Soletaken

Soletaken are shapeshifters of the Malazan world, beings who shift, or veer, between their own form and the single form of a beast. The condition is ancient, rooted in ritual and blood, found among many races, and older than the warrens human mages walk. Travelers on the subcontinent of Seven Cities find dread shapeshifters abroad in the land, and speak of Soletaken in the same breath as the D'ivers, kindred shifters whose sembling scatters them into many bodies rather than one. The Soletaken are counted the lower order of the two, but no less feared for it, and the eldest of either kind are powers in their own right, ancient and best avoided.