Doppelganger, or as some prefer to be known as, prismsouls, are a people with many faces and none at all. Amidst their various guises and transformations, underneath their masks, many doppelgangers seek their own distinct identity. Others are happy to forget such things and embrace the moment in each shift.

While doppelgangers are quite rare, they are still present in almost every humanoid society across the world. Even so, they often remain unnoticed due mainly to their shapeshifting abilities, and secondarily due to the fact that they rarely form settlements or organizations composed strictly of doppelgangers. The hallmark of a doppelganger is the ability to change their form into that of other humanoids and move about society as they please, a potent ability that is the ancestry’s greatest blessing, but according to some doppelgangers’ views, also their greatest curse.

The stereotypical doppelganger is an amoral opportunist at best, using their shapeshifting capabilities to infiltrate, exploit, and otherwise deceive other people to their own advantage. Indeed, their powers make it easy to live a comfortable life in this fashion, albeit a risky one. However, some doppelgangers even find it enjoyable and satisfying to do so, feeling a rush whenever they complete a con.

However, there are many other sorts of doppelgangers in the world. Among them, there are those who wish to find their own paths to follow through life, rather than simply sliding into a borrowed life of impersonation and betrayal. These nontraditional doppelgangers don’t have a single unifying belief beyond that central tenet, however. They each have their own unique perspective to share.

If you want to play a character capable of changing forms into various humanoid shapes with the potential to explore the meaning of identity and self as someone who can reinvent themselves with ease, you should play a doppelganger.

You Might...

• Change forms as part of expressing your mood, whims, or aesthetics.
• Begin to adopt various personality traits and other mental features of the form you choose, “becoming the mask.”
• Default to plans or strategies involving impersonation.

Others Probably...

• Assume you are capable of any sort of infiltration or subterfuge they need.
• Worry that you might take their form after learning their mannerisms or personal information.
• Aren’t even aware that you’re a doppelganger in the first place.

Physical Description

In their natural form, doppelgangers have smooth flesh of an indeterminate and subdued color. Some doppelgangers’ flesh is almost close to the skin tone of other humanoid ancestries, while others are gray, white, silvery, or other shades that other humanoids find “unnatural.”

Doppelgangers’ bodies, especially their faces, possess stylized features without any smaller details such as freckles, hairs, and other such things. Some members of other ancestries, including scholars who study doppelgangers, claim that this natural form appears like an in-process painting or sculpture that wasn’t quite finished, left with one step incomplete by a cosmic artist.

Many doppelgangers, however, tend to find this perspective highly insulting and inaccurate. The very idea of their appearance being “incomplete” is centered around the idea that only humans and their kin are “complete” and that being different means that doppelgangers must be lacking in various ways. Those doppelgangers who agree with the scholars’ characterization include some who simply don’t care about the negative implications of being “unfinished,” as well as those who agree with and deeply care about the implications, as they are ashamed of their natural forms. Those last doppelgangers sometimes treat their natural forms with disgust and tend to either wear the forms of others all the time or to artistically craft their own idealized, often beautiful, humanoid form for themselves, which they consider to be their true form instead.

Society

Doppelganger don’t possess just one single unifying society, and a fair number of doppelgangers barely know any other members of their ancestry beyond their own parents. This leads to doppelgangers having a wide variety of lifestyles and social dynamics. While each of the following groups represents the perspectives of a significant number of doppelgangers, none of them is a monolithic bloc or social club that meets and shares goals or progress reports. In fact, only conspiracists (by their very nature) and some prismsoul exemplars tend to form large groups of like-minded individuals. These groups aren’t all mutually exclusive; in particular, conspiracists are often members of other groups.

