Gildor The Gray (Gnome Wizard/Barbarian/Fighter)

Gildor grew up in underground caves where his tribe would successfully mine and sell raw diamonds and rare gems. As a boy he learned about the gods of the Svirfneblin, Callarduran Smoothhands (god of rocks and rubys), Segojan Earthcaller (god of diamonds and the dead), Garl Glittergold (gold and mischief) vs Urdlen (god of greed and bloodlust).

The one that he feels closest to is Callarduran. When he was 6 he was playing with his baby brother and was over come by jealous rage and attempted to drown him in an underground river. The brother floated away never to be seen again...Later in life he used his rage to rob, beat and torture travelers he would jump when he made trips to the surface to sell gems.  He learned that he could get more for the information he uncovered than the loot he would find. 

He honed his skills as an investigator/interrogator and decided it was more profitable to leave the tribe and strike out on his own. After leaving the tribe he learned of the red wizards of Thay. Seeking them out he studied the powerful magic they possess.

Through months of training and memorization he was able to learn a few spells and how to summon a small bat. The bat he calls Jipp. Although he is still experimenting with spells his rage gets the better of him most of the time. To show his devotion to the wizards of Thay, Gildor got their symbol tattooed across his back. The wizards gave Gildor a gift. A dark amulet that he wares with pride.

Sometimes late at night he hears voices, they speak to him and tell him what to do and where to go. When he talks to them they seem to subside. They led him on a path where he soon met others who had been gifted similar amulets and have been traveling together for a while. If only he could remember where he left his whetstone.

Lowin Daergel (Gnome gloom stalker ranger)

I don’t have many memories of my childhood. I can remember playing with my brother and my parents. I remember being pushed into water and nearly drowning. 

After that just misery despair and pain. 

I was picked up by goblins and forced to work for them. Whenever they felt like I needed to be taught a lesson I would be beaten and dragged into the water and nearly drown. 

Funny thing. One time when they were beating me for either sport or fun for them one of them dropped a blade and I stole it. 3 days later I killed my first goblin. Thru the body in the river and watched it float down in the dead of night. After that I ran cut up, beaten and now free. What I didn’t know was that I was also chosen. A person approached me and put a necklace on me told me that he was waiting for me to rise up and kill. And as soon as I did he helped me and chose me for his mission. His name was Szass Tam. 

He taught me how to be silent in the dark, how to ambush in the dark and kill my prey in the dark. Slowly I learned how to see in the dark and how the dark is my ally for killing my oppressors. Leading up to the last days I had with him he asked me my name and I just sat there. I looked at him and didn’t know. Forgotten or had I beaten out of me. I didn’t know. He named me Lowin Daergel that day. On the last day I saw him he told me that I had to go face my foes and slaughter them. I smiled and bowed for all his help. He handed me a longbow and enough arrows to kill them twice over. 

I walked back into that cave with fear but an anger of the years I was oppressed in my gut. I didn’t leave the cave for a month. In that month I killed them all. Each goblin every elder, child, and warrior. Dead. You should have seen them trembling in fear of the darkness and they so loved. Now they know to fear the dark as I did all those years ago. 

When I walked out the sun seemed a bit brighter and he seemed like he knew I would be waking out that day. He clasped my shoulder smiled a wicked smile and said “well done. Didn’t know if you had the ferocity in you. But you did it. Well done. He waved and said make camp in a town somewhere and you’ll hear from me. He turned than and looked me in the eye and said. You’ll do what I say from now on.” He waved and off he went.

Little did I know I was taking the first step into new oppression. New shackles and into the same thing I hated more than anything. A prisoner of my own making. A least he lets me do what I want unless, as I found out or he tasks me with a job in which case you do it. Or face the consequences and anger of him.

Lykus Visala (Githyanki Chronurgy Wizard)

Being the smaller one of two Gith to be born from a single egg, an unheard of event in Gith history, Lykus excelled at magic where his block headed brother could only swing wildly with a blade. This did not mean that Lykus was unskilled in swordplay, for all Gith are trained in the art of the blade. He preferred to use guile and spell craft over brute strength.

He would captain a spell jammer  and was well on his way to that goal when Mako'tas gifted him the noose of Szass Tam. And in so doing shifting their fates and screwing over his brothers goals.

Mako’tas Visala (Githyanki Echo knight Fighter)

Mako'tas Visala is really conflicted because he hates magic even though he uses it as a greatsword wielding echo knight. His hatred of magic is surface only and was really born of his jealousy of his brother’s mastery of it. Through the years, he became jealous, angry and proud of his brother Lykus all at the same time. All these conflicted emotions really started when Lykus was made captain of the spell jammer they were assigned to. As first mate, Mako (as people closest to him called him) thought he would succeed in the commission but his captain scolded him on his outbursts and random emotional states. He was told a captain must always be master of his emotions as much as he is a master of his fighting style. His calm and calculated brother was made captain instead.

Mako was the first and strongest out of the egg, yet he stands and watches his brother rise in the ranks of the Githyanki navy. Throughout his brother’s rising success, Mako’s jealousy and secret pride of his brother made him a very moody person to be around. He could go from quiet to rage in an instant and even those closest to him never knew how he would react in situations. However, through all their crazy battles, fisticuffs and shouting matches, Mako’tas has never left his brother’s side.

