Changeling

*Tales of children stolen away and replaced by monsters exist across countless cultures— but the true monsters are the hag mothers of these strange children. After the hag seduces, uses, and disposes of their father, the changeling child is usually abandoned in their father’s community to be raised among them. Such a child faces no end of challenges, often beginning life as an orphaned outsider.*

Though a changeling generally resembles a member of their father's ancestry, their distinctive eyes—each a different color—set them apart. One of their eyes matches that of their father's lineage, while the other matches the color of their hag mother's, often in an unnatural shade such as violet or a vivid green. Not everyone with differently colored eyes is a changeling, but this manifestation of changeling heritage makes it difficult for them to hide their nature and can lead to banishment from their community. As they come of age, they manifest other characteristics from their mother, including supernatural abilities. Darkvision, clawlike fingernails, and innate magic are the most common, but stranger abilities specific to the hag mother can also arise.

Changelings can be any gender, but women in particular are vulnerable to the Call, a psychic influence that urges them to abandon their mortal life, join the hag's coven, and eventually become a hag. Changelings who understand their heritage often fear the Call and work to resist its pull. Those who remain ignorant of their origin may find themselves subject to a terrible compulsion without knowing why.

## You Might...

* Cherish and protect those friends and family who accept you as you are.
* Seek to better understand your hag mother and the gifts she gave you, for good or ill, or distance yourself from your heritage.
* Fear the day you hear the Call and worry you might not be able to resist—or perhaps you already fight to resist it every day.

## Others Probably...

* Assume you practice occult or primal magic, or that you participate in a coven.
* Worry that you might secretly be a monster, or become one, and turn on them.
* Notice and speculate about your distinctive eyes.

## Adventurers

Depending on their mother's choice of cradle, a changeling might grow up a farmhand or noble. Reclusive changelings might be artists, herbalists, tinkers, or hermits, while some find companionship as animal whisperers. More outgoing changelings might become charlatans or fortune-tellers or use their allure as merchants and entertainers.

Changelings carry the potential for occult sorcery via their hag blood; the bard's path offers similar magic. Many changelings who find beauty in nature become druids or rangers, while changeling rogues make master manipulators with lethal claws. Changelings might become paladins or redeemers to protect what they love.

## Ecology

Changelings are born when a hag tricks a male of certain species into coupling with her; the hag will normally murder and eat the changeling's father before he can ever see his daughter but powerful hags can set a curse through divination on a pregnant women. After giving birth, the hag will then abandon the child with a family or an organisation of the father's race that she believes will care for the child, like a temple. The limited powers inherited from the changeling's hag mother normally manifest around puberty; the changeling finds herself able to see in the dark, her skin gains a supernatural hardness, or her nails subtly change becoming sharp and hard enough to effectively function as claws.

Some manifest stranger powers; for instance, changeling children of dreamthief and night hags can better resist magically compelled sleep or dreams. Changelings are also fundamentally infused with inhuman magic and often become powerful witches, sorceresses, or are drawn to occult or primal magics. Despite these differences, it is very possible for a changeling to be completely unaware of her supernatural origin.

### The Call

For some changelings, the Call can be purposefully interrupted, bringing about a scarred, hag-riven bloodrager.

Around the same time changelings develop their new-found abilities, they also hear the **Call**, a powerful psychic cry issued by their hag mother that is designed to lure them away from their foster communities. Most changelings feel it as a lust to wander but its origin is much more sinister: the changeling's mother forms a coven with at least two other hags to summon their wayward daughters home.

Those who follow the call are abducted and subjected to an horrific ritual that harnesses their innate magic and twists their physical form eventually resulting in the birth of a new hag. Some changelings who have been subjected to rejection and persecution actually embrace this wicked metamorphosis, while those with stronger social bonds or deep druidic beliefs resist it and live out their mortal lives as changeling exiles.

The Call primarily targets female changelings, and this prevalence led to a long-held mistaken belief that all changelings are female.† The secret heritage of male changelings is therefore more hidden within their paternal ancestry.

### Heritages

Changelings vary greatly depending not only on the species which whom the hag mated, but on the hag parent herself. These differences fall into the following categories known as heritages, while the changelings who exhibit these differences are known as mays. Below is a list of the best-known heritages along with their hag parents:

## Habitat and society

Changelings grow up in the society of their fathers and this shapes much of their character: despite their monstrous mother, they have no predisposition towards evil. Unfortunately, her innate otherness often marks a changeling as an innate outcast, as a result of which they often relate easiest with other mixed heritage outsiders, especially half-elves. Those who are embraced by their adopted society, however, find it easiest to ignore the sinister Call of their progenitor. Changelings can be found wherever hags dwell but the Coven Isles have cultivated a society around them.

Changelings, unfortunately, occupy a terrifying place amongst the folklore of the Duinn region, representing some primal feeling that even people they think they know might not be what they seem. In these tales, a changeling is a manipulative monster using their human form to torment their community. Unfortunately, these often false tales can lead to the very real persecution of any changeling whose heritage is discovered. The same folklore also claims that changelings who resist the call are rewarded after death by The Wheel, who turns their souls into shoki psychopomp.

## Other Information

### Changeling Origins

Changelings' rarity typically prevents them from gathering in numbers. While changelings can be found anywhere hags lurk, the Coven Isles are practically a factory for them, though the hags of the Coven Isles use techniques to spread out their changelings amongst Cyril. The daughters of night hags and moon hags can arise far from any known hag activity thanks to their mothers' extraplanar origins, as can the spontaneously arising sorrow may.

### Changeling Relationships

Given their desire for emotional intimacy, romance and love are often major aspects of changelings' lives. Some flit from one tryst to another, while others find dedicated lovers and cling to them tightly—sometimes enough to drive them away. While some changelings use their mystique to manipulate others, such attempts all too often end with the changeling actually falling in love, only to become heartbroken when their lover discovers their earlier duplicity. Changelings rarely feel comfortable with a single partner despite their desire for commitment. The most comfortable relationship structure for many changelings involves the changeling and two or more people, each in a relationship with all other members. However, these changelings are acutely aware that their hag blood is the likely source of this desire.