Conspiracists

Conspiracists are the few doppelgangers who want to organize other doppelgangers into a faction, secret society, or the like. Despite the name, which evokes shadowy dealings and underhanded conspiracy, conspiracists have a variety of motives and a broad swathe of visions for what their ideal doppelganger organization would be. Certainly, some conspiracists are nefarious, with goals ranging from secret domination of an entire settlement or nation, to the acquisition of wealth and power or to the promulgation of a malevolent religion. However, other conspiracists simply seek a respite or a home, a place in which to belong. Conspiracists tend to be members of other groups in addition to conspiracists, as they don’t consider the designation as a conspiracist exclusive of other pursuits. For instance, prismsoul exemplars often band together to support each other and to educate others about doppelgangers, while voluptuaries use their combined influence in order to acquire more worldly pleasures.

One thing conspiracists have in common is that they prefer structure and belonging to something larger, which means they tend to be more lawful than chaotic. Still, even chaotic conspiracists exist, uniting for mutual benefit with loose rules that allow those who are the most manipulative and powerful to have their way.

Faceless

Faceless are doppelgangers who, through various circumstances distinct between each faceless, have lost, forgotten, or intentionally disposed of their identity. To a faceless, life is a stream of consciousness, with the only continuity being that of experience and memory. Without a developed concept of self or identity, faceless simply become a generic face in the crowd, blending in with all the others. Many even drop their preferred form over time or choose one that is absolutely bland and forgettable. As they move from place to place, they take a form that stands out the least, like a chameleon lost amidst the masses. Because of these tendencies, faceless are even more likely to live in densely populated urban areas than other doppelgangers. They tend to make absolutely superb assassins, as their completely generic appearance and almost meditative emptying of self allow them to blend in for the approach to the assassination target or the getaway after getting the job done.

That’s not to say that faceless are inherently malicious, however. In fact, they are much more likely to be neutral than they are to be other alignments, as the beliefs and convictions necessary for most alignments, and the selfishness or malice necessary for evil alignments, are sometimes beyond them. Goodaligned faceless perform anonymous good deeds with no expectation of recognition or praise, simply slipping back into the crowd after a job well done. Faceless who, for whatever reason, fall in with an organization, such as a conspiracist’s secret society or an adventuring party, quickly reveal themselves to be excellent members. With such a weak sense of personal identity, their affiliation manages to function as a replacement, causing them to be rather zealous adherents.

Personas

Personas are doppelgangers who identify most strongly not as doppelgangers (or even prismsouls or another different name for the ancestry) but instead as the ancestry of their preferred form. Personas have become that ancestry completely, not just through shapeshifting but also through personality, psychology, and culture. Doppelganger can and often do reproduce with other ancestries, with their children tending to be doppelgangers as well. Those doppelgangers often have a preferred form of their other parent’s ancestry, and they are more likely to be personas. Personas tend to spend most of their life in their preferred form, and they look down on their natural doppelganger form as merely another form their body can take. Personas are more likely than other doppelgangers to find the natural doppelganger form to be repulsive or shameful, though that’s still only an opinion held by some of them. Even so, that doesn’t mean personas never use their shapeshifting abilities. They just see themselves as a human, elf, dwarf, or member of another ancestry who happen to have the ability to change their shape into various others. But to a persona, their preferred form is their true form, and the rest are merely disguises. This makes personas nearly the complete opposite of faceless, and the two don’t tend to get along well.

Personas are also the least likely of any doppelgangers to become conspiracists. After all, the central thesis of the conspiracist perspective is that doppelgangers should organize groups of other doppelgangers, but personas don’t really see themselves as doppelgangers as much as they are their preferred form’s ancestry. This often puts them at odds with prismsoul exemplars and some unchanging as well.

Prismsoul Exemplars

Prismsoul exemplars are proud to be doppelgangers, or prismsouls as they prefer to be called. They don’t always use the name prismsoul, as doppelgangers who reject that name haven’t really settled on a single name for their ancestry. In truth, before meeting other ancestries in ancient times and having the label of doppelganger chosen for them, doppelgangers’ shapeshifting nature meant they hadn’t seen a need for an ancestry name for themselves at all. But still, a name meaning “double goer” isn’t acceptable to those doppelgangers who refuse to be defined merely for the fact that they can become someone else’s double. Those early prismsoul exemplars who first took umbrage to the name doppelganger chose the name prismsoul based on the function of prisms. Prisms refract light, allowing white light to be split into light with every possible color of the rainbow. This means prisms function only because of light while revealing the hidden secrets of how light functions. In the same way, prismsoul exemplars feel that doppelgangers channel and refract society around them and other people’s thoughts, feelings, and motivations to embody every possible form, revealing the hidden secrets of how society functions. But a prismsoul isn’t merely refracting and revealing physical truths, hence the use of the term “soul” in the portmanteau.

