Certainly interesting. He moves on to look at Gnome, keeping an eye out for another elusive extra link.

Gnomes are, despite being smaller than most adult humans' hands, about as strong as a normal-sized five year old, and also nearly immune to blunt force trauma. 

There is another elusive extra link! This one is much more expensive, but allows a gnome to invent devices to replicate forms of magic the gnome doesn't have. 

What a spectacular prize! He's definitely making a mental note to come back to this one. Though it would be very odd to be four inches tall. More odd than being a woman, though, or less? It's hard to say, having never tried either.

Now, the next was... Gemini?

Each half of a Gemini has an associated gemstone. 90% of your body mass is composed of your gemstone, including your hair, but not including your skin, although you can have arbitrary gemstone protrusions that act more like teeth or horns than like any human experience of non-tooth bone sticking out of your skin. Gemini all have an Earth affinity, but each half also has a second affinity linked to their gemstone. 

The Gemini bonus-star costs the same as the Neutral one, and it lets you swap places between your individual instances, either body-swapping or teleporting, and have a mental link, ranging from basic empathy up to full-blown telepathy. 

Hmmm. Interesting constraints, interesting possibilities. He's not sure he wants to go for it, but if he does, it definitely sounds like the bonus-star will be worthwhile.

How about Pixie?

Pixies are even tinier than Gnomes, at about an inch tall. They can have insectile wings, or wings shaped like any leaf that exists. Pixies can turn into any flower that they personally planted which has bloomed since, and can magically breed hybrids of any two flowering plants. When slain, they respawn within the bloom of one of their planted flowers. Pixies draw mana from the blooming of A) the same flowers-they-planted that they use for transforming and respawning, or B) any other flower that they have slept inside. 

The pixie bonus star, which is slightly cheaper than the Neutral or Gemini ones, allows a pixie to flap their wings to produce pixiedust, which can be used to boss animals around, make flowers bloom Right Now, or induce sleep in sapient beings. 

"I have... questions... about what it means to turn into a flower..."

"Well, you can turn into a flowering plant, more than just the flower itself."

"I'm not sure that quite addresses my question but thank you. I'll inquire further if Pixie makes the shortlist."

Moving on: Spider?

Spider witches are about hand-sized, produce up to a foot per minute of silk, which varies in thickness by spider from about a fortieth of an inch in diameter to about a quarter, but the median is about a twelfth. Spiders age at the same rate as humans but can rejuvenate themselves by spinning a cocoon and chilling in it for forty-eight hours (these are not spent conscious and bored). 

Spiders parthenogenically lay eggs that hatch non-sapient spiders, any of which the witch can body-jack if they die. 

The spider bonus star lets the spider: 

-Become very small

-Become very large, reaching a height of about four feet tall, in which form they get a bundle of goodies including:
--Extra-strength exoskeleton
--Go ZOOM 
--Can produce webbing as thick as steel cable and launch it about a hundred feet. 
--Can produce really thin webbing that is very difficult to see and will easily slice through flesh and bone

-Learn Arachnescence, which is not generally available. 

"Is there a reason why so many of my options are so small?? Is this normal? Are most witches tiny?"

"Most witches are not tiny, but also it's probably not a coincidence--you probably had a witch ancestor who was tiny and had recent ancestors who were lots of tiny things."

"I suppose that makes sense."

So, Hollow?

Hollows: Not tiny! Or, one could be tiny, but they aren't by default. 

Hollows are natively incorporeal beings who bond to suits of armor. The armor is totally non-biological, but the spirit does have some biological processes, having to eat spirit matter and having the ability to reproduce with other spirits. The Hollow bonus star allows them to actively replace the material of their armor with other metal, including special magic metals like Mythril. 

What an interesting way to live one's life.

But he should be thinking about the practicalities. The Gnome is certainly the most personally compelling option, and also has the most exciting prize; however, some of the others can cheat death, which sounds like in the long run it will turn out to be very important. The Pixie and Spider seem to have the best methods but the Gemini's would still help.

"I don't suppose there's any way to become more than one of these at once...?" he wonders. It definitely doesn't sound like, say, the Hollow could feasibly be combined with any of the rest, nor is he sure what it would look like to be simultaneously a spider and a plant, but he's torn enough that it seems worth asking, just in case.

"Oh, sure! It costs points, but there's a bit of wild magic," something in the farther echelons lights up, "that lets you combine two things. You can take it twice to be a chimera. You can only have one set of racial affinities, though."

You can take it twice, presumably for three total components though there's an off chance it might add up to four? Colour him intrigued. Best to be cautious about the implications, though.

"How does being multiple things at once work out in practice? Is it likely to weaken any of the advantages of the individual components?"

"No, it's just the affinities. And I suppose it depends on what things one is a hybrid of--siren and aurai both have magic voices such that having both would be less convenient than having one or the other. Generally you end up with a combination of the physical attributes of each type, so I suppose that might be considered a 'weakening of advantage' if you found one or another body type especially appealing...it's possible to guide how that shakes out to some extent, when you're starting out human, but not indefinitely."

"...do you know of any examples of what Hollow or Spider hybrids end up looking like? Those are the ones where the question of resulting body type most concerns me."

“Hollow hybrids have both flesh bodies and bonded armor; they can take the armor off, but it tends to be extremely uncomfortable. Spider hybrids… it varies drastically, but opting into one you’d most likely end up with a less awkward configuration even just naively, and it can be nudged.”

"So, speaking hypothetically, if I wanted to be a hollow spider gnome, I could be a gnome with spider legs wearing gnome with spider legs armor and this would work and I would be healthy and functional?"

“Yep, that’s work! There isn’t any combination of things you could be that wouldn’t be… at least as healthy and functional as its worst component, I can’t say anyone who’s any amount Wither is healthy.”

Okay then, it's time to consider his options.

Gnome comes with shiny prizes. Spider comes with a unique type of magic, though he should probably ask what it does before he gets too excited. Hollow and Gemini come with interesting new ways of seeing the world. Pixie comes with wings, which seem both fun and useful.

The best way to cheat death is probably Pixie but Spider also seems like it would work, and Gemini isn't bad either.

For charge methods, Gnome seems fantastic, Pixie seems good, Hollow seems solidly workable, Gemini seems inconvenient, Spider seems awkward.

All together this tentatively adds up to... Gnome Pixie Spider? Though he also feels a certain level of longing for Gnome Hollow Gemini. Maybe he should ask about Arachnescence.

"That special Spider magic, what's it like?"

Penelope points him towards the spider magic star that appears when he focuses on the spider bonus star. 

"The first rank lets you turn into any mundane spider, and apply a single not-you-spider trait to yourself when not transformed. The second rank gives you a second keep-a-trait slot, and gives you a bonus pair of eyes that are capable of seeing in complete darkness and paying attention to things separately from you, giving you a greater ability to notice things like danger while, say, in a gnome tinker fugue. The third rank gives you the ability to turn into low-powered magic spiders, a third trait slot, and a second pair of extra eyes with thermal vision. Rank four gives you a fourth slot--of course--plus you can gain extra limbs by adding spider body parts to yourself. Rank five gives you even more ability to add body parts to yourself, the requisite fifth slot, and each eye functions as a backup brain, plus some other goodies."

"...is it just me, or are those largely things obviated by already being a spider? Not entirely, but substantially?"