Changeling
Changelings can shift their forms with a thought. Many changelings use this gift as a form of artistic and emotional expression. It’s also an invaluable tool for grifters, spies, and others who wish to deceive. This leads many people to treat changelings with suspicion.
A Hidden People
Wherever humans live, changelings reside also; the question is whether their presence is known. Changelings are born to one of three paths. A few are raised in stable communities among the other races where changelings are true to their nature and deal openly with the people around them. Some are orphans, raised by other races, who find their way in the world without ever knowing another like themselves. Others are part of nomadic changeling clans spread across the Olyandra, families who keep their true nature hidden from the single-skins. Some clans maintain safe havens in major cities and communities, but most prefer to wander the unpredictable path of the god known as the Traveller. In creating a changeling adventurer, consider the character’s relationships with people around them. Does the character conceal their true changeling nature? Do they embrace it? Do they have connections to other changelings or are they alone and in search of companions?Masks and Personas
In their true form, changelings are pale, with colourless eyes and silver-white hair. It is rare to see a changeling in that form, for a typical changeling changes their shape the way others might change clothes. A casual shape — one created on the spur of the moment, with no depth or history — is called a mask. A mask can be used to express a mood or to serve a specific purpose and then might never be used again. However, many changelings develop identities that have more depth. They build an identity over time, crafting a persona with a history and beliefs. This focused identity helps a changeling pinpoint a particular skill or emotion. A changeling adventurer might have personas for many situations, including negotiation, investigation, and combat. Personas can be shared by multiple changelings; there might be three healers in a community, but whoever is on duty will adopt the persona of Tek, the kindly old medic. Personas can even be passed down through a family, allowing a younger changeling to take advantage of contacts established by the persona’s previous users.Personality
Changelings are commonly harmless, passive people and are uninterested in politics and social affairs. Due to their capricious ways of life, many people have come to distrust changelings which has led to them becoming social recluses or more commonly has pushed them to create fake identities to escape persecution. Having no culture of their own, changelings slip into other's societies and blend in. Rather than creating their own art and achievements, changelings are happy with claiming other societies' as their own. This nomadic lifestyle has led changelings to become exceptionally adaptable people. Changelings will not simply shapeshift into a new person but rather create a new whole one. Most changelings will set up a handful of personas so if one is compromised they can disappear and switch to one of their others. Their personas are incredibly realistic and have their own personality traits, backgrounds, and a network of friends. Changelings can be evasive and will often try to avoid confrontation or anything that will draw attention to themselves.Description
Changelings can look like anyone at any given time though they do have a true form. Their natural look can be scary to some due to their lack of detail and distinctive features. Their skin tone is always pale, the darkest tone some have is a light grey. They have large colourless eyes and are circled by thick black rings. Their noses are small and subtle with no detail. The changeling's body structures are slender, even more so than elves and border on being frail. Their hair colour is most commonly a light shade of silver followed by platinum and blonde. In rarer cases, their hair can be pale shades of green, pink, and blue. Also similar to elves, changelings lack body and facial hair.Civilization and Culture
Naming Traditions
A changeling might use a different name for each mask and persona and adopt new names as easily as they change faces. The true name of a changeling tends to be simple and monosyllabic; however, there are often accents to a changeling’s name that are expressed through shapeshifting, something single-skins will likely miss. So, two changelings might have the name Jin, but one is Jin-with-vivid-blue-eyes and one is Jin-with-golden-nails.
Changeling Names: Aunn, Bin, Cas, Dox, Fie, Hars, Jin, Lam, Mas, Nix, Ot, Paik, Ruz, Sim, Toox, Vil, Yug
Gender Ideals
Changelings have a fluid relationship with gender, seeing it as one characteristic to change among many.
Culture and Cultural Heritage
Changelings have little culture of their own, living among the other cultures of the world as they do, though there are a few foundations in their racial identity. They tend to form clans, not necessarily connected by blood, who live close together, look out for each other and possibly share personas.
Clan heads govern by the consent of the clan, and this position tends to change hands frequently. They maintain order and help organise the clan for common purposes.
History
Due to their nature, changelings do not have much recorded history. It is thought by some that they are the result of interbreeding between humans and dopplegangers though changelings themselves so share share this theory, claiming instead that they were persecuted and The Traveller gifted them with their shapeshifting ability so that can hide amongst those who hunted them. Some assert that dopplegangers came later; changelings twisted by evil at some point in history.
Changelings have been some of the most skilled thieves and assassins in the world, both as government operatives and as criminals. Although these historic members of the races are in the minority, they have created a common fear of changelings among many.
Lifespan
75 years
Average Height
152 - 183 cm (5'- 6')
Average Weight
54 - 75 kg (120 - 160 lb)
