Balak Shifter

Description

Among the inhabitants of the crowded human villages, you can easily find the Balak Shifters trying to teach the villagers about the Way of the Path. The monks are known for their politeness and cleanliness, and they are willing to talk to anyone as long as that person is interested in listening. In cases of rudeness from others, the priests are fairly stoic and will try to leave the situation if possible.

Their initial training usually starts out at a reclusive monastery in the deep forests of the quarantine zone. They are taught to see the other elementals around them by sensing their presence through "feeling the air". This method allowed them to see changes in the world's magic and home in on the cause of the shift.

Once they understood the disturbance and the path to correct it, they were given the choice of where they would prefer to spend their learning years. They leave with their mentor and learn to connect to the secret power internal to themselves. After learning to harness that power, they are sent out to teach others about how to see the Path and the access to the world's magic.

The Balak Shifters try to teach as many people as they can about the Way of the Path. This view of the world started when some initial members began receiving visions from Death as He created the ShadowMyths Decks. These visions were the Dream Paintings and images that we now see on the Magic and Communication decks.

They understood His plans and knew that they had to do more than just create the images. So, they started mass producing them and distributing them all around Ozul. In the beginning, they freely gave them to the humans but realized that, without proper understanding of the Path, the power of the decks would be limited. So, they began going out into the world and teaching others about the magic and Death's Plans.

Interaction

The Balak Shifters are personable and nice. They will talk to anyone and find personal hygiene to be one of their highest priorities. In addition, all members are healthy and very friendly. According to them, they prefer it that way because it makes people more at ease when talking to them.

The one thing, though, is that they are somewhat focused on a single topic: The Way of the Path. They will always try to steer the conversation towards that topic.

Combat

Although they appear gentle, when confronted with a physical situation, they are deadly fighters. Besides being physically fit, they have excellent hand and eye coordination and are adept at hand-to-hand combat. They don’t tend to use weapons if they have a choice but this is another area that they are trained in.

In dire situations, though, they prefer to rely on their inner strength and shift their body into their chosen avatar. The avatar is actually an illusion but, if their opponent believes in the illusion, the damage and attacks are seen as real. Sometimes, the Balak Shifter may have an avatar that is a winged creature. So, when they shift into that form, it may seem like they could have flown away. Under that circumstance, the shifter leaves the battle by running away but the opponent will only see a winged creature flying.

Finally, they are also adept at the use of the ShadowMyths decks and always several cards on them. In dire situations, they will invoke the magic of the card at its full strength.