returning to original form

I read somewhere that after the zygote experience, a verser gradually returns to their original form, after each verse. Is this automatic? Say, hypothetically, someone didn't want to change back. Would they anyway? How does returning to normal work, and how long does it take.

On a related note, whenever you zygote, or when you permanently change your body into a new one, you lose most of your body skills, but retain a mental example of how to do them, right? How much change is necessary for this to happen? Full body reconstruction?

You know, I asked this once myself, but I don't remember what MJ's answer was...

Probably because this is very case-by-case.

You'd be surprised what you think of when you think about it, he said he was going to ask MJ about what one verser dose or doesn't do affect another verser who might end up in the same world. Why do I have a feeling it's going to be like every avatar to the next like in Avatar The Last Airbender where everything they do and every mistake they make affects the next avatar after them.

Wasn't Whisp (Wisp?) reborn as a girl? So I don't know how that would work out from verse to verse. I hope someone (not me) actually gets to go through the zygote experience here soonish so I can see how it works.

Yes, Whisp was zygoted as a girl, and if I remember right, he slowly reverted to his original form.

Not sure where to start.

Scott is right, that it is on a case-by-case basis. It's also important to note that the referee should make every effort to retain desired skills learned in the zygote body when the body reverts, even if that means that the reversion is incomplete.

There are a couple ways that can be done. One is to retain body parts. For example, if a verser had versed into the body of a scorpionoid, he might retain a stinging tail when he returns to human form. On the other hand, the last time I did a zygote sprite, after he versed out he was in a halfway form, and could glide with his wings, and then with a bit of help from a friend figured out how to morph between three forms, his human, his spritish, and the halfway form.

In the ordinary case, the verser was just a different person, and so it's just a matter of facial features, body build, skin tone, and similar matters mostly of appearance, plus the recovery of any lost physical attributes (although nine out of ten zygoted versers manage to build better bodies the second time around, and so keep those attributes), so it's really just a matter of what you look like and how close you are to your peak physique. The point of the rule, ultimately, is that you're supposed to be you, and I as referee am not permitted to take that from you permanently. To the degree, though, that "you" now identify yourself with that other person, you will retain some of that other person.

Yes, Whisp (and it does have the H, and should be pronounced so by anyone who knows the difference between W and WH) zygoted as a girl. I was not around at the time, but I'm pretty sure it was done to him because of his propensity to treat women as sex objects, to give him something of a feeling for how the other half live. He did not take to it well, and it was actually a joke that for a very long time he could shape change into nearly any other animal as long as it was the female. He found it very frustrating, but one day discovered that he was male again. (I do not know whether the referee has been gradually shifting him from "not female", that is, reducing the female physical traits, because I'm pretty sure that Whisp was not a man-eater when he was a woman.)

There is also the age issue, as zygoted bodies do age and grow (obviously), and it is possible that someone might verse out much older or much younger than his original self. I usually let the character decide what age to be thereafter, as long as it is not outside the bounds of his previous character ages at verse-out.

Thus my objectives in guiding the transition are

1. Bring you into a body that is similar enough that it is "you" to you;
2. Create interesting game situations along the way (usually because you have a form that is between two other forms);
3. Retain your skills and best attributes;
4. Figure out what ultimate form you would find most acceptable.

--M. J. Young