Changelings
Changelings are the children of hags, notable for their mismatched eyes. They're exceptionally rare outside of Talandra, although the drow of the Duskwood are known to interbreed with hags as well. Changelings can be male or female, but only female changelings receive the Call from their mother at puberty. Should they accept it, they will transform into a hag. For unknown reasons, whether or not a changeling receives the Call depends on their gender identity, not their assigned sex at birth. Regardless of a changeling's birth sex, the transformation into a hag always results in a fertile female. Hags usually abandon their children, so most changelings are raised by their father's families, or in orphanages and foster homes. Most people are unable to tell a changeling apart from a member of their father's race in childhood, and male changelings can live their entire life without discovering their heritage. Female changelings, however, often receive a rude awakening in their teen years when they begin to hear the Call, which can accompany the development of supernatural powers that are difficult to control, resulting in their banishment if their true natures are discovered. Changelings raised by hags meanwhile are almost always introctrinated to serve their mothers, and are taught witchcraft from a young age in preparation for their eventual role in a coven, or if female, transformation into a hag. Changelings are not truebreeding, and the children of two changelings are almost always regular members of their father's race (or a regular hybrid of the two), although they may possess superficial traits of changelings such as heterochromia and clawed hands. Exceptions may exist, although second generation changelings are so rare as to be believed impossible.
Changelings and Hags
Hags come in many different races, such as annis hags, green hags, sea hags, and blood hags. With the exception of fiendish night hags, hags are not immortal, but their lifespan exceeds even the longest lived elves, reaching up to a thousand years or more. All hags are women, and while some hags are shapeshifters, their masculine forms are never fertile. As a result, they generally reproduce by seducing men under the guise of humanoid women, making compacts with superstitious tribes and leaving behind "shamanic" children, or through more violent means. Most hags are evil, some are neutral, and very few are good. Hags are either solitary, or they form covens of three. Hags are powerful at witchcraft, and covens grant them additional powers, which is why the normally solitary beings would seek them out. While possessing no true society of their own, hag covens maintain an intricate web of favors and grievances against each other. These are resolved by secret means that follow some logic of fairytale or witchcraft, and often incomprehensible to uninitiated humanoids. Changelings raised in hag covens sometimes reject forced service or the Call and escape to humanoid society, and it is from them that other races learned what little they know of the secret lives of hags.Changeling House Rules
- Changelings can be any gender, but only changelings that identify as female receive the Call.
- Changelings don’t have their own subtype; for the purposes of effects targeting creatures by type (such as a ranger’s favored enemy and bane weapons), they count as both humanoids of their father’s subtype, and monstrous humanoids.
