Sehaethas & Kylaski - Changeling Bard

Sehaethas & Kylaski

Sehaethas (Soft Harper in elven) is a charismatic half-elf Bard, or at least that's how he's been presenting himself for many years. He liked the quiet safe life of a traveling minstrel. It gave him some variety, but wasn't too dangerous. When traveling between cities, he'll tag along with a large caravan trading nightly entertainment for the safety of numbers. As a half elf he was treated as a bit of an outsider, though a tolerable one. Which worked just fine as far as Sehaethas was concerned.

But it was when he dabbled in things man was not meant to know that he ran into trouble. He made a Star Pact, to expand upon his powers. But the flood of mind twisting knowledge caused him to develop another persona, Kylaski (Wild Ruby Void in elven). But this persona wasn't like the others he'd developed over the years, deliberate constructions to hide his nature. No, Kylaski popped into his mind with a mind and will of her own. And she was as adventurous as he was cautious, pushing him into danger, unconcerned with keeping his secrets. When she takes over, she most often changes into a red skinned tiefling woman, though she might take other guises if they suit her whims.

Sehaethas is not happy with the direction his life has taken since he made the Star Pact. The worse part is he still can't access the arcane power of the stars, only Kylaski can do that. And she can access all of his bardic abilities as well. It's not fair! And while he's trying hard to convince Kylaski that a bit of discretion would make their lives easier, Kylaski isn't interested in easier. She has toned it down a bit though, just to avoid hearing him whine.

Sehaethas will often been seen muttering to himself. That's because Kylaski and Sehaethas can only talk to each other if they do it out load. And Kylaski often has comments on Sehaethas's life. At least he's convinced her to to usually mutter instead of speaking out loudly. For her part, Kylaski doesn't care how loud Sehaethas speaks when she's in control, but she's getting used to muttering with him.

Although Sehaethas will never admit it, even to himself, he's actually enjoying this new, more adventurous life. If it doesn't get him killed that is.

When he left home about 8 years ago, his parents and younger sister were alive and well (and human). Such is the life of a Changeling, that even if he saw them again he might not recognize them.

I'm confused whether Dire Radiance came from your multiclassing or because you are a half-elf? But the race stats say your changeling, so I assume you used all the changeling stats in Eberron.

I do believe he's a changeling.

The "Half-Elf" is just one persona he adopts when entertaining, using Changeling Disguise to pretend to be a half-elf.

So where does Dire Radiance come from?

Multiclass Feat

Me and my clumsy eyes.

Correct, the race is changeling (used stats from Character Builder). The Half Elf vs. Tiefling are physical manifestations of the different personalities (their preferred forms), possible because the character is actually a changeling and able to change forms at will. Sehaethas tries hard to hide that he's a changeling, so as to avoid the prejudice against them. As far as the world is concerned, he's a half elf (though without half elf features). Kylaski on the other hand changes form freely, though not gratuitously. She changes when she has a reason to do so, but is far less concerned about hiding that she's a changeling. Still she won't just volunteer the information either.

Dire Radiance comes from Star Pack Warlock multiclass. Not the best warlock at will for a CHR based bard (since it's Con based), but I really like the fluff for Star Pack, which is the basis for this character.

Also I added generic backgrounds (which I will flesh out in more detail). One of those gave him the knowledge of Elven (normally Changelings only know common without spending a feat).

I just read my phb, they erratad the Pact Initiate, because the original stated you can only have Eldritch blast.

Harknail. what do you think?

Just playing around in paint, someone talented with photoshop could probably make a real cool one like that. I really like the female tiefling image though, solid piece of art:



The half-elf I felt was less compelling.

Neat pictures. The split down the middle of the face is nice, really showing the split personality, but the tiefling side is obviously masculine. The diagonal split is good for showing more of the face. The full sized tiefling picture is beautiful, just the sort of image I was looking for. But the reduced image comes out blurry, leaving the half elf looking much sharper and better looking. If you can make an icon that keeps more of the beauty of the original, that would be great.

