Two, no, their magical form doesn't have to be their normal form and they can retain a humanoid one instead, but there still should be some sort of indicator that they're not a vanilla human. Weird ears, horns, tails, scales, claws, odd skintones, etc. I'll leave the full degree of humanization up to the individual player. Shifting them so far that they only have nekomimi-esque ears and tails is fine, but so is not shifting them at all.
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First, yes, sentient animals can be apped!
Two, no, their magical form doesn't have to be their normal form and they can retain a humanoid one instead, but there still should be some sort of indicator that they're not a vanilla human. Weird ears, horns, tails, scales, claws, odd skintones, etc. I'll leave the full degree of humanization up to the individual player. Shifting them so far that they only have nekomimi-esque ears and tails is fine, but so is not shifting them at all.