Ziggy Steelehart

Biographical information

Birthplace Elbion Born Died Age 369 Home Their home is their large carriage, often in a route between Elbion, Fal'Addas and Alliria. Sexuality Pronouns

Physical description

Race Changeling Sub-Race Gender Fluid Height Mass 70kg Hair color Eye color Skin color

Political information

Affiliation(s) Occupation Traveling Merchant, Artisan and Alchemist. Clan(s) Caste Domain Masters Apprentices Alias(es)

Out-of-character information

Writer Neon Created on Avatar 山田maya

Ziggy is a changeling, part of a humanoid species able to change their physical appearance at will. Like most of their fellow changelings, Ziggy often lives on the move, following a trade route between major trade cities in Liadain, which allows them to both peddle their goods to many merchants and adventurers, but also to collect reagents and ingredients along the way.

Changelings are a rare humanoid species mostly found around the biggest cities and trade hubs in the continents whose main characteristic is the ability to change their own physical shape and appearance, as long as it's humanoid and the number of members stay relatively the same. This includes becoming taller or shorter, changing muscle and fat mass and even adapting their own vocal cords to better speak the language of their outwardly appearance.

They have no specific tongue nor culture, often seamlessly integrating in the host culture or species they find themselves in, living normal lives. Out of fear from discrimination and reprisal, they never reveal their nature to others. Despite this, they have secret codes and symbols passed down from parents to children, with the sole purpose of allowing them to identify and covertly communicate with other changelings and groups.

Changelings are a long lived species, with the average lifespan being just shorter than elves, at ~700 to 800 years, despite this average, individuals tend to have wildly different lifespans, with some living shorter lives and other living much longer lives. Scholars among them have some theories regarding this seemingly large difference between individual lifespans, but so far there is no consensus. Because of their long lifespans, changelings often fake their own funerals and deaths when they approach the supposed old age of the species they're imitating, before taking on a new face and restarting their lives. This often implies that the changeling will start anew as a child in that same city, or they will move to another place, seeking to start anew as young adults.

Because of how they tend to live through established, but fake, identities, Changelings have Faces, Masks and Camouflage. Before each of them is explained, it's important to note that Changelings have one weakness in their ability to change appearances, which is called a Shiver. To keep their own appearances, Changelings are always making a subconscious effort, and being suddenly startled or injured can make their physical appearance become unstable for a couple seconds, "shivering" into different skin tones, sizes, colors, and revealing milky white eyes with no iris or pupil.

Faces are the Changeling's principal appearance, often what they're the most comfortable with being and stay as for the most time. It's practically impossible to make a Changeling Shiver when they're wearing their Faces, and one who has matured into their Face will keep it stable even through grievous wounds. Changelings are able to keep one Face at a time, taking months to ease into a new one and years to mature into it when it comes to changes. A Face is how you can easily determine the gender of a member of this species, for they often keep to the same Gender as their first Faces. It's rare but not unheard of Changelings that don't have their Faces locked to a gender even through many centuries.

Masks are the Changeling's more commonly used appearances. They're often old and discarded Faces. It's frowned upon for a Changeling that lives in a city or village to use Masks with any regularity, both to reduce the risks of people becoming suspicious of their existence and to discourage members of their species to use it as means to exploit their host culture. Despite this, it's common for traveling Changelings to keep multiple Masks, often of different species, to facilitate communication and interaction with others they come across. Shivering is rare but may happen if the changeling suffers wounds, becomes mentally unstable or extremely ill.

Camouflage is a hastily applied appearance by a Changeling. It requires conscious concentration to keep, making it easy to Shiver. It is often incomplete, lacking things in places that are covered by their outfits, such as body hair or properly formed details. It's a common to say "one must not be caught nipple-less" when it comes to hastily changing appearances. This is often used as means of protection, because despite not being able to grow new arms or wings, one can match their own skin to their surroundings, becoming a humanoid chameleon.

Ziggy's Face is that of a short human-like creature with pale skin, raven hair and eyes with pitch black irises and no pupils. Their body is flat and mostly featureless, with nails that are often "painted" in different colors, making it nigh impossible to identify their gender. Despite the unassuming appearance, the Face is extremely fit and packed with dense muscles, making it surprisingly hard to deal with physically for a common person. Ziggy rarely shows this appearance to anyone else, opting to use their Face when crafting, studying or out in the woods collecting ingredients. If Ziggy shows their Face to someone, it's either a sign of trust or preparation for open hostilities.

Ziggy has two Masks that are worth talking about: Angela and Vor'Frethya.



Angela is a tall, mature woman of long pale blonde hair and tired greyish eyes. This Mask is the most common way most people ever meet Ziggy. As Angela, the Changeling presents themselves as a experienced Alchemist and Witch, often conducting business from her mysterious wagon and itinerant store. Her goods are desired on the basis of how rare and difficult it is to find a practitioner that can both work with Runes and Scripture, turning spells into useful tools for the common man, creating fun trinkets to be sold by merchants at fairs or life-saving tools and utilities for adventurers looking for extra advantages before exploring a place or engaging in combat.









Vor'Frethya is a elegant, but slightly eccentric, male elf. This Mask is not used too often, but it is used whenever the implied pride and superiority of a elf would come in hand, such as when dealing with other elves or attempting to impress a relatively isolated village or settlement. Together with the Face, its one of the appearances utilized when Ziggy is out in the forests to scavenge for ingredients or hunt, specially the ones where elves might be found.