I have a picture I got from the internet that I think would work from the split front shot. It's not as beautiful, but it fits better than a male face:

The problem is I used paint to make that image, so when scaling it brutalizes the image. If it was done in photoshop or Gimp it wouldn't have been as awful. And the resolution of the tiefling image versus the half elf image was different, the half elf being lower res.

If we found a half-elf that was as high res as that tiefling image then it'd work out evenly or a tiefling image as low res as my original half-elf (it was a thumbnail I didn't shrink at all).

Took another swing at it:

I think my image software does a better job reducing resolution on your painting:


I don't have it cropped quite right, but if you send me a high res image cropped how you want it, I can reduce it to 128x128 for merging.

Edit: it helps to use the right url

That size is perfect, now we need a half-elf image that's the same quality and they won't look so misplaced side by side.

Here's my effort at a merge:


two-faced!

Edit: Fixed alignment problem to get rid of 1 raster line at the top

Not bad not bad at all.

Do you like the middle split or diagonal split better? I think the diagonal one (at least with the half-elf a smaller image in the bottom) makes it look more like the Tiefling is dominant. While a split middle makes it look like both are equally dominant.

Good point. I think the vertical split is best in that case. The original personality is the dominant one if either can be called dominant, but the new personality comes out to play when things get interesting.

So until they joined the group of adventurers, they spent most of the time as a half-elf. Once adventuring, the tiefling will be seen much more frequently. She does the exiting stuff, leaves the boring stuff to him.

Do tieflings get 'horny'?

Well he's a hit with the ladies and she's a flirt. That's actually one trait they have in common. At least if I can manage to roleplay it that way, I'm not sure I can pull it off.

In any case, as a player I'm not interested in graphic details of their love lives. If they're successful, I'd just want to fade to black as they head up the stairs. And I'm fine with them just being a tease that never carries though with it. After all, it's not as if they are of the same race.

Which brings up the question, how do changelings find mates?

It's complicated

Me either. I mean, it's not just right detailing love life, love making to be exact. My previous question was just for fun, since they have horns?

Changelings must have a ... yeah. How do they?

So how will I refer Kylaski in the campaign? Since tieflings do not exist?

Tieflings don't have to exist, she's just a face that that personality wears. It happens to be the face of a red skinned, horned woman with freaky eyes. She's probably a sight to see and makes people nervous and uncomfortable.

Dee Em wrote:Me either. I mean, it's not just right detailing love life, love making to be exact. My previous question was just for fun, since they have horns?

Changelings must have a ... yeah. How do they?

Maybe that's why they're so rare. They have to penetrate each other's disguises to find a mate. Which can be incredibly hard to do. Other options are connecting though a changeling community (which doesn't seem likely). Or perhaps they can detect each other. It might not even be a conscious, perhaps it pheromones when they meet a changeling of the opposite sex. They don't know why they are attracted to this person, but they are.

Which brings up another question. Changelings can take on the appearance of the opposite gender, but do they really become that gender? If a male Changeling changes to female, can he have kids? Not that it's really relevant to the story. But considering how often this character changes gender, I can see the question of what are they really coming up in conversation.

It must be hard having gender crisis.

It's not a topic lightly explored... well it is explored, lightly.

It's not a topic lightly explored... well it is explored, lightly.

LOVE IT!

Candi wrote:Tieflings don't have to exist, she's just a face that that personality wears. It happens to be the face of a red skinned, horned woman with freaky eyes. She's probably a sight to see and makes people nervous and uncomfortable.

Exactly. Sehaethas is trying to blend in. He picked a form that is common enough to be unremarkable. Kylaski is trying to stand out. She picks the most distinctive form that Sehaethas has ever heard of. My assumption is that there are at least stories of tieflings, but that actual tiefings are very very rare or don't actually exist at all. Maybe they did at one time and died out. Maybe the stories are actually about Vizier Devils (MM3: they look like tieflings).