Doppelganger

     " Happened fast.

      There was no light in the room, except for the lantern on top of my staff. It provides a weak light, but it is enough for my artificially improved vision. Thanks to the pieces of a permour implanted on me years ago time passes a little bit slower to me when I am tense, and my senses are a couple of steps above the perception of other humans. There is a price to be paid for those advantages, but is one I did not regret. Have a non-magical card to play when everyone is expecting you will depend on magical is great.         Without the improvements I would not be able to see the sphere on the floor. When I entered it looked like an egg, except for being a sphere. Maybe the thing reacted to the light source. Or maybe it reacted to my presence, but for one instant the surface of it became translucent, and I saw something inside the ball.

            Faster than any normal human could draw a sword the globe changed into a person in from of me. I had my sword in hand before enter the room, and pronounced the command to magically intensify the flames on my lantern. I hopped to obfuscate the possible threat, but the person in front of me was immune to the trick.
      Even under the stronger illumination I could not see difference between this individual and humans. It looked like a naked man, in his thirties, naked and holding a sword in his right hand.
     _I am not looking for a fight, stranger_ said it.
     The thing was uneasy, it attacked me with the sword and I blocked without difficulty. At same time the kukry emerged from his hand. I knew it was there, since I had seemed it moving through his translucent form before it reach human aspect. Despite that information my throat lost his knife edge for almost nothing. 
      Describe the moves of this monster as fluid could sound like a poor joke, but I have no better word."


      Like humans are mammals, doppelgangers belong to a specie classified as "hydrous". There is no native specie of hydrous that does not evolved from some ii race, or was created here by magic. Most non-talking species of this group are predator hunters that hunt or stock their targets in underground caves and dark forests. They came in many sizes, and do have as little in common with each other as hamsters, elephants, bats and tigers have. Originated in countless different Universes, brought to this world in different periods
      The hydrous specie named by Altair the Infamous as "doppelgangers" came from the Vortex more than 9 million years ago. Their culture value self-sufficiency and wiliness.
        Humans call his folk “Dark-Caster”, "Dark-cloaks", “Shadow-Folk”, or “face-thieves”, and common people have no sympathy for their kind.  
        They communicate with each other without sounds, making the process of register the name they give themselves impossible, at least in terms of phonetic representation. “Doppelgangers”, evokes some of their most distinctive characteristics for those connected to recent Earthling culture. Human iis from Earth have called them changelings, succubus/incubus, and other curious names. 
         Doppelgangers can change appearance at will, even change their body volume about for times. They can have any number of limbs they find convenient. The only parts of their bodies that are relatively fix are the skull and the backbone. Even those are more flexible than human bones or muscles, allowing them to pass through openings three times smaller than their skulls with some effort.

RESILIENCE 

         Save for magic, magic-like capacities, and other hydrous, there is virtually no practical way to hurt them. To do that you must hitting their denser organs.                    A falchion blow strong enough to sever the spine will cause the loss of all body mass controlled by the severed section of the spine. Cuts and perforations on the skull will have small and temporary effect, causing weakness and disorientation. Kill one of them require a huge impact on the head, something like the projectile shot from a ballista or similar siege weapon smashing the doppelganger’s head against a city wall.
       When in that spherical shape they heal, and sleep, and can think and even register what happens around.  They can neither move nor communicate. 
       However, they do not age in this state.
       Not counting those ‘rests’ the specie can live for about 500 years. However they start loosing the ability to pass by members of other species when are around 250 years old, and for most of them that is as good as a death sentence. Those who survive are members of the race respected enough by their pairs to be considered a source of advice and guidance.

