eyes always glow slightly, they also can, at certain times, glow from the inside. Their ears, throats, noses, some markings, and the insides of their chests can glow at these times. This glow is bright and intense, glowing at will, in battle, or in states of intense rage. (This color will always be the same as the base color of their eyes)
Skin Walkers are unique to other canines in their mouths as well. They have double sets of canine teeth, either on the top or bottom depending on the walker, and have forked tongues. These tongues can range from sharp ended to entirely round tipped, but they’re always forked at the end. Their tongues also mimic the color of their glow and eyes relatively closely, but not exactly. For example, if their eyes are bright blue, their tongue could be any sort of muted, powder, dark, or bright blue
The Walkers made directly by the progenitors will take after whichever progenitor made them in appearance, but anything after that begins to diverge. The closer they are to the original spawn of the progenitors, the more they will resemble them. The further they get, they less it will effect them. They can range in appearance from very natural to otherworldly or spiritual creatures. (See “The Progenitors” for more information on their appearance)
ALL Skin Walkers are born as these unique canines, but they also can all gain human forms, which will resemble their original form.
Human Forms
In order to gain a human form, Skin Walkers must “steal a face.” Navajo legend says that a ‘skin walker’ will steal your face if you lock eyes with it. This is, in part, true, but not entirely. A Skin Walker is born with a natural connection to a select few people in the world and feels drawn to them, able to sense and locate them no matter where they are. These people are known as “doubles.” When they find this person and lock eyes with them, they have one of two choices. They can either kill the double or they can pass them over in search of the next. If they choose to kill this double, they will, in a sense, “steal their face.” This means that they will gain the ability to turn into a human form strikingly similar to the human they have killed. Their physical characteristics from their natural form will carry over somewhat, such as hair color, physical defects, or characteristic markers on the Walker, but they will retain the same body type and features, such as the face, of their double. They will always have the same eyes, teeth, and tongue as their canine form, but otherwise can blend in perfectly as their human. The human form will also always adjust to be the age of the Walker that takes it. So, if an old man is the double and a thirteen year old Walker kills him, then the human form will appear how that old man looked when he was thirteen.
After they’ve killed their double, it is common for a Walker to get rid of all evidence and the body, taking their identity as a persona in the human world if possible. As far as society is concerned, that human never died and is still alive and well, their social security number, their personal belongings, their bank accounts, everything in their name still in tact. Meanwhile, to avoid being found out, the Walker will estrange themselves from the family of their double, often uprooting and moving, cutting off all previous contact.
A walker is capable of “stealing a face” from approximately five years of age and older, but this is usually restricted. Walkers are generally not allowed to take their human form until they are in early to late adolescence, having undergone it as a rite of passage in their pack or family unit. This is, in part, due to the complications it creates in the human end and, in part, due to the aspect of power.
Before a Walker kills its double and takes a human form, it is essentially incomplete. Its powers are muted or much weaker. It also can’t directly communicate with a human and is generally forbidden from interacting with the humans or society at all, living strictly and harmlessly within its pack. Once they kill their human though, they gain more autonomy, unlock much of their latent power, and gain the ability of human speech in any form.
A Skin Walker can take a human form at any time, but will revert back to their original form if they are too injured or drained, unable to maintain their form.
Subject: Appearance 
Thu Mar 09, 2017 12:24 am
