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For those of you using the Eberron Changelings in Golarion, or using Pathfinder Changelings in Eberron, or both in your own homebrew, how are you handling the name confusion? What alternate, evocative names, if any, have you given to the races to further set them apart?
Doppelganger-kin just doesn't roll off the tongue. And haglings just doesn't click, IMO YMMV BYOB.
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Skinwalkers
Skinchangers
Skindancers
the Faceless or Faceless Ones (true form, no face)
derisive names given to them by others;
Skins
Masques
Pretenders
Caulchilder (thought to peel their faces off, like the caul being removed from an infants face)
You could also use one of the various foreign names from mythical changeling children.
The old Citybook series by Flying Buffalo/Blade had a changling-style race known as 'Effigies', 'Effies' and 'FEs'.
What book are Pathfinder Changelings in? Bestiary 2? I couldn't find them in Bestiary 1...
I like Skindancers too, but don't discount the classic Facestealers- since they take on the likeness of somebody else, thus "stealing" it.
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Pathfinder Changelings turn up in detail in the Carrion Crown AP, the first volume IIRC. They were first mentioned and suggested as a player option in the Carrion Crown Player's Guide, available as a free pdf.(no stats there though, they're only found in the AP itself, I think)
and Facedancing sound like something involving rule 34...
Well hell now it's ruined for me too! ;)
Weren't Skindancers the "tribe" of werewolf kinfolk that gained shapechanging powers of their own by hunting and ritualistically killing other werewolves? It's been a long time since I played World of Darkness.
MM3 in D&D3.5 has a skindancer monster already. It has "reactive skin" that gives it DR and energy resistance based on the last attack it suffered. They look like 9 foot tall ape-like lizardmen.
Weren't Skindancers the "tribe" of werewolf kinfolk that gained shapechanging powers of their own by hunting and ritualistically killing other werewolves? It's been a long time since I played World of Darkness.
And that would be yes. But I like the idea.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Morphs (my short hand name, trying to find a better one) are my ‘eberron changling proxy’ race.
Basically, the morphs were a humanoid race whose extinction was fortold by their soothsayers. While some accepted their pending fate and others fled, a small cabal decided if their race was fortold to be doomed, then by changing their race, they should survive.
How they gained their shifting abilities is lost to time, whether it be by an influx of protean matter from the planes, or maybe extracts from the dopplegangers they seem to be related to. No matter the origin, the result is unavoidable. Morphs can take the form of any humanoid being, but they are marked in their natural forms by their strange appearance. They also are forced to operate in, but never truly a part of, humanoid society. As a result of their origin, two morphs cannot conceive a child, instead producing a doppelganger, their ancient foes.
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I actually want to change the name of the PF version of Changelings. As far as I can tell, the only connection they have to the name is an abstract one through the mythology.
The Eberron Changelings very clearly had morphic bodies, and that seems to make a bit more sense for the name. Perhaps I'm biased by the Star Trek usage of the name, though. Still, I'd prefer to have Changelings be shapeshifters and the Hag-Children be something else.
If one is looking for an alternate name for an Eberron Changeling:
-Skinchanger
-Shapeshifter
-Morph
-Dopplechild
If one is looking for an alternate name for a PF Changeling:
-Hagspawn
-Called One
-Strangeling
-Soleyes
Also, citation on Eberron not being OGL?
-Edit-
Scratch that. Just checked the copyright info. I never knew Eberron wasn't OGL. Grrrrrr.
Whatever. I'll take Changelings and translate them myself. WotC can suck it on that score.
FWIW, Palladium's "Rifts" had a race of shapeshifters called "Changelings" who were a PC race and virtually identical to the Eberron changelings.
That said, I'd prefer to use the word "changeling" in the fey sense, so I'd just look at "doppelganger" which comes from German mythology and go with the English folkloric translation: fetch.
A fetch is the spirit double one sees before one dies, same as the doppelganger. Just use "fetch" for the PC version of a doppelganger. Explain the relationship like the difference between goblins and hobgoblins. Done.
Just my two cents, maybe knowing something and maybe not, I would not go with "Skindancers."
Dr. Murphy, has a fine solution - unless you plan to have fetchlings in you game. But they're kind of out in left field thematically, so if you're not crossing the hag stream with the shadow stream, I think you're probably good.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Let the dopplekinder use Changeling and change the hagborn?
Hagborn?
Witchlings?
Caulborn?
Twists?
Well I was thinking 'protean' for the dopplekinder, but it's already taken.
morphs, shifters (ha!) face stealers. skulks (are skulks in the ToH? I don't remember) dopplekinder is cool, if unwieldly.
Just my two cents, maybe knowing something and maybe not, I would not go with "Skindancers."
Awwww, poopie! I imagine something sinister in the new CC AP is named skindancer. I'd already settled on skindancers as a name for my sepiidian-based race. Oh well.
Hmmmm, that dream I had a while back with Schneider and DiCaprio rummaging in my dumpster of a brain might have meant something after all... :)
Edit: Added link
I'd call them both changelings and let it sow confusion. It's quite possible that people might use the same terminology for both in different parts of the world.
Just my two cents, maybe knowing something and maybe not, I would not go with "Skindancers."
...I had just settled on it. Man, that's quick name turnover(possibly or possibly not). ;)
"Mercurials" then?
Pffff! Go for it then. By the time we do anything with skinwalkers or skindancers you'll probably be done Carrion Crown already.
Hmmmm, that dream I had a while back with Schneider and DiCaprio rummaging in my dumpster of a brain might have meant something after all... :)
@#$%! Spotted! O_o
Dopplekind brings wunderkind to mind, and the fact that I could see someone being offended by Gratuitous German referring to them thereafter as doublekind. which leads to 'doubles' and then to 'dubs', which now leads to mental images involving Changelings with spinners.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Dopplekind brings wunderkind to mind, and the fact that I could see someone being offended by Gratuitous German referring to them thereafter as doublekind. which leads to 'doubles' and then to 'dubs', which now leads to mental images involving Changelings with spinners.
Well we could call them Mystiqs...
I think doppelkinder is a great name.