Changeling
The hidden ones
Changelings, more than most any other species, are almost universally discriminated against. Their very existence makes others uncomfortable when you realize you cannot be sure that your neighbor, your friend, even your loved ones have not been replaced by a changeling. For their part though, most changelings just want to live normal, peaceful lives. There are those that use their natural gifts for nefarious purposes though, and they are frighteningly effective in this.
Basic Information
Genetics and Reproduction
Changelings born from two changeling parents are born in their natural form: pale, slender, with colorless eyes and white hair. If a changeling has a child with a non-changeling human, the child is born in the likeness of the non-changeling parent and doesn't develop their changeling powers until adolescence, at which point they are considered full changelings.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Changelings all have a particular fondness for sweet foods, though the intensity of this fondness varies with each individual. This gives rise to the saying, "You catch more changelings with honey than vinegar", which is used to advise someone to use positive reinforcement instead of negative when trying to overcome an obstacle, particularly one involving another entity.
Additional Information
Social Structure
Changelings are born into one of two paths. They may be born to two changeling parents, and raised with full understanding and acceptance of their nature from birth. Or they may be born to a mixed parentage, in which case they are often taught to conceal their true nature.
Facial characteristics
In their natural form changelings are slender and pale, with colorless eyes and silver-white 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 develop new 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-cheeks.
Beauty Ideals
Changelings do not have a concept of physical beauty preferences themselves, except what is imposed upon them by their environment. When you are able to change how you look with a thought, physical forms cease to matter. To a changeling, personality is everything when it comes to beauty. Many changelings find confidence to be extremely beautiful, though this can take many forms.
Gender Ideals
Changelings have a fluid relationship with gender, seeing it as one characteristic to change among many others. Thus with no gender ideals per se, changelings often adopt non-binary genders, mixing and matching gender characteristics as they see fit.
Common Customs, Traditions and Rituals
A changeling can alter its physical appearance with a thought. While this can be used to deceive others, it is a natural form of expression for the changeling. A changeling shifts shapes 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 never 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 previous users of the persona.
History
After humanity became the fifth tribe and had already begun to develop the natural curiosity that would later come to define them as a species, the long-imprisoned flying polyps lured a group of them down into their lightless catacomb-prison. While polyps did not have the Elder Thing or Yithian technological might, they did have something almost as potent: themselves. Several polyps shed what little of their bodies were material and fused the rest of their essence with the adaptable humans, creating the first changelings.
The descendants of those original changelings, who had begun an entirely new species of subhumans imbued with the power to change their appearance at will and thus become the perfect spies for the polyps, were responsible for the polyps' eventual escape during the Fourth Elder War and thus indirectly responsible for the destruction of the Yithian capital Pnakotus.
Since those ancient times changelings have lived among the other species, pretending to be like those around them, growing fearful over time of their discovery and what that might mean to their survival, given that almost every time a changeling's true nature is found out that changeling faces being ostracized at best or execution at worst.
Genetic Ancestor(s)
Scientific Name
Homo sapiens obtentus
Body Tint, Colouring and Marking
Pale white or cream-colored skin, sometimes with a light blueish tint. Some changelings also have patches of large dark spots in various places on their bodies, akin to other species' freckles.
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