14.1.2. Wargs and Skinchangers
- When a warg dreams of his wolf, he shares its body and can be felt by someone with the greensight (II: 321)
- Even when waking, a warg can be in his wolf (II: 321)
- When a warg becomes angry or afraid, the wolf can sense it (II: 322)
- When in a warg dream, a person remembers the actions of his wolf as his own as well (II: 322)
- Part of a warg is his wolf, and vice versa (II: 322)
- There is an apparent belief that silver weapons are needed to kill wargs (II: 339)
- Wargs are also called demons, shapechangers, and beastlings (II: 383)
- Beastlings and shapechangers are always evil in common stories (II: 383)
- The third eye might be closed, but in sleep it may sometimes flutter open, as it does to allow a warg to have wolf dreams (II: 383)
- There is an example of two wargs speaking in dreams to each other, despite being removed by hundreds of leagues. It's possible that this happens only because one of them appears to be even more than a warg (yet both of them have the "three eyes") (II: 560)
- Skinchanger is a general term, and all wargs are skinchangers. However, a warg is a skinchanger who is bound to a wolf and not some other creature (II: 561, 697. SSM: 1, 2)
- After a bonders death, a bond-animal is still unnatural and can seek revenge for its loss (II: 697)
- A warg in the wolf dream can exact some measure of control over what his bond-animal does (II: 700)
- The sleep during a wolf dream is unnatural, and can last for days as the warg begins to become more and more used to sharing a wolf's thoughts (II: 701)
- A warg can reach out and actually have double vision; what he sees and what his wolf sees as well (II: 702)
- Some wargs seem able to sense members of their animal's family by some magical sense, perhaps related to the "third eye" or the unusual nature of the animal and its kindred (III: 101)
- Wargs must be trained to be able to control their animal and themselves when they are in its skin. It is very easy to give in to it's instincts and impulses (III: 103)
- A warg cannot live on what his beast consumes (III: 104)
- A warg can bend a beast to his will, or the beast bend the warg's will to his (III: 107)
- All greenseers were wargs as well, and the greatest of them could wear the skins of any beast that flies, swims, or crawls (III: 107)
- A skinchanger can have many beasts to him, and of different sorts. One man is bonded with a huge snow bear, three wolves, a shadowcat, and an eagle once controlled by another skinchanger who was killed (III: 171, 835)
- Wargs seem to have some inner sense which lets them locate their beasts, at least to some degree (III: 295)
- Skinchangers may be able to change into the skins of other people, although perhaps only if they are somehow mentally damaged (III: 459, 633)
- Once an animal has been joined to a man, any skinchanger can slip inside and ride him. The joining works both ways, however, for a dead skinchanger's animal carries a part of him and the new master of the beast will find the dead man's voice whispering to him (III: 835)
- If a skinchangers beast is killed while he is actively within it, he can go mad (III: 840)
- Among the ironborn, it's said that there are skinchangers among the Farwynds, able to take the form of sea lions, walruses, and even spotted whales (IV: 271)
- A skinchanger can slip into the skin of his beast from leagues away (V: 4)
- Some skinchangers have strict rules about what they are or aren't allowed to do. Examples include not eating human flesh, mating animals together, and seizing the body of another person (V: 4)
- Skinchangers can lead a "second life" after their body dies, a sweeter and simpler one in which their spirit and mind inhabits the body of their animal. Their memories slowly fade day by day, until eventually the skinchanger is gone (V: 4, 7, 10, 12)
- The loss of a beast a skinchanger controls is painful as they experience the deaths (IV: 7)
- A child who reveals himself to be a skinchanger is often taken away and given over to the care of others like him (IV: 8)
- Some skinchangers are stronger than others (IV: 8)
- Dogs are the easiest beasts to bond with, because they live so close to men. Wolves are harder, as they're never truly tamed. Some wargs claim no other animals should be bonded: cats are vain and cruel, elk and deer are prey and are likely to make a skinchanger grow as cowardly, while bears, boars, badgers, and weasels simply should not be of any interest. Birds are especially dangerous, some hold, because taking hawks, owls, ravens, and the like means you'll be able to fly among the clouds and so will find life in your own form a pale shadow of what it once was. Not all skinchaners agree, however (V: 10)
- Skinchangers occasionally gather together. The wargs are the most common (V: 10)
- A skinchanger with a goat (V: 10)
- The free folk both honor skinchangers and fear them, while it's said among them that beyond the Wall the kneelers hunt them down and kill them (V: 11)
- Skinchangers can always sense one another (V: 12)
- A person can resist the invasion of their mind by a skinchanger, but it can be a horrifying and ugly struggle (V: 14)
- As a powerful skinchanger dies, his ability expands to encompass all animals in his vicinity (V: 14)
Last revised March 15, 2013
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