REPRODUCTION

        Doppelgangers have no gender. Individuals may assume preferentially male or female aspect, but they do so as humans choose their clothes, as humans more pragmatic than average (generally speaking). Never entirely ignoring practical considerations of social nature for the sake of fashion.
      They are naturally able to generate half-bloods with the species they impersonate, and in their culture those are second class citizens, only one step above the status of slaves. However, their culture is small and poorly structured at the present, and most individuals have been living among humans or other solid species, seldom having the chance to talk with their own kind.                                                                                                       
       True members of the race are generated by any number of individuals, above one. Traditionally some numbers are better than others, and odd numbers bring better auspicious.
        The number of parents involved in the generation of a doppelganger had a huge influence in how the specie sees that person. Considering only the auspicious numbers, as a general rule, they consider the people generated by a larger number of parents to have more important destinies in life. They feel immediately how many parents each one of them has, it is “written in their faces” so to speak.

PUBLIC OPINIONS

       Doppelgangers are regarded as evil by most humans on Sharitarn. Not for being dangerous murders and frequently cannibals, since almost all free human males on the planet will have killed their handful of other humans before they start growing grey hair. All locals like to consider themselves dangerous enough individuals, and they do not expect the world to be safe for anyone. And as for cannibalism, it is a crime in most human cities but as long as you are not caught eating human flesh inside the borders of the city no one will care too much about your diet. The problem with doppelgangers is their supposed lack of honor.
     Impersonate other people is the normal life for this specie, their basic 'natural' instinct so to speak. They are extremely good at it, up to the point where a strong and talented individual can pass most magical test designed to verify identity, and catch lies.
      All armies do use spies in some extent, and much of the art of war is about deceive your enemies. Sun Tzu pointed this well on Earth, but common men of Sharitarn are a bit more touchy about the matter than the Earthling disciples of that master.
     Doppelgangers are just too competent at lie, so competent that many nations consider the use of their mercenary services the local equivalent to a war crime. A standard contract of alliance between nations will determine that no side will use mercenary doppelgangers against the other, and that no side will have that specie among their citizens. On the other hand, do takes powerful and nicely equipped mages to verify whether or not these promises are being broken: not every nation has access to that kind of magic.
      Same is valid to rich merchant families, who have even more temptations to use the shadow-folk in their disputes, since is less likely that other races will be able to contract a master of magic able to expose those spies. 
       What other rich merchants do have is money to try buy the loyalty of any shadow-folk. 
      These hydrous are famous for change they loyalties and brake contracts. Maybe they do that more than other races. Also could be the case that they are just as loyal as humans, but deal with them is an infamous violation of human morality and who does that must throw on the mercenaries a bit of the shame they are feeling for indulge in such relation.
       Being from Earth, of course, I could not care less.

IDENTITY THEFT

      The favourite tactic used by hydrous beasts to kill their solid preys is to jump on them, and just involve the victim’s head. Does not matter if the other animal breaths air or water, as long as it has to breath and the hydrous is large enough to block their respiratory system, there is not much fight to be had. The hydrous begins digesting the enemy, or prey, while it is suffocating to death.
      Dark-castes cannot use that strategy, because they are not perfect hydrous. Have dense organs make them vulnerable, to the point that they will not involve an enemy in their gelatinous bodies before have it immobilized and out of fight. When they do involve an enemy, they can do more than consume the body. Dark-casters extract the brains of captured enemies and can use them for process information, and learn what the person knew.
        They consume this information during days, in some cases longer than that, and in doing so obtain all the knowledge and skills the person had, even the feelings, they do not feel love or hate for the objects loved or hated by their victims but they understand the feelings perfectly. That is how they still identities so well that even skilled sigraxes using Mind Whispers spells to read their minds will be fooled most the time. Masters in the use of their natural capacities are able to hide under stolen identities even in the presence of soothsayer and Mind Whisper mages.
        Is impossible obtain magic, or even magic potential. However, even that limitation can be avoided in some extent. During the first couple of hours after get the brain of someone who had magic potential awaken a doppelganger is able to pass as this person, and will register as alchemist, sigrax, or mage. Whatever was the magic status of their victim.
     They cannot make spells using this stolen Xar, so is not a perfect disguise. Still, no one can do better.

Related Myths

• Failed Assassination