Some NPCs will not talk to animals. Some will not talk to scary animals only, meaning spiders, giant bats, and werewolves.

Before becoming an animal, you should unlock storage with Marna, Joeh, Tadion, and Ivyn in Serbule. They will not talk to any animals, but animals can still access their storage using the Storage Books located next door to Hulon the Hoarder.

Consider traveling to Kalaba in Eltibule, and doing his series of quests which will unlock Transmutation. The only other way to get this skill is in a very high level area, and Kalaba will not talk to any animals.

You will still be able to craft things for which you have the recipe and materials, but some skill trainers will not talk to animals. Sir Arif in the Serbule Crypt dungeon is one example.

You cannot milk cows or chop wood in animal form, so if you plan on using a lot of these materials for crafting, it would be wise to either stock up beforehand or have a humanoid alternate character. You can find wood in the "buy used" tabs of some vendors, such as Paul Vaughn in Serbule Hills. If you are a cow, you unlock the ability to milk yourself upon leveling up. You'll make more milk if you avoid eating meat.

Animals also cannot use the "patch armor" sidebar skill. Blacksmithing[wiki.projectgorgon.com] requires Armor Patching level 25 in order to unlock. You will be unable to level Armor Patching by using it, but you can earn xp for it in a dungeon in Kur. However, Tadion, the NPC who will teach you Blacksmithing once you have a high enough Armor Patching, will not talk to animals.

For animal form potions such as "Pig Juice" or "Deer Juice," think before you drink! The antidote potions are always rarer and more expensive. Animal forms stack, so if you become a cow and then a pig, for example, you would need to both un-pig and un-cow to be humanoid again.

All currently available forms:

• Cow
  
• Deer (also available through Druid)
  
• Giant Bat
  
• Giant Butterfly (does not have a unique set of combat abilities; a little different from other forms[wiki.projectgorgon.com])
  
• Pig
  
• Rabbit
  
• Spider
  
• Spirit Fox
  
• Werewolf

Cow, Deer, and Pig are normally the most easily accessible, but special events can switch this up a bit.

Being a druid or a werewolf are permanent character alterations which include various requirements and unavoidable side effects, so think carefully before becoming one!

For details on each of these animal forms, such as how to become them, see the wiki.[wiki.projectgorgon.com]

Roughly in order of when you are likely to learn these:

• Unarmed
  
• Animal Handling
  
• Psychology
  
• Mentalism
  
• Necromancy
  
• Druid (cow, deer, and spider only)
  
• Priest
  
• Warden
  
• Ice Magic (rabbit only)
  
• Battle Chemistry (pig, bat, and spider only)

I recommend all players get at least a few levels in Psychology and/or Mentalism, since it's very useful to have combat abilities that can be used regardless of what equipped items you have and what form you are in. For example, if you become an animal unexpectedly, or if a humanoid is gardening and playing an instrument and an enemy appears, and equipping the instrument means unequipping a weapon.

All of these combat abilities can be mixed and matched with each other or with your built in animal combat ability, but Priest and Necromancy are mutually exclusive. To use Necromancy or Priest you must have a piece of clothing or jewelry that enables these abilities, not a handheld weapon.

Unlocking Battle Chemistry requires having level 50 Alchemy. You will need a player to craft you an animal-specific item in order to use it. For pigs, this is the Porcine Blast Disperser. For bats, this is the Aerosolizing Bat Harness. For spiders, this is the Arachnid Mechaharness.

For details, see the Combat Skills page of the wiki.[wiki.projectgorgon.com] At the top, there is a skill compatibility chart where you can tell at a glance which ones work with animal forms.

Upon typing in chat as an animal, you will notice some of your words are randomly replaced with animal sounds! You need to level Beast Speech[wiki.projectgorgon.com], which is done by talking in the chat consistently.

Survival Instincts[wiki.projectgorgon.com], learned in Kur Mountains, provides some very useful combat utilities such as an alternative to armor patching. Kur Mountains are a higher level area, where you must keep warm. Spot in Animal Town teaches an animal-friendly way of starting a small fire to warm up.

Werewolves have a couple of related sub-skills, Howling and Beast Metabolism.

Every now and then, there will be a weeklong event where a strange talking pig shows up near one of the bridges to Serbule Keep. If you are a humanoid, he will turn you into a cow or pig and back again upon request.

This is a great opportunity if you want to try out being an animal but do not want to commit. You can tell if the Strange Pig event is active by looking in the list of currently active events in the game and buffs or debuffs on your character, located in the upper left corner by default.

This is the equivalent of Riding a horse for humanoids. Most animals can unlock a travel mode where they can access the bonuses of Riding such as speed, reduced enemy aggro range, and being able to use a saddlebag. See the Riding wiki page[wiki.projectgorgon.com] for information about where to unlock each travel mode.