Changelings, in the natural forms, tend to be the definition of ‘average.’ Average color, average proportions, average features—with some small degree of individuality found mostly in hair styles an adornments. They tend to be pale in skin color with white or pastel hair, and are generally androgynous. Changelings are thought to be an uncommon race—though their true demographics remain unknown, as may live their entire lives masking as other sentient races.
Many places in the world fear changelings for their unique ability to assume the form, or ‘profile’, of nearly any person, indefinitely. Due to this distrust, it is not uncommon for changelings to be subject to hate crimes. In many rural places, murdering a changeling may not even be considered a criminal offense, and even larger cities may generally excuse the act so long as the defendant claims fear for their life. Changelings are sometimes called ‘skincrawlers’ or ‘false-facers’, though both terms are usually seen as derogatory or offensive to changelings themselves.
Although changelings have the ability to replicate the base profile of their targets (i.e. body form, personality type, voice, etc.), they cannot assume the target’s full persona and do not gain access to their memories or developed skills. Talented changelings are skilled actors and may spend significant amounts of time studying a target it in order to more convincingly emulate their personality and mannerisms.
General Culture
Changelings tend to live in complete secrecy, either living in self-sustained remote clans or subterranean clans that venture into nearby city hubs. They generally form groups of 50-150 members and no more, as maintaining a higher population can be risky for detection. In cases where leaving the clan’s hidden sanctuary is permitted, the number, frequency, and duration of excursions is tightly monitored in order to reduce detection probability. When in public, changelings tend to adopt a single profile, opting not to risk discovery by morphing outside of privacy. For simplicity and covert reasons, changelings refer to each other by the name and gender of their natural form when it is present, and to the name and gender of the current profile when it is in use. Because of this, changelings are oftentimes remarkably adept at remembering names and faces.
Within the safety of the clan, changelings seem to transform, or ‘skin’, freely and often. Skinning frequency is modulated by profile preference, with some changelings preferring to maintain one form and others morphing upwards of forty times a day. This is oftentimes directly related to the individual’s natural ability to replicate profiles.
Although replication skill is partially genetically determined and therefore innate, some changeling clans encourage disciplined practice of the art. A common training game for young adults begins with one changeling skinning into a profile and challenging the next to replicate the form exactly while changing only one minimal detail (i.e. nose shape, eye color, etc.).
Clans usually have several roles associated with profiles, not with individuals. For example, an individual may be assigned as a chef for one week and then as a gardener for the next. The individual would assume one of the established ‘chef’ profiles for the first week, and then a ‘farmer’ profile for the next. These ‘trade skins’ are taught to all teenagers, and all are expected to participate in clan duties. Some individuals tend to dominate certain roles, especially those of major importance such as doctors or leaders; these individuals seem to precisely replicate the profile beyond anyone else. These special profiles are revered and often passed to children, and are called ‘blood bound profiles’ or ‘bloodbonds’ (see Profile Control and Bloodbonds).
Coming of Age Ceremony
Changeling children cannot morph themselves until puberty, generally reached at 10-13 years of age. When they feel ready, a teenager can request a coming of age ceremony where the clan gathers to celebrate and see the individual's first profile, and this first profile is encouraged to be naturally generated rather than copied from another. Oftentimes, this first profile is cherished by the new adult and returned to repeatedly, usually in times of intense emotion or when profile control is in jeopardy, and it is considered rude to replicate an individual’s first persona without permission. For the ceremony, the new adult is expected to maintain their first profile for a full week, allowing them to gain comfort in their new skin.
Reproductive Biology and Genetics
Changelings appear to share similar biology to humans and other humanoid sentient races (halflings, gnomes, dwarves, etc.). They have similar circadian rhythm, dietary needs, and strengths or weaknesses as these races. However, some credit changelings as being inherently more intelligent and craftier than others, though it is debatable whether this is an inherent feature or a product of a life lived in hiding. Changelings have darkvision regardless of their assumed form.
All changelings have XXY sex chromosomes, making them all technically something between male and female. Sexual anatomy is controlled by hormonal release much like other races; however, changelings have the unique ability to consciously control hormonal release upon puberty through epigenetic change. This allows an individual to change sex at will, both for use in crafting profiles and for altering anatomy while in natural form. Changelings are typically born with female anatomy, but some prefer to maintain male primary and secondary sex characteristics once in control of this ability.
Changeling-changeling Pairings
When changelings choose to reproduce, one partner will assume female anatomy and one male anatomy, allowing them to select which partner carries the child. During conception, one partner will donate two chromosomes while the other donates one, though which donates two chromosomes is randomly determined. It is immediately clear when a changeling becomes pregnant, as they temporarily lose sex hormone control while pregnant and are unable to assume male anatomy or profiles until the pregnancy is complete. It is thought that changeling gestation and development has adapted to become accelerated in order to reduce this vulnerable time of pregnancy. Typical gestation period is around five months.