Prismsoul exemplars aren’t the only doppelgangers who use the name prismsoul, and they don’t all agree with it (and thus don’t even agree on a name for their group). However, they do agree that doppelgangers deserve respect from others, and they share a deep priority towards changing the way other ancestries view doppelgangers. They want to make sure others understand that doppelgangers share their own unique culture and worldview and that they aren’t simply impostors who exist to betray, replace, and scam other ancestries. Prismsoul exemplars often take issue with personas, who abjure the doppelganger ancestry entirely, but most other prismsoul exemplars are happy to accept the personas’ chosen identity. Quite the contrary to personas, prismsoul exemplars are the most likely to show off their natural doppelganger form to the world to announce who they are. They consider this form to be incredibly beautiful, like an elegant stylized sculpture, and they want others to be able to understand that too. Prismsoul exemplars of every alignment exist; even evil doppelgangers can have a strong ego and pride in their ancestry as more than just an ancestry of replacements. However, they tend to be good more often than evil and chaotic more often than lawful.

Unchanging

The most unusual of all doppelganger groups, unchanging have a wide variety of motivations or reasons, but they all share a quirk that sets them apart from all other doppelgangers. They don’t change forms, no matter what, remaining in their natural doppelganger form. Given that changing forms is a defining characteristic of doppelgangers as an ancestry, becoming an unchanging never happens without a very good reason. Many unchanging make their choice due to a religious or philosophical belief, akin to how others might take a vow of silence. Still, others do so to make a point or to promote their goals. For instance, an unchanging who is also a prismsoul exemplar might remain in their doppelganger form at all times in order to make the point that what makes a prismsoul is who they are, not just the ability to change shapes.

Due to just how disciplined a doppelganger must be in order to make such a strong and absolute commitment, unchanging are more likely to be lawful than chaotic. They also tend not to be evil, simply because evil individuals tend to use every possible means in their toolkit to further their selfish or malevolent goals.

Usurpers

Usurpers are the most similar to the classic conception of a doppelganger. They learn everything there is to know about someone, down to their mannerisms, speech patterns, and personal preferences. Then they replicate that person completely, often going so far as to replace them as an impostor, and possibly even murder them. Most people think of this process as inherently evil, and it’s true that usurpers are among the most likely doppelganger groups to be evil, since this lifestyle lends itself to nefarious purposes. However, there are many neutral usurpers, and even a few who are good.

For instance, Memoriam, one particularly noteworthy conspiracy of good usurpers specifically learns how to replace deceased or terminally ill people as a living epitaph in order to honor their memory. And to date, they’ve collected an incredible number of living epitaphs.

Solitary good usurpers might fulfill a fallen comrade’s dying wish by replacing the deceased in order to take care of their loved ones and spare them the grief of their loss. Despite the good intentions behind the usurper’s actions, or in some cases even the request of others to do so, many societies consider the ethics of such a choice to be questionable and rooted fundamentally in deception. Thus, they say, it’s crueler to both the family members and the doppelganger to perpetuate the ruse.

Good usurpers who engage in such practices don’t see it that way, as usurpers often believe that they have truly come to embody their target, even to the point of absorbing a part of their truth into themselves. Other good usurpers help protect those around them by other means, such as by acting as body doubles for likely assassination targets. Body double usurpers sometimes take things a step further by helping their ward adopt an unassuming disguise while they disguise as their ward, thus allowing them to travel together without putting the ward at risk. Such pairs even sometimes become adventurers, much to the surprise of their fellow party members once the secret is revealed.

