Changeling
The term “changeling” encompasses a number of different species with various origins who all share one primary quality: the ability to change shape at will. Some changelings are doppelgangers, creatures originating from the shadowfell with the ability to shapeshift only into people that they have seen before/recently, some changelings were normal children who were affected by abberant magic and gained their ability to shapeshit through that, and even rarer still are creatures that were a part of the elemental plane of shadow, an ever-shifting being encompassing its entire plane, but were severed somehow and became their own entities.
Basic Information
Anatomy
By nature, changelings to not tend towards one anatomy, as they are constantly changing between them. However, changelings are restricted in their shapeshifting to forms that share the same basic anatomy as their true form: the same arrangement of lims, stance, etc. A changeling’s true form depends vastly on what type of changeling they are. A doppelganger’s true form is grey, with black eyes, wispy black hair, and jagged charcoal grey teeth. A changeling who became such via magic’s true form is simply the form they had before becoming a changeling. A changeling from the elemental plane of shadow has white, plastic-y skin and jet black eyes and hair.
Growth Rate & Stages
Changelings tend to have shorter lifespans than most of the other races, typically only living to around the age of 60 or 70. The ability to shapeshift in magical changelings is often straining on the body, severely limiting their lifespan, while doppelgangers share the shorter lifespan of those in the shadowfell, and changelings originating from the elemental plane of shadow are not able to survive for very long outside of their home plane.
Additional Information
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Changelings have a unique ability to sense the presence of changelings of the same type as them in their vicinity.
Civilization and Culture
Naming Traditions
Most changelings either choose their own name or take a name from another. Changelings who choose their own name may choose that of an object or an action, like Moss or Rider.
Interspecies Relations and Assumptions
When changelings have children with other species, there is around a 40% chance that the child will inherit the ability to shape shift. If they do, their lifespan will resemble that of their changeling parents, but if not, their lifespan reflects that of the species of their other parent. In either regard, the child's true form will resemble the species of their non-changeling parent.
Lifespan
60-70 yrs
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