"Even gods change."
- Ancient-Old Varduran proverb
It is said that when the god Aotl was killed, time stopped. It did not stop for long, and not to any extent that any Gavrosians noticed, but its brief existence serves as a dire warning against those who would seek to disrupt the divine machinations of Gavros: without change, stasis is eternal. Fortunately, this pause was not. Whatever happened, this brief respite of time passed, and
Gavros continued to spin in its usual way, perhaps suggesting that
change, even without its god, had survived. Somehow.
Still, Aotl was nowhere to be found. Their idols went ignored, their sacred places untended. Eventually, newer, more relevant gods stepped to the forefront, dividing the ever-ambigious notion of
change into more palatable morsels of faith. Gods of Seasons, Gods of Harvest, Gods of Aging, Gods of Growth. The God of Change, Aotl had been forgotten... but not entirely.
Of the Werewomb
About 300 years ago, mothers began bearing strange children around
Keshloam. Chiurgeons would deliver grey-fleshed amorphous blobs, only vaguely humanoid and without any defining features. After years of denial and strange medical diagnoses, too many credible reports told of a truth that could not be denied: people were giving birth to humanoid shapeshifters, and seemingly at random.
These creatures would eventually come to be known by many different names:
abominations in the
Alerki Ascendency,
tidebound throughout the
Drembari Isles,
changelings in the
Free Cities of Marlock,
Of the Werewomb among the tribes of
The Icehost who revere these creatures as kin to
Gnet.
Whatever they called them, few societies accepted these changelings wholesale. Some were killed in the moments after birth, others raised in secret, some were taught to keep their nature secret and lead normal lives. Many were abandoned in the wilderness or exiled when they became uncontrollable later in life. It would become apparent that many of the changelings raised among their families would eventually disappear completely, often shortly after puberty. Records of these strange anomalies were never kept consistently enough to put together an accurate estimate of the number of changelings present on Gavros, but there are enough that each culture has their own myth, for whatever that might be worth.
An Invisible Threat
Though much hatred towards changelings is without merit, there have been cases of shapeshifters assuming identities of people in positions of power, either having kidnapped or killed the original. Some appear to have done so for wealth, others fame, some revenge. Some seem to have done so out of simple curiosity, their attitudes seemingly removed from any semblance of humanity. Whatever their intentions, many governments across Keshloam have found shapeshifting agents within the highest ranks of their proletariat. The true numbers are unknown to even those within those highest echelons of these organizations, likely because the truth would be disastrous.
Some question whether or not these changelings are acting together, suggesting that they may be mobilizing. To what end, none yet know or speculate, but it is safe to assume that their intentions would likely be malevolent.
Of the changeling "agents" that have been identified, little is known, as they often escape or perish shortly after incarceration. Were the nations of Keshloam to cease bickering long enough to share their knowledge of these agents in their midst, they may be able to put together a clearer picture of the threat they face. Only one thing has bound together the few changelings that have spoken during interrogation: they spoke of "Aotl", the ancient-old god of change that has long since been forgotten by all but the most niche scholars.
A Newfound Faith
One such scholar is a gnome named
Marvon Mosswater. He is currently considered the leading expert on all things Aotl since the Bari Historical Society recovered a long-lost artifact related to the God. He has not spoken publicly about his research, but rumor has it that the Bari Historical Society has been expanding its staff to include many more scholars of the Unknown Era.
Of those few scholars, several share a belief about the origins of changelings: that they are the results of a long-dead god's failed attempts at rebirth.
