During the time before the most ancient of wars when mages could work multiple colors of magic the first shifter was created. An Ebony/Emerald mage corrupted and twisted the strands of human DNA and the strands of various animal DNA into a new form of life – the shifter. Ebony magic made the transformation possible while Emerald magic rewrote genetic codes to make the new form viable and cause it to breed true. The first shifters were wild creatures more animal than human. Time and magic changed that.
When the mythic war broke out, Corruption called and drew the majority of the shifters to its side through the Ebony magic in their DNA. Because Ebony magic and Silver magic became opposed during the war, shifters became vulnerable to silver in all forms from magic to metal. A shifter’s bite leaves traces of Ebony magic behind making them dangerous to Silver mages.
The ancient shifters who fought in the war could shift their shape at will and could take on any animal shape or halt the process half way between human and animal.
The Silver Mages of the war era banded together in cast a binding spell on the shifters. The spell bound the shifters to one animal form and bound their shifting to the phases of the moon. Only the most powerful bloodlines of the shifters can hold the shift half way.
The shifters in the world of the Silver Hunter are born that way. One is either born a shifter or one is not, a shifter’s bite or scratches will not transform a non-shifter into a shifter at the next appropriate moon phase.
Shifters divide themselves in families, clans, and packs based on their animal form. Some shifters are solitary only coming together to choose a mate or breeding partner in season.
The Coopers are a family of shifters who belong to a larger pack. They belong to a renegade faction of shifters who are attempting to remove the taint of being shifters from their bloodlines.
Beauty’s prince was born of a mortal father and a half-shifter mother and his bloodline taints the descendants of the House of Beauty. His half brother the infamous Beast was born of a full blooded shifter father and shares the same mother as the prince.
The Beast’s father was an ancient shifter whose bloodline was heavy with ebony magic. He and the Beast both manifested in animal form with black fur so dark it has blue highlights.
