Fetch

A Hidden People

Fetch descend from fey creatures who took human shape to mingle with humankind. Fetch carry this fey heritage in the unnatural ability to shift their forms with a thought. In their true form, fetch are pale and hairless, with colorless, iridescent eyes. It is rare to see a fetch in that form, for a typical fetch maintains the appearance of normal humanity at all times to hide their true nature.
Fetch are alien, unknowable beings with no true sense of self or identity. Most fetch are consummate actors, learning from birth to emulate the behaviors of the humans they meet. Some fetch craft a single persona with a history and beliefs, while others may change their shape like changing clothes. To a fetch, a casual shape can be used to express a mood or to serve a specific purpose and then might never be used again. More developed identities can help a fetch pinpoint a particular skill or emotion. A fetch might have personas for many situations, including negotiation, investigation, or combat.
Unlike other bloodlines, fetch are nearly a race unto themselves. Most generations in a fetch family carry their unusual ability and these families go to great lengths to maintain their secrecy from those around them. Fetch children are hidden from neighbors and distant relations until old enough to be taught to disguise themselves, as even one slip can result in the murder of an entire family at the hands of a terrified mob.
Fetch have long been considered creatures of ill omen in human societies. The habit of evil fetch to assume the lives of others, killing and replacing their victims, has led to the superstitious belief by many people that seeing one's double is a sure sign of imminent death. But many fetch seek only to disappear among the human populace, and maintain the same persona their entire lives—in effect living as ordinary humans, their secret exposed only upon their deaths.

Fetch Traits

Your fetch character has the following traits.

Ability Score Increase

One ability score of your choice increases by 2, and one other ability score of your choice increases by 1.

Shapechanger

As an action, you can change your appearance and your voice. You determine the specifics of the changes, including your coloration, hair length, and sex. You can also adjust your height and weight, but not so much that your size changes. You can make yourself appear as a member of another race, though none of your game statistics change. You can’t duplicate the appearance of a creature you’ve never seen, and you must adopt a form that has the same basic arrangement of limbs that you have. Your clothing and equipment aren’t changed by this trait.
Even to the most astute observers, your ruse is usually indiscernible. If you rouse suspicion, or if a wary creature suspects something is amiss, you have advantage on any Charisma (Deception) check you make to avoid detection.
You stay in the new form until you use an action to revert to your true form or until you die.

Survival Instincts

You gain proficiency with two of the following skills of your choice: Deception, Insight, Intimidation, and Persuasion.

The skin, and the flesh, and the muscles, and the bones, and the firm structure of the human body that I had thought to be unchangeable, and permanent as adamant, began to melt and dissolve. Here too was all the work by which man had been made repeated before my eyes. I saw the form waver from sex to sex, dividing itself from itself, and then again reunited. Then I saw the body descend to the beasts whence it ascended, and that which was on the heights go down to the depths, even to the abyss of all being. The principle of life, which makes an organism, always remained, while the outward form changed.

—The Great God Pan, Arthur Machen

Age

Fetch mature slightly faster than humans but share a similar lifespan—typically a century or less. While a fetch can transform to conceal their age, the effects of aging affect them similarly to humans.

Alignment

Fetch tend toward pragmatic neutrality, though some fetch embrace evil.

Size

Your size is Medium.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common.