Changelings

Changelings are among the rarest of supernatural beings, half-human, half-fairy creatures with one foot in the world of mortals and the other in the faraway realms of fancy and glamour. Changelings are less strange and foreign than true fairies (which do not visit the mortal world anymore, and indeed in many cases cannot), but they still retain some of the shine of their fairy origins, and few who encounter them can shake off the feeling of their strangeness. Changelings appear to be regular mortals in any casual inspection, but they have powers no human has ever had, and vampires with appropriate powers in the Auspex or Thaumaturgy disciplines may be able to tell that there is something just subtly wrong about them with a little effort.

Changeling Varieties

Changelings come in various different forms and have easily as complicated a system of organization as do the vampires themselves. Like their true fairy kin, Changelings are roughly divided into the fair folk of the Seelie Court and the frightening spirits of the Unseelie Court, although there are considerable shades of grey in both courts. Different types of Changelings have different folkloric connections and powers:

• Barbegazi are loners and sportspeople, always looking for a new challenge.
• Bean-Sidhe are heralds of impending doom with impressive (but terrible) voices.
• Boggans are earthy homesteaders with a dedication to comfort and safety.
• Clurichauns are joyful, rambunctious bards, too quick to talk without thinking it through first.
• Dryads are forest-aligned Changelings on a desperate question to save the world's forests.
• Duergar are unfriendly, focused creatures, always interested only in their own prowess and goals.
• Eshu are adventurous travelers and storytellers seeking new and exciting tales.
• Ghille Dhu are nature spirits, concerned with the growth and health of the earth.
• Grimalkin are cat-aligned beings, often acting as familiars to mages and other supernatural beings.
• Gwyllion are unsettling watchers-in-the-dark, their eyes always following everyone who passes them.
• Leanan-Sidhe are blood-drinking seductive creatures, seeking sustenance in others.
  
• Leshiye are capricious hermits willing to do almost anything for a wager or to win a game.
• Merfolk are ancient remnants of the seafaring fairies of the oceans and streams.
• Nockers are artists, creators, and artisans without peer, with little interest in anything else.
• Piskies are compulsive thieves, stealing for their own amusement (and, at least according to them, others' too).
• Pooka are liars and pranksters, but mostly out of a sense of fun and innocence.
  
• Redcaps are hideous and ravenous creatures who seek to destroy and consume things around them.
• Satyrs are passionate hedonists who can't resist anything that strikes them as wonderful.
• Sidhe are nobles and rulers among the Changelings who seek a return to better times.
• Sluagh are the things that go bump in the night, frightening and usually hidden in the shadows.
• Trolls are warrior monsters that defend those in need and prize loyalty above all else.
• Vily are vengeful and jealous punishers of anyone they believe has transgressed (which is honestly most everyone).

Obviously, Changelings are much more human-seeming than their fairy kinfolk, but they can't help showing their true colors in small ways or when stressed a little bit more than they would like.

Changeling Powers

Changeling powers are poorly understood by vampires, who seldom see them in action and wouldn't know how to identify them even if they did. The most common types of Changeling powers include the following:

• Chicanery, which involves fooling and controlling the mind, usually through use of illusions, glamour, and seductive emotional manipulation.
• Legerdemain, which the ability to remotely manipulate items and use telekinesis-like powers on them.
• Metamorphosis, which involves substantially changing a Changeling's size and shape at will.
• Primal, which involves manipulating the forces of nature (such as weather) and the Changeling's own body (such as healing).
• Soothsaying, which involves predicting events in the future and seeking knowledge from beyond the veil.
• Wayfaring, which involves travel and increasing the capabilities of the body to new heights.

There are other, more specialized Changeling powers in existence, many of them practiced only by a specific type of fairy, but if the odds against a vampire ever knowingly encountering a Changeling are already very high, the odds against also encountering one with such rare powers are stratospheric.

Changelings and Vampires

For the most part, Changelings avoid vampires, who are bad for their health quite apart from the normal concerns of blood-drinking and unsavory experimentation. All Changelings walk a fine line between remaining anchored by their half-human blood and drawing power and sustenance from the realms of the fairies, and vampires, not just anchored but almost sunk right into the fabric of the mortal world, interfere with their ability to call upon those powers of illusion and fancy when they need them. Prolonged exposure to vampires can seriously harm a Changeling, especially if those vampires have a poor connection to humanity or are especially conniving and without imagination, so while it might not be unheard of for a Changeling and a vampire to meet by chance, most Changelings prudently don't let on what they are and leave with all due haste.

Changelings also avoid advertising their presence because many of them are aware that their blood represents a potent intoxicant for vampires, one which causes them to feel a little of the dazzlement of the fairy realms and instantly feel as if they were a mortal simultaneously becoming extremely drunk and wildly high on ectasy. This sort of effect is instantly addictive to some vampires, and hard to resist even for those who do not feel an overwhelming compulsion to taste it again once they've had the first drink, so Changelings tend to try to prevent any new vampires from discovering how delicious they are or seeing an opportunity to try that particular high out a second time.

Because they are half human, Changelings are subject to the potency of vampire blood; they can be made into Ghouls, although doing so is likely to damage their connection to the fairy realms even more quickly than normal exposure to vampiric cruelty, and they operate much as normal human ghouls would. Ghouled Changelings are susceptible to the Blood Bond and likely to form just as strong an attachment to their master as any mortal would. However, the fairy half of a Changeling is too alien to be overwhelmed by vampiric blood and too strong to be removed by force of will, so any attempt to actually Embrace a Changeling always ends in the half-fairy's agonizing death as their system is torn apart by the two warring forces. Children of Changelings, referred to as kinain, are only a quarter fairy-blooded and often do not develop any Changeling powers unless found and guided by their more supernatural cousins; they may be ghouled or Embraced as usual, often without either the kinain or the vampire realizing they were anything but a normal human, although any Changeling who might know or be related to them would likely consider this a terrible tragedy.

Changelings can be spotted by vampires with the Auspex Discipline if they happen to be looking at just the right time; Changeling auras tend to be bright and glittery, as if filled with champagne, and their powers leave a similar trace of "fairy dust" behind for vampires with the second sight to find afterward. Of course, most vampires would have no idea what they were looking at if they had never encountered a Changeling before, but they would certainly be alerted to the fact that they were not in the presence of an ordinary mortal.

Where most vampiric Disciplines act as normal on Changelings (or perhaps a little less effectively; for example, Presence sometimes has trouble affecting creatures that are half glamour as it is), the Ravnos Discipline of Chimerstry is actually shockingly potent against them. Chimerstry creates the same kinds of illusions that populate the realms of the fairies; in essence, while Ravnos illusions are unable to harm any denizen of the "real world", they are utterly "real" to Changelings, and even the least phantasm could cause them true harm if wielded carelessly. Depending upon the area, this has resulted over history in some Changelings intentionally making alliances with some Ravnos groups in an effort to learn more about them, and others giving them as wide a berth as possible to avoid giving them the opportunity to wreak havoc.