Rime of the Frostmaiden: Keth Hand

[I thought about it and decided that having someone with all the benefits of a half-elf PLUS all the benefits of casting Detect Thoughts and shape changing from the Doppelgänger Secret is OP, especially since no other characters have Secrets. Edited with some modifications. The character is still able to do all the things he did previously.]

AKA Robert Swan, Kellen Ambrose, Lady Margus

[Deleted: Half-Elf (doppelgänger) criminal clockwork soul sorcerer/order cleric]

Changeling (doppelgänger) criminal Shadow Sorcerer/Hexblade Warlock

Keth’s mother Elspeth and his grandfather Aleric Hand are free carters, traveling the same sales route every year and trying to make ends meet with a one sack share. (They are hired to drive a cart full of other people’s goods from town to town and are allowed to carry one sack of their own goods as a “one-sack share” to sell on the side.) Keth learned to value and sell anything, but his favorite times were when he wintered with Ambrose, a wandering friend of his mother who did “a little of this and a little of that.” Where Aleric and Elspeth taught Keth to read, travel, and study and understand people, Ambrose taught him to find out what people think they want most and use that to take what is most valuable to them.

Eventually Keth also learned that Ambrose was a doppelgänger, or Changing One as Ambrose called himself. Ambrose warned Keth not to even think about Ambrose’s nature, as other doppelgängers would probably be angry at Ambrose for helping to raise a “solid” like Keth. Ambrose also taught Keth to follow [previously: an order] a trickster god/goddess as a way to get what he wants with the “help” of others. Keth understood that doppelgängers consider themselves destined to bring about a new zeitgeist and thus saw themselves as being above the concerns of mere solids.

At the end of that winter, Ambrose sent Keth back to travel with his mother. During his subsequent travels with her, Keth came across Ambrose far from where he should be. At first, this Ambrose did not recognize Keth or Elspeth, then suddenly seemed to know everything about Elspeth. Curious about doppelgängers and realizing that something was wrong, Keth decided to seek more information about his father figure’s people first-hand by finding his way among them.

Two nights ago was the first time he changed…

(Notes: The “real” Ambrose may or may not be Keth’s father, it really doesn’t matter. He seems more attached to Keth and Elspeth than a normal doppelgänger would be, but a traditional doppelgänger would fake it anyway. Ambrose or some other doppelgänger is likely Keth’s father [removed: , and an ancestor of Keth’s mother is connected to modrons].)