Voluptuaries

Voluptuaries have the simplest motivation out of all doppelgangers: they simply wish to enjoy the finest luxuries and pleasures the world has to offer. Voluptuaries typically create a sensual or attractive preferred form for themselves, spending hundreds of hours looking at a mirror and tweaking their favored form into a vision of perfection. That isn’t always the case, however, as voluptuaries can easily be members of another group that prefers adopting a different sort of form or forms. For instance, usurper voluptuaries perform identity theft mainly to indulge in the wealth and pleasures available to their targets and abscond with their valuables before moving on. While any ancestry can be interested in the same sort of goals that voluptuaries seek, their doppelganger ancestry provides them unique opportunities to pursue those goals. The ability to alter their mind and body to become anyone’s ideal partner makes them paragons of seduction, and in the absence of morals, it’s easy to acquire wealth. Given that the goal of a voluptuary is fundamentally selfish, they tend towards evil, but voluptuaries of every alignment still exist. Good voluptuaries simply don’t allow their pursuit of their own desires to come before others’ wellbeing.

Alignment and Religion

Doppelgangers’ flexible viewpoints lead them to have all sorts of alignments, although very few doppelgangers who pursue the stereotypical doppelganger lifestyle of impersonating others are good, instead tending towards any of the neutral or evil alignments. However, adventuring doppelgangers, or those non-adventurers who try to live different sorts of lives, are more likely to be good than evil. After all, a doppelganger’s natural skill set makes it so easy to live life in that way and take what you want that doppelgangers who make different choices usually do so for a reason. Still, that’s not to say there aren’t also evil doppelgangers who have their own reasons for doing things differently. Some doppelgangers who adopt a cover identity for too long can find their alignment drifting towards matching their cover.

Doppelgangers’ faith in deities is similarly diverse, and thus many doppelgangers worship a variety of deities and faiths depending on their circumstances, forms, and situations. Those doppelgangers who tend to focus their faith on a single deity typically choose either deities with a focus on shapeshifting or change who can understand a doppelganger’s perspective, or those who specialize in trickery or deception if the doppelganger also embraces those tactics in their daily life. On Alacar, Sewa the Rogue is a major favorite, and some doppelgangers consider her to be the progenitor of their ancestry, though others believe that’s impossible and that they existed long before the goddess was first born.

Names

Many doppelgangers change their names on a whim or to suit their current forms and situations. They often have some sort of alias or call sign they can use if they want others to be able to contact them or hire them for a job. Sometimes they don’t have even that, making them a complete ghost lost among their various guises.

Others use a name to center their identity and keep themselves separate and distinct from whatever form they currently possess. A doppelganger proud of their name might weave it into their various aliases. For instance, if they call themselves Rin, they might appear as the stable boy Tarin, the noble lady Myrrhine, and the server Katrina.

Sample Names

317, Facade, Mar, Oma, Rin, Twilight, Zenos.

Doppelganger Adventurers

Doppelganger adventurers tend to choose classes that allow them to make the most of their shapeshifting abilities. Rogues and bards are especially common, with other Charisma-based spellcasters secondary. Since some doppelgangers have innate mental magic, the psychic class is relatively common as well. Among doppelgangers, almost any background is possible, especially for those who assumed another identity for a time (which tend to be wealthier or more influential). Typical backgrounds include artist, barber, barkeep, charlatan, criminal, detective, entertainer, fortune teller, merchant, noble, saboteur, servant, or street urchin.

Doppelganger Settlements

Doppelganger don’t build settlements of their own, and they rarely even form subcommunities within a larger settlement of other humanoids. However, when doppelgangers do gather, typically due to the plans of conspiracists, their social structures tend to shift and change depending on the context, in a way that is difficult for those of other ancestries to understand. Sometimes an entire settlement of predominantly another ancestry or ancestries will be unknowingly ruled by a doppelganger for a time, in which case the doppelganger might exercise some of their own preferences upon the settlement’s organization and hierarchy.