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I'm running a Dungeon World adventure in a forested location, and my party had an encounter with some displacer beasts hunting down a blink dog. After they fought off the beasts and tended to the dog's wounds, I had it blink away back to its lair, thinking I was just dropping a hint their good deeds would be rewarded later.

But then my Druid, Leafwillow*, asked me if blink dogs lived in the forest. I asked her where she was going with it and she said she wanted to turn into one.

She's an elf, so the Great Forest is always her Land; that's not the issue. The issue is that blink dogs are more than just "animals", aren't they? Because of the blinking? I asked her to let me think about it, and we wrapped for the night not long after.

Druids do have two moves that expand their repertoire:

• 
  Thing-Talker lets them turn into natural inanimate objects, plants and rocks and such, as well as creatures made out of them


• 
  World-Talker lets them turn into pure elements, as well as creatures made out of them

But neither of those categories really fits a blink dog, any more than "animal" does.

How do I decide whether Leafwillow should get to turn into a blink dog, or what she should have to do first? This really applies to the entire body of fantasy creatures that can be described as "animals with special powers and maybe a weird fur thing or ear or whatever". Like displacer beasts, come to think.

_{*the names have been changed to protect the innocent}

Druids talk to the whole world, not to separate parts of it.

Ultimately what wound up working as a guideline was thinking of the blink dog in terms of what powers it; it's both "an animal that lives in the forest" and "a creature that can channel the power of the fey forest".

If Leafwillow wanted to turn into a creature made entirely of the fey forest, such as a treant or a frost mushroom, Thing-Talker would let her do it, no question. So, I ruled, she can also turn into anything that takes power from the fey forest, as long as she can talk to all of its parts, and she could turn into a blink dog, which was native to one of her Lands, as long as she took Thing-Talker first.

In general, when thinking of a magical animal, think about what powers it: could you say it draws power from some kind of natural source, or does it go beyond nature and channel the pure elements? (Displacer beasts, in my estimation, are channeling pure shadow.) Then tell your Druid the (move) requirements and ask.

Also, for the curious:

• blink to strike from an unexpected angle


• blink to safety, possibly with a passenger


• detect a menace, even through illusions