Clyde

Clyde "Shift"

The God/Goddess of Change

Responsibilities: God of Change, God of Hard Work, Patron Deity of Taurs

Symbols: Clyde's common symbol is two semicircles. His symbolic animal is the Frog.

Pantheons: Movement Triad, Nine Magic Gods

"Family": Brother Altair - God of Death, Sister Emelia - Goddess of Time, Husband Corowa, Son Clint - Deity of Random Change

Theology

Personality: Clyde has a very calm personality. He likes to carefully examine things before coming to any conclusions, which makes some of the other gods (OK, mainly Jake) see him as a little slow, but he's actually very intelligent, even by God standards. He's very thick-skinned and pragmatic, and doesn't like having a lot to do with mortals.

Clyde usually presents as a male, but actually he switches genders and bodies fairly often. In all his forms he likes to have six horns and a spotted pattern across his body. He is usually a Taur, but not always. Unlike his son, he tries to stay recognisable. Since he doesn't like to work with mortals, he doesn't always display his halo.

Powers: Clyde's magic is very powerful. He can change anything into anything else, and subtly adjust things. Though, his powers affect only the physical. Many of the other magic gods are more powerful than he is, and so his magic can't affect them. But he can easily distort the bodies of lesser gods, if he so chose (he usually doesn't).

Clyde has powers of transmogrification and metamorphosis, and is responsible for changes in things like insects growing into different shapes, and tadpoles growing into frogs. He much prefers this sort of work to the straight-up magical transformations that some of his followers like to pull.

Miscellany:

Magic: As one of the magic gods, mortals can call on Clyde's power for spells and enchantments. However very few mortals do. Change magic is the hardest magic of all to learn, and most people don't think it's worth the effort. To learn even the most basic spell, for instance to change the colour of a stone, a person can expect to spend five years dedicated to study at a Temple of Change. From there it apparently gets easier, but that tends to weed people out. On top of that, if Change Magi do not keep up with their daily offerings and rituals to Clyde, their magic expertise goes down over time and they eventually return to beginner-level. So most Change magic users are priests and priestesses of Clyde, and most temples allow people to purchase spells from them.

Unlike trickster illusions, changes made with Clyde's magic are physical and permanent - of course they can be re-changed with more magic, but they never 'wear off' like illusions do. However, the magic residue left from a change can be detected by magi specialising in Change, Truth, or Knowledge magic.

The magic Clyde makes available to his followers is generic "Transmogrification" magic, though various temples use different incantations like "Shift", "Change", "Transfigure" and similar.