Getting the Most Out of Shapeshifting

[Taewakan]

plenty

to start off with you have to remember that Shapeshift is the fundermental Power of the universe. The Universe itself is only the form it takes becuase trumps of it have been drawn to give it oprder these are the Pattern and the Logrus. Without these all the universe woudl be constantly shapeshifting and reforming. Characters are all essentially shapeshifting agregates. They take the form you see only because trumps of them have been drawn which used the psyche of the pattern or Logrus to force them into a set shape. the healing power of Amberites for example is just an expression of their basic shapless selves an inherent uncontrolled shapeshift to recover and grow back.

Now that being said what can you do with shapeshift. I have allowed several PCs to take Shapeshift a lot futher and in doing so peel off elements of themselves with which they have a psychic link and allow those elemnts independedt actions, as shadow-creatures, items or whatever. One PC had a sword that was a shapeshifted elemtns of themselves for example.
Shapeshifters are the perfect spies obviously, not just taking on the shape and form of others but to disguise themselves as rugs, walls or even whole rooms. They are also masters of misdirection Yggrasil appears to you and gives you a message you are goign to take it seriously, A dark wizard that looks a bit like Dworkin starts screaming for help through a wall which warps just enough to look like the tried to  come through a trump..
the secret of the latter strategy of course if to make any misdirection cryptic all assistance in Amber is cryptic if you give a crytpic clue or a ridle to another PC you want to get out of the way for a bit ....
Combine Ad Shapeshift with Sorcery to turn opponents into frogs, or hatstands, or whatever.
Combat, think Terminator 2 crossed with Attack of the mutant 20 foot Octopoides. Praticalities think Mr Fantastic. Correctly deployed shapeshifters should be able to dominate any combat and if you are loosing then you should have shifted into something with higher Warfare so its your own fault

Shapeshifting is my FAVORITE power.
I ran my PCs with every elder they could find an excuse to interact with in the form of their fencing teacher, a master of exalted and forbidden shapeshifting with Mid-level attributes.
The possibilities are both endless and endlessly entertaining.
Enjoy!

[Taewakan]

I always thought of the jewel as the blueprint of the pattern. Oh, the pattern's all messed up? Let's get out the blueprints again. Of course, it's slightly more complicated than that - but I always considered it a guide for the formation of the pattern, rather than some crazy power source itself. That the jewel was swiped from the Logrus (and the Logrus continues to operate) I always imagined meant there was some kind of pattern at the heart of the chaos, and all things were in their way balanced - until Dworkin separated them into two beings, a Pattern and a Chaos, using that spark of order (the jewel) to create a pattern.

This is all speculation.

//Panjumanju

Great minds.
I've always thought of the Logrus as a Shapeshifting version of the Pattern. It does get complicated, but it does make the relationship between them a little easier to understand. Newtonian vs. Quantum Physics, so to speak.

[Taewakan]

I guess the real question to me is whether artistic "realism" matters; just how close the Trump artist has to get to what a person actually looks like at the time he's drawing a trump.

I think the most significant part of it all is that the Trump artist has to be concentrated on the visual or mental image of the person in their own mind while they draw the trump, as they're creating a kind of magical link.  It would be up to debate just how abstract the actual trump drawing can get and still function.

I mean, if someone draws Bleys and really concentrates on Bleys' image, but draws it as a post-modern bunch of swooping squiggly golden lines, would that still work as a trump of Bleys?
Its an interesting question.

RPGPundit

My two cents...
It has already been established that a Power Word can be expressed as a mudra (silent sign language) effect.
With psyche contact, the essence/identity of the trump is revealed, regardless of the style of expression.