Changers

Overview

The Changers are beings the Probability Fog has transformed for good. Everyone in the Fog may be changed for a moment, a foot into a bird or a hand into water; the Changers were changed and did not change back. They now belong to the Fog's ecosystem. Two kinds are named, the Shape-Shifters and the Probability-Beasts.

Appearance

A Changer looks like whatever the Fog made of it, and often still a little like what it was. A fox with a heron's legs; a traveller with stone for one arm; a hare of moss and water; a goat that is, on one side, a hedge. Its parts do not always agree on a colour. Most are quiet and watchful, as if waiting for the next change.

Habitat and Range

They live throughout the Fog. When an ephemeral Fog lifts, where its Changers go is not recorded, though some are said to be found on the moor afterwards, stranded in their last shape.

Behaviour and Temperament

Changers behave as their new shape inclines them, with something of the old. Those who were people keep some memory and some speech, and are often lost and sorrowful, or else have embraced what they are. Those who were beasts are beasts still, stranger ones.

Abilities

What each can do depends on its shape. Many keep a little of the Fog's chaos in them, so that luck turns oddly near them.

Life Cycle

A Changer begins as a visitor, beast or person, caught in a transformation that does not end. From then on it lives as its shape allows.

Uses and Dangers

Searchers come to the Fog for lost companions and sometimes find them as Changers. Some Changers are harmless; some, like the Probability-Beasts, are among the Fog's worst dangers.

Lore and Belief

Tales of a husband turned into a moorland beast and a wife who waits on the edge of the fog for him are told in many places, and some are true. Gamblers believe that a Changer's touch brings luck; it brings the Fog's luck, which balances its scales.

Bounty-takers say an outlaw who fled into the Fog may come out as anything, and tell of the one who brought back a hare in a sack and swore it was the man with the price on his head; the lord paid half.

Where It Appears

• The Probability Fog
• the Writers' Guide chapter The Resonant Zones