The Changeling
- – Assholes
In both Warhammer Fantasy Battles and Warhammer 40,000, The Changeling is one of Tzeentch's servants and is a total dick. He's a special type of Horror that has the ability to disguise itself as anything, and uses that ability to wreak all manner of mischief. However, because he has shifted forms so many times, he has forgotten his original form. Only Tzeentch knows what the Changeling originally looks like, and commonly uses this as a bargaining tool to bind his loyalty to him, not to mention that Tzeentch himself is the only being the Changeling can't mimic the appearance of (to be fair any and all images of Tzeentch are a big no-no to all of his followers, unlike Nurgle who forces everyone to be like him). He occasionally retains enough memory of his appearance to show it's true face, although due to Tzeentch's dickery, any being looking upon his will immediately forget it afterwards. Ahriman is one of the few living beings to have seen him and survived, although his true appearance was enough to shock even a sorcerer.
One of the most famous hijinks involving the Changeling happened when it impersonated the Governor of the Hive World Raxos and threw it into total civil war, eventually conjuring a warp portal and having his other daemon buddies join in the fun. As usual, the Grey Knights were called in to contain the situation, which resulted in the total pacification of daemons in the uprising. However, the Grey Knights could not account for the Daemon that started the war and assumed that he escaped in one of the evacuation shuttles that were taking refugees off-planet. So in typical Inquisitorial fashion, the Grey Knights shot down all of the fleeing shuttles, killing thousands of civilians in an effort to kill off this single daemon that MIGHT have boarded one of the shuttles. Overall, whether the Changeling was there or not, Tzeentch was most likely pleased by the amount of "Just as Planned" he did to bloody an entire planet.
Another one of his famous pranks was when a renegade governor's fortress was under siege by the the Dark Angels, he summoned up a Keeper of Secrets for help by sacrificing his daughters in a ritual. You can probably see where this is going. When the governor asked for something "to end the siege", the "Keeper of Secrets" only gave him a mysterious device and fucked off (likely taking and consuming the sacrifices' souls). When he activated it: Surprise! The Deathwing popped in and gunned him down; it was really a homing beacon stolen off of a wrecked Ravenwing bike. The lesson is that you have to be really specific when you make a bargain with daemons, and that Tzeentch isn't above helping out the Imperium to troll his Chaos BFF Slaanesh.
The Changeling's dickery isn't limited to mortals either. In the new Daemons codex, he cut Slannesh's hair off, in 40k he whoopy cushioned Khorne with Nurglings, and in Fantasy, he locked Khorne's fortress while Khorne was outside of it, forcing Khorne to forcibly break his way into his own house citadel. Seriously! It also attempted to thwart Ahriman's plans of undoing the Rubric by impersonating huge numbers of people, coming dangerously close to succeeding before Tzeentch changed his mind because another hapless minion had done it for him. And in the new Curse of the Wulfen campaign book, he impersonated Sammael of the Dark Angels in order to trick the Dark Angels into bombing the Space Wolves' home world of Fenris (if this reminds you vaguely of Prospero, it should because that's exactly what Magnus the Red had in mind). Does that make Changeling smart, Magnus unwilling to do sneaky shit to get back as the sons of Russ, or demonstrate the Imperium's biggest threat is itself? You make the call! Not only that, it released numerous Fallen from the Rock, setting their hunt back by several decades and only being prevented from freeing Luther by the intervention of the Watchers in the Dark. Turns out there's shit even the daemons of Chaos fear.
Fantasy[edit]
In Fantasy, he isn't any less of a dick despite having considerably less fluff. In the Archaon books, he is one of the only ones with the balls to fuck with the Lord of The End Times himself. Archaon, in his pursuit for the artefacts of chaos is busy trawling around the southern wastes (even more savage and chaosish than the Northern ones) to track down Be'lakor. After finally reaching his obsidian fortress which is a total troll itself, Archaon climbs in to confront his father in shadow. Upon finding him and having a small 'duel' it turns out it was this blue dick the whole time. Archaon slaps him about for this shit though, but he still probably had a good time anyway.
He even went to troll the Cathay Dragons. In one instance taking on the form of Miao Ying to undermine the defenses of a City in the eve of a siege from the forces of the big blue chicken, suspicious and concerned by the lax situation of the defenders, the executioner of The Dragon Emperor Leman Russ Yuan Bo, arrives to city. It is during having tea with his sister that the Jade Dragon noticed the smallest slip up and attacks the Changeling, with it taking many forms to taunt and confuse the fantasy primarch, including the visage of his deceased older sister, who was long dead before any of the other siblings were even born.
