The Changeling

The Changeling is the living embodiment of Tzeentch's love of discord, deceit and cruel humour, a Herald of the Changer of Ways whose whole existence is one vast, unfolding prank. Long ago its master granted it a doppelganger's gift, the power to assume any shape it wishes, from the tiniest crawling insect to the towering bulk of a Greater Daemon, and to wear that borrowed form so perfectly that even the gods themselves may be fooled.

Its mimicry runs deeper than mere appearance. The Changeling can adopt the voice, the mannerisms and the very personality of those it imitates, slipping into a stolen life so seamlessly that friends, kin and commanders suspect nothing. There are but two forms it can never take. It cannot wear the shape of Tzeentch, and it cannot resume its own, for it has long since forgotten what it truly is. Only the Great Schemer knows the Changeling's original face, and he keeps that knowledge locked away forever, dangling it as the leash by which his favoured pawn is kept obedient and yearning.

Loosed upon the galaxy, the Changeling worms its way into the heart of every faction it can reach and sets them tearing at one another. On one infamous occasion it walked among the Dark Angels first in the guise of a lowly Scout and later as the Master Sammael himself, whispering into the ear of the Supreme Grand Master until Azrael half-believed his Space Wolf allies had turned mutant and traitor. Wherever suspicion festers and old alliances curdle into bloodshed, the Trickster's hand is often at work unseen.

For all the ruin it sows, the Changeling delights above all in the joke itself, playing elaborate pranks upon daemon and mortal alike throughout the Realm of Chaos and realspace. Every deception, every impersonation, every seed of paranoia serves the same end: the endless, churning change that its master craves. None can ever be certain that a given face is truly a friend, and that uncertainty is precisely the gift the Changeling gives the world.