Sealed Grove

North of the bladegrass kayaker tribes one can find the **Sealed Grove**, a forest where a meek, shapeshifting race lives - the **Facedancers**.

Having been sealed by a magical spell of the Drouchont druids, the Facedancers are unable to leave the boundaries of the forest, but people are not barred from entering. Facedancers are able to take upon the identity of any person they kill (whether it be human, dwarf, halfling or gnore), and only then will they be able to escape the forest.

The Facedancers are able to switch in and out of their assumed form at will, only taking a few minutes at times to do so. They can mimic the victims's voice and physical form, but only if they are of similar body weight, which means that dwarves and other smaller races are their primary target. Many killing sprees in Gvilderstaaten and Nekiz in the past have been found out to have been carried by Facedancers, assuming one form after another.

The Facedancer's true form is hideous. The size of a halfling, they are bald with elongated limbs, hooked noses and horse-like teeth. Not all facedancers are evil, however. Some only kill out of necessity, in order to escape their prison imposed on them by the Drouchont. Before that, many facedancers would not even bother changing forms at all, instead happily living in their communities in the forest. However, the evil deeds of a few have truly stigmatized the Facedancer people for eternity.

## The prison of the Facedancers

The Sealed Grove used to be the forest of **Asim-Chisis**. A rather unremarkable region, it was covered with a dense vegetation, typical of the forest of the area. However, this seemingly inconspicuous nature made it an ideal spot for unauthorized or morally dubious magical experiments. During the first centuries of the Khenomeric Empire, the authorities had to keep an eye on the region, to avoid unsavory wizards from doing dangerous experiments in the area. This was completely turned around once the Magoclergy rose to power. The Magoclergy’s rampant use and abuse of the magical arts led them to take over the forest as their own private field, and alongside many areas around the Lands of the Drouchont, they set up many of their experiments there.

In particular, the Magoclergy sought to create a species of assassin to infiltrate the groups opposed to their rule, and destroy them from within. After many years of experimentation and dark magics, the result was the creation of the **Facedancers**. This shapeshifter were posed to be the main agents of the Magoclergy, creating a rule of fear across the land that would guarantee their rule forevermore. However, three things became apparent after a couple of years of testing their capabilities. One, their shapeshifting had very serious limits. While they could transform into their target once it had been killed, they could only turn into that person. If they wanted to turn into another form, they would lose the ability to turn into the original victim. And since they needed to kill that individual to gain their form, once they copied another one, they couldn’t go back. Two, the facedancers couldn’t hold their assumed form for more than a year. After a while, they would began slowly losing features until only their original facedancer form remained. The last problem, and the one that disappointed the Magoclergy the most, is that the facedancers could not copy the victim’s height. The facedancers were particularly short, around the size of dwarves, and when they targeted a human or a species of similar height, the end result was a shrunken-looking version of that individual, clearly spelling to the public something was wrong. There were very few facedancers who could achieve a desired height to be of use in a mostly human empire.

Due to all of this, the Magoclergy declared the facedancers as a failed project, and too dangerous to be left alone. However, they decided against destroying them all, maybe because it would be too bothersome to hunt down a race of shapeshifters, maybe because they might have a purpose for them in the future. The Magoclergy created many magical seals around the forest of Asim-Chisis, blocking anyone from exiting the region. This spells are maintained by the Drouchont Dark Druids, who have kept the magic from fading through bloody rituals. However, the magic design of the spells had a critical flaw: they stop facedancers from exiting, but they do nothing if someone else wants to move in and out. This means that people can enter in and out into the forest, making them vulnerable to facedancer attacks. And once a facedancer takes the identity of a human or another species, the magic will no longer consider them a threat, and thus let them go unharmed. This has resulted in many facedancers escaping over time, being hunted by the dark druids and the few people who know of their existence.

The facedancers have a deep need to exit the forest. Good or evil natured aside, they would do whatever it takes to exit their prison, and thus will hunt down the few travelers who are foolish enough to dismiss the many warnings and traps set up by the dark druids. Once they are out, their behavior will vary greatly. Some facedancers are happy enough to live obscure lives, taking the shape of vagrants missed by no one to live on the road, hiding their true nature and shape from the public. Others, however, are driven by greed and ambition, and become the assassins and infiltrators the Magoclergy design them to be. They will sell their services to those unscrupulous or perverse enough to take the risk on them, and many killing sprees in the world have been proven to be the work of these shapeshifters.