Language -
Changelings have a natural talent to learn languages, and Ziggy is talented on top of that, being able to speak Common Orcish, Dwarvish and Elvish at an advanced level, despite having been born and raised in a mostly Human city. They often make minute changes to their vocal cords to better speak the target language, impressing naturals with proficiency that wouldn't be expected of a "human".

College Magic -
Ziggy has spent what's the equivalent of two human lives studying magic in Elbion, becoming learned in the basic skillsets that every Elemental Mage has, being able to work with Wards, Offensive and Defensive Magic, but mostly important, Air and Earth spells focused on support and protection.
College Magic: Alchemy - A third life was spent with the schools of Alchemy, allowing Ziggy to gather enough alchemical knowledge to allow them to research and develop their own recipes. This includes from being able to identify and gather their own materials and ingredients, to test said ingredients and compose useful salvos and potions.

Scripture Magic -
Ziggy's real magic abilities lies here. With their talent for languages, learning Scriptures was a logical step in their own evolution, utilizing of magics and knowledge gathered in Elbion, together with dusty tomes and wisdom passed down from changelings to changelings, Ziggy has become able to craft magic scrolls and books, imbuing them with needed spells ranging from basic to increasingly complex Works. Most of Ziggy's time on the road is spent crafting said scrolls, commonly ones that offer magelights, fortification and healing spells for adventurers. They take commissions rather frequently too, offering customizable spell scrolls for anyone with the coin and need.

Rune Magic -
Where others see an outdated practice, Ziggy sees opportunity for profit and practicality. What they started as a practice for fun became a specialization on it's own. Through the creative application of Runic Language, Ziggy is able to create magic toys and trinkets to sell, with effects that are often composed of bright magelights, levitation effects and minor sound illusion magic. More serious application comes in the form of complex rune array applied to objects and linked to magic scrolls and books. Ziggy's biggest work and success in the field of Rune Magic comes in the form of the large and complex array embed on their carriage, wagon and even the "armor" used by the horses, resulting in a small mobile fortress able to deal with most dangers in the road.

Terra's Language -
Mixing Runic language with the teachings of Scripture has allowed Ziggy to find "shortcuts" that utilize both schools to reduce the time it takes to prepare or craft any single object of runic magic or scrolls. As an accident during research, Ziggy learned how to channel the Price, delaying payment or utilizing of other alternate sources of energy for said payment. Ziggy hasn't written the method to do this anywhere, yet.


Hunting -
While not a master archer or tracker of any form, Ziggy is a competent bow user, able to track and hunt prey animals in most natural environments. Their ability to use Camouflage makes the job somewhat easier, hiding both physical appearance and scent.

Wherever Ziggy goes, it's not even their wares who make the biggest impact, but the eccentric and large carriage/wagon that seems to always be pulled by a different pair of horses every time it's spotted. It has a structure made of wood and metal with windows of thick reinforced glass, but this structure is barely recognizable under a mess of potted and free plants, mushrooms and small animals living between the wood and vegetation. Almost every part of the outside is covered by life of some type, which serves both the purposes of allowing Ziggy to keep a source of ingredients at hand and to hide the complex array of runes and scriptures inscribed upon the structure. While nothing extremely complex in particular is used, the spells layered upon each other allow the carriage to be a veritable magical fortress on wheels, unbothered by most of the evils a traveler could find in the road.

The genius part of the design is the use of Terra's Language, designing tiny runes hidden through the arrays and structure that work as "Intakes" absorbing the life out of the plants and small animals in and around the carriage to power the whole system, increasing the amount of time it can spend active. In other worlds, the changeling has built a small mobile ecosystem on their carriage and crafted spells in a way that considers the whole energy and life in the carriage as the "user", making it pay the Price as needed. Ziggy keeps this an absolute secret and haven't drawn or written any information on how this operates.

This defensive array extends all the way to the horses pulling the carriage, also inscribed in the covering and reinforced leather protecting them from the elements and opportunistic beasts.

The inside of the Lair is not different, also filled with plants, alive and dried, on almost every corner. It's cramped, but somehow always has space to fit whatever is needed. There are small workshops where Ziggy spends most of their time working on a myriad of different projects and products. There's a small bed/sofa for Ziggy to rest on, but not much else. Most of the anchors and control runes for all the arrays are located in the interior, for ease of access and utilization.

Ziggy is eccentric even for the standards of most nomad Changelings, having never eased into a gender or most common practices of other Changelings. A smug person who enjoys teasing others, long chats over cups of exotic tea, and to generally listen to the lives and struggles of others. One may even find themselves receiving a considerable discount after a productive chat.

While not a particularly talented Magician, having been born in Elbion allowed for a very early introduction to magic, giving them a mindset and skills that have shaped their own experience of the world. Now, Ziggy always seeks to have practical magical solutions for everyday problems, seeking to make things easier and safer for themselves while also testing possible trinkets or scrolls that could be sold to others.

Ziggy is not a combat-oriented person at all, but a decent amount of paranoia has led Ziggy to invest considerable amount of times into defenses and deterrents to discourage any possible assailants of keeping up their hostilities.

If given opportunity, Ziggy will learn necromancy, not caring for any of the moral issues, just to get a pair of skeleton horses and never have to bother with food and water for the animals pulling their carriage again.