One day while on patrol on their spell jammer, a massive meteor swarm came raining down on their ship. Hull integrity was breached and the ship was plummeting out of the sky on fire. Out of the smoke on the deck, an old man in a dark cloak came before Mako and held out two necklaces. He said "Your ship and its crew are doomed. But you Mako'tas and your brother have hope for escape. Put these necklaces on and you will be teleported to safety." Mako looked at this old creature warily but knew this might be their only escape. Mako found his brother at the wheel hopelessly trying to regain control and barking orders. "Put this necklace on brother!" Mako shouted over the chaos. "It is our only escape!". Lykus swatted at the outstretched hand holding the necklace and Mako was barely able to hang on to it. "Make yourself useful brother and put out some of these fires!" Lykus yelled back at him. "Otherwise get out of my way!"

Mako glanced at the rocky and snow covered mountains that were rapidly approaching. There was no more time. He leapt at his brother from behind who screamed "What are you doing! Stop!" and forced the necklace around his neck. "Mako you fool, I will kill you for....." and suddenly Lykus vanished.

Mako turned to see a wall of rock and snow below him as the the ship impacted the snowy mountain. Flaming wood pieces and screams scattered in all directions. Mako's body flew from the helm as his legs caught the wheel sending him tumbling end over end towards the rocks just as he put the necklace on...and vanished.

Mako woke up on his back in tall grass in a field. His brain and vision was fuzzy and his legs hurt. He heard yelling and strong hands around his neck. "You idiot! What have done!" his brother screamed at him. As Mako came to, he rolled and was able to toss his brother off him. They both stood breathing heavily and touching the necklace around their necks. Mako tried tugging on it to take it off but it would not. "It doesn't come off" Lykus hissed at him. I've tried cutting it. I've tried magic on it. You have doomed us both brother with whatever this cursed necklace will bring."

Voth of Chains (Changeling Paladin Oathbreaker)

My name is Voth, I don't hide anymore.

Once I went by the name of Markus Walker, the son of Maruis an elder of the church of The Silver Flame. I became a Paladin for my family and their cause, this cause is a noble one, cleansing the lands of evil, fiends, undead anything that could bring chaos to the world again. The problem with a noble cause like the Silver flame is, when does it end? How does one group rid the world of all of the evil? Just because I took the identity of Markus doesn't make his family less mine, when I lost my father it broke my mask. I couldn't just march on blind orders of the next den on undead or a village being overrun with fiends when back home the struggle of who orders who or when you've served long enough can take the life of a good man, that's when I learned it's just as unwise to question a religion as it is to question a madman following a false prophet. My entire family fell apart, my unit turned on me, the best part of having no real identity is that it's easy enough to change who you are when you need to. The Silver Flames first son Markus Walker died again that day or at least that is the story that is told, the church of the Silver Flame won't say his tent was found empty except for his sword passed down from his father was plunged through an empty bed roll.

I left that night as Kalieed the halfling messenger from the church that I had my family hire to give me another identity to give myself, another route out should things ever go south, I don't know where or when I learned to have options of who I could be, to have enough people know the lives that I am living without knowing that one man is living them all. You've seen a changeling before, whether you know it or not. You may have seen one of my faces before, I've been many people, had many lives, I've been a rich man, a poor man. I've been a holy man, a politician, a blacksmith, a begger. The choices you make mold the person you are and sometimes people or gods try to make choices for you. Us changelings don't get a lot of choices until we are someone else but it's time for that to change.

"It's time for change." those are the words that heard from a cell years after leaving the Silver Flame, I had spent half my life as a human paladin in the service of a holy crusade to cleanse the world of evil, after that choice I didn't have much luck getting into anyones good graces it seemed. Locked up again I sat in the dark of a dungeon thinking on who will break their way out and leave yet another cell empty and a new face wandering the city when I heard those words "It's time for change." to my surprise I wasn't alone in my cell any longer. "Aren't you tired of being someone else, aren't you tired of following people that aren't like you, people that constantly fail you?" the shadowy character asked.

As I approached him he said it again, "change", what did I have to lose, I became an elf and he laughed and told me he had no need for fake faces or flimsy acts. Still in the shadow he extended his hand to me with an amulet of obsidian. "I will give you a new heart and take away all that you don't want, all I ask for in return is for you to be true to yourself and to me." He exclaimed.

"I will take your gift stranger" I answered as I took the amulet from him. As I put on the amulet I was overtaken with cold, my ears were assulted with a hammering, I could feel this cold and this hammering through my body as I writhed in pain on the floor, my screams masked by this hammering that was slowing down as I passed out.

I woke up not myself, or at least not the me that I was before I passed out. I looked around the room and the shadowy figure sat on a chair, we weren't in the prison cell any longer, and I recognized the man in the chair, Szass Tam. We talked, well he talked, he told me there was no shame in what I was, that there was no reason to hide behind others faces or to follow others goals. "It's time for change, be yourself and do what you want," he said "as long as it's what I tell you to do." he continued. As he said that a door opened that I just couldn't resist entering as I came upon a half-orc I lunged forward to attack, but I have no weapon I thought to myself. Before I could think of stopping my body attacked, my arms swung forward with the chains that I had in the cell lashing at the half-orc, I stood over him as my arms continued to swing his hot blood splashing against me. I looked through my now blood tinted silver hair at my light grey hands. "How?!" I screamed out in shock. I haven't been in my true form for so long it startled me to see my own hair, my own skin and my own  armor, Markus' armor, but colder and darker.

"Be yourself changeling" Szass Tam's voice rang in my head.

As I went through the door again it didn't lead back to my new friend, he was gone but I could feel his direction. I looked to a window, catching my reflection. The reflection of a changeling in his true form, who wasn't scared, who didn't want to put on a new face. For the first time I felt like I could be exactly who I was.