The Sewer Changeling

The unseen owner of a hidden, heavily-trapped lair in the Gwyndinas Sewers — almost certainly a changeling (shapeshifter), and the central reveal of Session 19. The lair holds pages upon pages of practiced forged signatures and government stamps of multiple Reclamation parties, a study of Orathi cultures and languages, caches of disguise-clothes for several body-types, and a much-thumbed screed distrusting Veilwood Voivode Vesper Vermillion (suggesting the occupant fled the Veilwood). The strong implication: this shapeshifter intends to infiltrate or replace members of the Reclamation leadership — possibly as an agent of Laewendas.

It also keeps bound, gagged, still-living "failed changelings" stashed in the sewers — feral, sewer-born shapeshifters who never learned to imitate humans (wrong eyes, wrong teeth, no nose). Whether these are its progeny, captives, or wards is unknown. The party drinks a Varian-only wine off its desk and a single bloody footprint as the only sign of the occupant.

Per Lash's lore, changelings come in three grades: harmless shifters (can become a type, not a person), doppelgangers (can mimic a specific person but not truly know them), and the feared Twin Stranger — which consumes a target, inherits all its memories, and becomes truly indistinguishable. Silver is the standard weapon against them. Identity and grade unconfirmed.

Session 20 complicates the picture: caught and interrogated, the changeling reads less like a villain and more like a covert helper of the Reclamation who wants to reach the cursed Veilwood. The party walks away believing it was wrong about it.

Session 19

• Lair breached when Silithane and Fenric picked its trapped metal door (a Hallucinatory Terrain scroll + an incendiary firebomb); Draak then smashed through a wall into the inner safehouse.
• The party looted ~20–25 platinum, pre-signed leaving-papers, and forgery evidence, and concluded the changeling means to replace Reclamation leaders (theories: freelance, Laewendas's agent, or even Smiling Sam).
• Resolved to catch it immediately (with silver) before it flees — climbing the lair's ladder up into its surface home as the session ended on a hissing, all-fours creature waiting above.

Session 20

• Caught and unmasked. The party climbed into the surface-house basement and ambushed it; Magra landed the takedown, and it dropped its disguise (and a held drawstring bag) as it fell, reverting to its true form. Captured alive, then kept calm and — once the mind-read softened the party's read — healed by Silithane as a goodwill gesture (his once-a-day free Cure Wounds).
• Silithane mind-read it with Detect Thoughts (peeling "thought strands" off its memories, one-minute window) while questioning it directly; Modify Memory was on the table.
• The reveal flips the Session-19 read. It comes across not as a Laewendas infiltrator or Smiling Sam, but as a Reclamation fixer — impersonating officials doing ordinary jobs to keep the government running (possibly covering for people Smiling Sam killed), and wanting most of all to reach the cursed Veilwood to help. The party concludes "we were wrong about them."
• True name, grade, allegiance, and final fate left unconfirmed on a very sparse recording.

Session 21

• Per Silithane's recap, the changeling was released at the end of last session (its name rendered "Ektera"); letting it go nearly set the allied knights fighting each other until summoned mages calmed them.
• The party now actively wants it as an ally: Lash privately briefs Eldrich the Elder on it, Silithane shows him its captured thoughts via a coin, and Eldrich resolves to track it down and build a positive contact through a Varian spy network — leveraging the party's goodwill into its trust. (The impersonated slacker it covered for is confirmed as the drunk, whoring Westport Dockmaster.)
• A worry raised: the guards' summoned mages may have done blood-magic at Thalia's old home where the fight happened, so the spooked changeling may already be on the run as someone new.