He escapes cackling like a Saturday morning cartoon villain, leaving Yuan Bo and Miao Ying to deal with their city as it is besieged from within.
In the End Times he gives Balthazar the information to construct a Wall of Faith around Sylvania to contain Mannfred. Whether it was to stop Nagash's plans or just troll the undead is not clear, it could be both. He then attempts to fuck up the Empire even more than it already was. During this time, Balthasar Gelt was busy not only with his Auric Bastion (a giant magic-and-faith-powered wall keeping the forces of Chaos at bay), but also hiding the fact that he cut a deal with the resurrected Vlad von Carstein to become a necromancer. All the while, there's a demon running about killing all the priests who are ensuring that the wall of faith is standing. He and Ar-Ulric Emil Valgeir begin to investigate the occurrences and deduce a demonic shapeshifter is the culprit, especially when Emil tells Balthazar it attacked him and he barely fended it off. They followed the trail until the Emperor Karl Franz himself appears, demanding an audience as he appoints Valten as an heir apparent. Well, Gelt basically shits himself and is then told in no uncertain terms that the Emperor won't accept any refusal.
Thinking this a plot to assassinate the Emperor and that Valten could be the demon in disguise, Gelt rushes to it, trying to dissuade Karl from giving the young hero Ghal Maraz. Gelt freaks out, unleashes his new necromantic power and is cast out. In the middle of this mayhem, Emil runs towards Karl Franz, and suddenly pink fire spouts from his hands to incinerate the guards, revealing that he was the Changeling in disguise. Valten tackled the Changeling and they fight, with the Changeling briefly impersonating Valten so no one can tell them apart. Karl Franz's griffon Deathclaw sniffed out the real Changeling thanks to being able to sniff out daemons, and swatted it aside long enough for Valten to take up Ghal Maraz and finish it off. Thus defeated, the Changeling doesn't really have any further major roles as the world draws to its contentious end.
In Age of Sigmar he helped found the Greywater Fastness city as Valium Maliti, a polluting industrial city of many weapon forges in the Realm of Life to create tension between the Sylvaneth and Sigmar. The city was almost starved to death by the Sylvaneth until Alarielle arranged a compromise.
Total War Warhammer[edit]
Introduced with the controversial Shadows of Change DLC, the Changeling marks a fundamental diversion from the standard campaign formula that has players conquer land and build up settlements. Instead, the Changeling can establish cults in enemy settlements that are either symbiotic (buffing the settlement's income and thus the Changeling) or parasitic (detrimental for the settlement's owner, but advantageous for the Changeling) in nature. Each of your armies is also automatically hidden in regions where you established cults. Another mechanic are schemes, which are missions you can fulfill across the map to unlock Grand Schemes, quest battles which upon successful completion yield powerful consequences for the campaign as a whole. For example, one Grand Scheme throws the entirety of the Empire into a civil war upon completion, while another teleports the Black Pyramid of Nagash alongside several undead armies into the center of Lustria. So your overarching campaign goal is to essentially troll everyone around you, which is 100% in character for the Changeling.
The Changeling himself is a potent spellcaster with access to the lore of Tzeentch and the ability to transform into each Legendary Lord that you already defeated. So while lacking the sheer magic prowess of a leveled up Kairos, the Changeling can compensate for that by the fact that you can simply pick a powerful lord like Skarbrand to transform into before each battle. The Changeling can also unlock skills that not only buff his transformed state substantially, but also give him access to all abilities and spells the respective lord has in his arsenal, which is unsurprisingly extremely busted.
The main critique of his campaign stems from the fact that a) while it offers a unique experience, the replayability value is on the lower end, and b) it is essentially impossible to lose a campaign since the AI is incapable to detect your cults (cults work similarly to Skaven Undercities, meaning if you keep a low profile, the AI will never detect them), allowing you to bounce back even if you lose all your armies. Cults also don't get destroyed even if the respective settlement gets razed, so there's yet another safety line to keep you in play. Given that Warhammer III is considerably less punishing than its predecessor even on the highest difficulty, all of the aforementioned factors make a Changeling campaign easy to the point of turning it into a snoozefest.