Changeling-other Pairings
Changelings can reproduce with other humanoid sentient races, including humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, and gnomes; however viable children from these pairings are rare due to the inherent mismatch of XXY and XX/XY chromosome conditions. When a viable child does arise, the changeling partner donates two of their chromosomes to the child such that it ends up with the typical XXY condition. For example, if the non-changeling donates a Y chromosome, the changeling donates two X chromosomes.
Changeling genes are always dominantly expressed, meaning that a child born of at least one changeling parent will always be born as a changeling. Y-linked traits are epigenetically suppressed until puberty.
Profile Control and Bloodbonds
The changeling’s unique ability to assume any humanoid form is a product of conscious epigenetic control. Although it is often incorrectly assumed that all changelings can precisely replicate all profiles, this is untrue. Each changeling has access to a ‘genetic bank’ of suppressed traits dictated by their family line’s reproductive history and use these genes as raw material for constructing as close a replication as possible. For example, if a changeling is attempting to assume the profile of a dwarf but their family line has only ever produced children with humans, they may struggle to accurately skin into a dwarf profile. In this example, the changeling may instead attempt to pull from their human gene bank, controlling expression of genes dictating height, stockiness, muscle mass, and body hair. For this purpose, many changeling communities actively seek to infuse their line with a broad variation of genetic information to be used as source material (see Reinvigoration).
Bloodbonds
Blood-bound profiles occur in the extremely rare case where the child of a changeling-other pairing adopts two chromosomes from its non-changeling parent rather than its changeling parent. In these cases, the child has a near exact copy of the donor’s genetic code and is able to replicate their non-changeling parent’s profile with extreme precision—they are not forced to reconstruct the profile using bits and pieces from their stored genetic bank as is true with regular profiles. Bloodbonds are highly revered, and in changeling culture it is often seen as a duty to the clan for an individual with a bloodbond to produce at least one child which inherits the profile. A changeling with a blood-bound profile has a 50/50 change of producing a child with this ability, as they must be the one to donate two chromosomes during conception.
Reinvigoration
Due to the stochastic nature of genetic mutation, crossover, and inheritance, stored genetic information used for constructing profiles will deteriorate over time. To keep family lines from losing their ability to skin into a vast variety of profiles, changeling clans participate in ‘Reinvigoration’ events every few generations. During this time changelings volunteer to collect genetic information by adopting desirable profiles and seducing humanoids with the goal of impregnation. These reinvigoration events are usually carefully planned to reap as much genetic diversity as possible, and oftentimes specific unique people are targeted for genetic collection. For example, kings, religious leaders, or especially intelligent or talented famous individuals are generally high-priority targets with the hopes of incurring a blood-bound profile. Unfortunately, this method does not work well when female profiles are targeted as it requires the non-changeling woman to become pregnant and carry the child to term. In these cases, the clan must either ask the woman to donate the child to their society or steal the child from its mother shortly after birth.
Changeling Traits
Ancestral Race. Choose from the following races: human, elf, dwarf, halfling, or gnome. This will determine your natural talent at masking as the chosen race.
Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score is increased by +1. You gain an additional +1 increase to an ability determined by your family’s dominant genetic line.
Human: Charisma
Elf: Wisdom
Dwarf: Strength
Halfling: Dexterity
Gnome: Intelligence
Age. Changelings have a slightly accelerated lifespan when compared to humans. They reach maturity at 10-13 years of age and generally live to be 50-60 years old.
Alignment. Changelings can be good or evil but are oftentimes opposed to the law and order, as it has historically only caused them anguish. Changelings tend to adopt neutral or chaotic alignments.
Size. In their natural forms, changelings tend to be of similar size as humans (between 5-6 ft.). Your size class is medium, but changes to small if masking as a gnome or halfling.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 ft.
Versatile. You gain proficiency in two skills of your choice.
Language. You can speak, read, and write Common and the language of your ancestral race. If your ancestral race is human, you may choose another language.
Change Profile. As an action, you can transform your appearance or revert to your natural form. You can’t duplicate the appearance of a creature you’ve never seen, and you revert to your natural form if you die.
You decide what you look like, including your height, weight, facial features, the sound of your voice, coloration, hair length, sex, and any other distinguishing characteristics. You can make yourself appear as a member of the following races: human, elf, dwarf, halfling, gnome, and half-elf. Your clothing and other equipment do not change.
Your profile is usually indiscernible. If a creature suspects something is wrong, you have advantage on any Charisma (Deception) check you make to avoid detection. When masking as your ancestral race, creatures are unable to visually tell that it is not your natural form but may still alert to strange mannerisms or behaviors.
Facial Recognition. If you spend more than an hour observing a humanoid creature, you are permanently able to remember their general profile traits.
Observed Profile. If you spend more than two weeks observing a humanoid creature and its routines, you learn to perfect their personality and mannerisms. Only creatures intimately familiar with the chosen profile may sense that something is amiss.
