Races and shards

Rialorm

So, many races are shards of a Divine. I imagine that when splintering happens, you get an initial set of for example Orclach, who then go and procreate and that is where future generations of Orclach come from. I assume these new Orclach are counted as shards.

However, there is also the ability to racechange. This is where things get a bit confusing. If I racechange into Orclach, am I then a shard or not? Or do I just appear as being one?

Same question when going through the Portal of Fate. My understanding is that you get rewoven and added to the Tapistry (+ there was that bit about a twin soul / other which explains the player behind the character and OOC insanity). And then you pick a race. This might be different though from your past race. Are you then a shard or not? 

If there is more information in the histories or elsewhere ingame about this, please point me at it. 

Shaddus

If you're a changeling, you were shat out after a bowl of Crumkane's chili (according to Eventru. Don't kill the messenger.)

If you're reincarnating into something else, the Fates just wove you into the wrong body last time. False Memory ftw.

Xenthos

Lerad said:

Reincarnation and changelings aren't mentioned in the histories because they do not really fit ICly. At least, that's what I think. And it's pretty much a fact that these are mechanics that are put in out of neccessity - the game needs to give players the option of changing their race, and they have a premium artifact for it. And there's no real way to explain this to 100% satisfaction in the lore. At least, I've never seen it explained, it's only ever glossed over.

There have been some hints that changelings might actually be shards of a certain mutable God, actually.  It's never been explicitly defined, but to me that possibility does give changelings quite a specific fit into the world (though them then saying "I am an Elfen and thus currently a shard of Elfenehoala!" doesn't fit so well at that point).

Reincarnation, as Shaddus said, has always been rather more loosely defined as "the Fates put me in the wrong body, and I can fix it by attuning myself to my Shard's true essence".  That works just fine the first time, but gets a bit weirder if a person reincarnates over and over again.

Lerad

Reincarnation and changelings aren't mentioned in the histories because they do not really fit ICly. At least, that's what I think. And it's pretty much a fact that these are mechanics that are put in out of neccessity - the game needs to give players the option of changing their race, and they have a premium artifact for it. And there's no real way to explain this to 100% satisfaction in the lore. At least, I've never seen it explained, it's only ever glossed over.

Allyrianne

I think my favourite theory is that changelings are secretly the shards of Eyos and the artifact lets them unlock this somehow or something. I know various people with changeling cameos rp it different ways.

An ic theory about racechanging, etc, that @Kiradawea should get credit for (unless I am completely misrepresenting it, in which case, sorry) is that the arrival of humanity has dramatically affected how shards can interact with each other and with the portal. Prior to their arrival, interbreeding was canonically impossible (I think) so it's unlikely that getting "miswoven" was a regular thing (except maybe for faelings/elfen). With humans getting their amorphous non-templated souls mixed in with the more rigid shards of the templated elders, mistakes happen, souls maybe can be more than one shard and people identify more stringently with one or another as they develop over time.

My impression of the tapestry is that everyone is a part of it, but going through the portal gives agency within the tapestry. You were already part of the tapestry, like Billa of Estelbar, but now your thread is specially coloured and you get to choose how you are woven, unlike Billa. (Which some people have suggested explains why most inhabitants of the basin are very repetitive)

I know there's some player speculative scholarly works out there about some of this with others being written (some of which are pretty outdated with theories that various elder wars have disproved, but it's still fun to read) and in Hallifax there are people who will occasionally start randomly theorising over the city aether.

I don't think there's an explicit divine-given answer anywhere. Which just leaves more room for us to say ic "I have no understanding of how this works, but we know x, y and z so maybe this theory explains it!" or to just shrug and go "It works, I don't really care how."

Marcella

I've always heard that changelings were actually the product of some kind of experiment by Tzaraziko, and that Tzaraziko was probably the first changeling and was therefore BOTH lucidian and dracnari.

Lavinya

This is part of what made changing races so hard for me. So I have a racehat and don't wear my cameo, and completely ignore the fact that Lavinya (Icly) is any other race than what her hat shows her to be.

Siam

I am a firm believer of the Eyos theory.

Saran

The in-character explanation for changelings that I settled on is that, whether they choose to acknowledge it or not, they are a distinct race. (The help file actually explicitly states that having one means you are a member of the "changeling race")

It offers an entertaining reflection for those that change a lot before they actually get the cameo ("oh so this is why I was so confused"), it removes the issues of what their shards are without concerns (use of the cameo to intentionally pervert your true nature would likely be blasphemous to Serenwilde and maybe Celest), and really... you can roleplay it however you want but it's supported, effectively, by the label. (The language refers to changelings as both a race and a heritage)

For Saran, different races merely became different shapes, worn as suitable for his current needs. (Becoming a tree just meant taking on another new shape.) He had favourites, he had traits that carried across, but he was a changeling.

If the cameo presents an issue, within the context of lusternia it's not exactly hard to roleplay that the purchase of one was an inevitability, the cameo could be a catalyst or the missing part of the character to unlock their true nature that would otherwise be trapped and it is destined that they would one day find it. You can even roleplay selling a cameo as rejection of your true nature. (You can also not but other people can make their decisions about it, Saran would have likely patted such people on the head and felt sorry for them). I think Ialie played it as a curse but her roleplay is her characters perception just as other characters have their own perceptions about what actually happened to her.

A definitive answer would probably ruin it really, but at the same time I feel it's pretty clear that changelings are another race and that when you wear the cameo, races merely become a prefix to your true nature.