Spirit animals (Chinese: 灵兽) are extraordinary animals that can sense and harness spirit power. They possess human-like intelligence and can shape-shift between animal, anthro, and human forms. Their population is quite small, and they often disguise themselves as humans.
Becoming a Spirit Animal
Animals becoming spirit animals by chance: Experience shows that the transformation of animals into spirit animals is completely accidental. Only a small few can become spirit animals, and this cannot be achieved through will or effort as in some folk tales. Typically, they suddenly gain the ability to sense and manipulate spirit power. Each spirit animal has a different story, making it impossible to identify a clear pattern.
Human inheriting spirit power by chance: Humans cannot become spirit animals on their own, but some can inherit residual power from specific spirit animal relics to transform into their kind. For instance, Leiting became a spirit loong after touching the Fengtai Loong Ball. This phenomenon is extremely rare, even more so than animals becoming spirit animals. Most humans will not experience anything when they come into contact with these relics.
Karma hypothesis: Some spirit animal scholars have put forward the “karma hypothesis,” suggesting that karma is a key factor in why some individuals become spirit animals.
Basic Forms
A spirit animal can transform into anything through the use of shape-shifting spells, the most commonly used forms being animal form, anthro form, and human form.
Animal form: The animal form is the real form of a spirit animal, resembling its base species but featuring extraordinary colors and patterns. This form is stable and requires no spirit power to maintain, so spirit animals often switch to this form during rest to quickly replenish their spirit power.
Anthro form: The anthro form is the typical form of a spirit animal, combining human and animal traits through shape-shifting spells. It features a human-like body, with dexterous limbs and hands for casting complex spells and better fitting into human society (can wear human costumes, use tools, and fit in furniture and architectures, etc).
The anthro form retains many traits of the animal form and requires minimal spirit power to maintain. Spirit animals generally prefer this form when not around humans.
Human form: The human form is the disguise that spirit animals use around humans, maintained by shape-shifting spells. This form differs significantly from their original animal shape, requiring substantial spirit power to sustain. Consequently, it is generally impossible for them to remain in this form all day. When low on spirit power or stressed, their transformation becomes unstable, forcing them to hide from humans. Additionally, their ability to sense and harness spirit power diminishes in human form, necessitating the use of spirit bands for assistance. This explains why spirit animals may not recognize each other’s true identities in human society.
Characteristics
Spirit power: Spirits animals can sense, generate, and control spirit power. Their bodily fluids glow with a rainbow hue due to the high concentration of spirit power, which emits photons as it decays.
Spirit spells: By using their spirit power, spirit animals can cast various spells. But unlike the exaggerated portrayals in mythological legends, most of these spells do not have enormous power, but instead minor tricks to assist daily life.
Intelligence: Spirit animals have human-like intelligence, but this requires spirit power to maintain. When their physical or mental state declines, they are more likely to succumb to their animal instincts.
Animal instincts: Spirit animals retain some traits of their base species, but their animal instincts are disrupted by spirit power and higher intelligence, which affects their survival in the wild. As a result, most spirit animals prefer to live within human society.
Lifespan: Spirit animals have a lifespan similar to humans, likely because they spend most of their time in human or anthro forms.
Offsprings: The offspring of a spirit animal can be either a human or an animal, but they do not inherit their parent’s spirit power.
Names
Spirit animals usually choose their names from classics or life experiences. Surnames are less significant as they don’t indicate the spirit animal’s bloodline. They prefer the format “First name + the + Spirit + Species” for polite and formal references to others. For example: Leiting the Spirit Loong.
In Chinese spirit animals, the tradition is to limit the formal names to 4 Chinese letters. The format is “Spirit + 1 letter species + 2 letter name”. Foreign names are also localized to meet this requirement. For example:
- 1 letter name: Feng (凤) – 灵龙阿凤 (Feng the Spirit Loong)
- 2 letter name: Ganying (甘英) – 灵虎甘英 (Ganying the Spirit Tiger)
- 3 letter name: Sun Wukong (孙悟空) – 灵猴悟空 (Wukong the Spirit Monkey)
- 4 letter name: Ouyang Libi (欧阳理碧) – 灵羊理碧 (Libbie the Spirit Oryx)
- Foreign name: Sariel – 沙利叶 – 灵羊沙叶 (Sariel the Spirit Sheep)
Relationship with Humanity
Age of desolation: Spirit animals have coexisted with humans for eons, often acting as “oracles” and “talented craftsmen” in ancient human tribes. Humans provide shelter for these spirit animals, which in turn use their powers to support the tribe, creating a symbiotic relationship. This dynamic is reflected in the animal-inspired totems of primitive tribes and mythical creatures in folklore.
Spirit animals in folklore: Many mythical creatures in folklore are real spirit animal historical figures, like Daji the Evil Fox Queen, Bai Suzhen the White Snake Lady, and Sun Wukong the Monkey King.
Modern spirit animals: Throughout history, spirit animals who had their true identities find out by humans often faced tragic consequences. Most modern spirit animals have learned from these tragedies and now live according to the 4C Principles: Coexistence, Cooperation, Compliance and Concealment.
Although modern human technology and organizational power far surpass that of ancient times, spirit animals continue to play a vital role in various areas with their unique abilities.
Records
Tales of spirit animals are a common sight in human folklore and literature. In addition to human stories, spirit animals have their own written records. In China, there are two key books about spirit animals: one is the “Spirit Animal Chronicles“, which details the life stories of important spirit animal figures and related historical events; the other is the “Essential Spells for Spirit Animals“, which specifically documented useful spells. These documents have undergone multiple revisions, losses and re-recordings over time. Modern spirit animals believe that some content in these texts does not fully reflect the truth.
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