The Greatest Bard who Never Lived (Patreon)

"Many people often ask me the meaning behind my apparently 'ever-so-odd' moniker that I most often address myself as.  It seems to them either an impossible statement, or perhaps in their mind, a bold overstatement of both my Bardic skills as well as my dramatis personae.  To both, I would attempt to lay to rest the naysayers, the doubters, the confused, the puzzled, and the reserved.  Allow yourselves instead to embrace the possibility of just what my nickname might mean.

The Greatest Bard, who Never Lived.  

Let's break that down a tiny bit, if you will indulge me.  We Bards do tend to be quite vocal in our endeavors, and in orating our own stories, even the humblest of our number might still often be found waxing and waning of their masteries and talents till the sun rises.  Many would call it arrogance, brashness, a lack of distinct humility, or maybe we just like to talk about ourselves.

And now, if you'll allow dear reader, I'd like to talk about myself.  

The Greatest Bard.  It is a lofty thing to claim, and yet the sole driving force of all those who follow my vocation.  But, in its essence, it is not just a goal on the horizon; it is in and of itself an impossibility.  What Bard could truly claim that theirs is the utter and complete, the best of the best, of all Magic and Music can be?  What singular soul's singular interpretation could encompass the vast, swirling symphonies, harmonies, rhythms, flows, and eddies of the World's Song?  

We Bards may be relegated to many in-jokes amongst those who we share the title of Adventurer, what with many jesting that we will bed down with any willing partner, or use our music to trick and steal from others.  It is not so, for me anyway.  I've certainly met several who might unfortunately match such descriptions, but to so paint all Bards with the same brush would be like saying that all Warriors are warmongering brutes.  That isn't to say some of them aren't, but it hardly can be expected to be the norm, much less the defining example.  It's simply the loudest description often bandied about, and Bards tend to be rather loud already.

But returning to my claim, how could I, after admitting and saying all of this, claim to be this Greatest Bard?  I am not.  I am simply, in the announcing of my title, attempting to tell a story.  For that is what Bards truly are: the teller of stories.  Those of others, of grand deeds or mysterious happenings.  Or, perhaps, that most truthful and fictiious of them all: our own.

My story is one whose words, trials, adventures, and tales that I shall share with you on this winding, rambling road we share, and that of all those like me.  Not Bards.  No.  What I am has always been my defining feature, and by far, my most limiting.

For how can any member of a species escape such a brush, such a moniker or reputation as that which unfortunate kindred I find myself as belonging by Blood to?  In a world as obsessed, as limiting as to claim Race to be worth more as on'es identity than action or creed, that thing which no matter where I go, what deeds I perform, what good or evil I may make, I will never be able to escape.  

I can no more than run away from my own shadow.  I am haunted by the face I see in the mirror, knowing that to everyone else, while they may see the fair, Half-elven male I appear as, golden haired, heterochromatic eyes, the sight I see in the glass when alone I let that mask fade is by far an entirely different creature.

To truly understand what I mean by all of this, I come to my main reason for spinning such a rambling yarn: the real story I feel needs to be addressed before you might truly dare to give me a chance.  Perhaps if I might succeed, you will know me better than by what the rest of the world has refused to do otherwise.  That most terrible secret I carry, even amongst those I call friends, for if they knew their eyes would darken, smiles turn to snarls, and open hands and soft words would become fists clenching weapons and shouts of anger, fear, and revulsion.  The word chanted above a howling mob as they chase a single, errant, terrified soul, from yet another place that should by all accounts have been their home.

Changeling.

What is it?  And by extension, what am I?  I am the Greatest Bard, who never Lived.  Because my entire life, as far as anyone I dare to let know close to the real me, has been a lie.  Not my actions, the defining moments of moral choice and the value, hue, and meaning of my soul.  No, those trivial, forgettable, dismissible details matter nothing to a world where this singular term, this one species, is universally reviled, feared, and hunted down at even whispers.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

What is a Changeling?  Put simply, we are not entirely different from the Sidhe, or what Humans have begun to name as 'Elf'.  Our origins trace back, as our more well-known Sidhe cousins, those who you might call High, Shadow, and Wild Elves, do, to the everchanging, warping beauty and horror that is the Realm of the Fey.  

But there, in that world, we were known as something different: Bodach.  In the human tongue, it translates closest to the word for 'trickster'.  

Not painting a very good picture for my proclaimed innocence am I?  I'll elaborate more, just kindly put down the torches and pitchforks until you've all at least heard me out.

While our brethren of Winter, Summer, and Wilder Fey have retained their old names, even once having migrated to the Mortal world but still remaining tied to their roots, my ancestors have quite forgotten our old name, in only the way that such a thing can be forgotten when it has been ripped away from us.  This traumatizing experience has left us to scramble and seek any other way to find meaning, to give meaning, to what we are or still can be.

For we were made monsters, and all the world too happy to only ever see us that way.

Names have power, over those who claim them, and those who might use them.  To lose a Name is not like losing a possession; it is losing a part of your identity.  To no longer have that which you can use to find similarities between yourselves and others of similar species, it's enough frankly to drive an entire people to madness.  Which, unfortunately, it did for quite a number of years, I'm sad to say.  

What we became after that might at least have had a chance of achieving something close to normalcy, if not for the second punishment of those who were once called Bodachs were inflicted.  But I'll get to that.

In the Sidhe world, that place of raw emotion, elemental power, and ever-changing flow, the Bodachs were members of the Winter Court, tricksters by the very definition who played pranks upon the Mortal world and sometimes even other Fey.  They delighted in both the malicious and the mundane, which is just something that all Fey creatures tend to do.  Even the most well-meaning Tuatha is as at heart just as dark as their cousins the Shadar, each Faerie as potentially vicious as a Formorian may be kind.  And the Bodachs had a unique little trait that helped them in their pranks and trouble-making, a trait that gave rise to the term most used to paint my kind as the monsters we, admittedly, have become.

We are Face-Stealers.  

Now I don't mean I might grab your face off your head and wear it as my own, leaving you stumbling horrifyingly about without nose, eyes, mouth, ears, etc.  But my ancestors could, with but a will, change their appearance to match that of literally any other living being they could perceive.  Doing so, they would stage elaborate jokes, pretending to be one species of the Sidhe or another and causing all manner of miscommunication, mischief, and disharmony.  

The Bodachs, of course, thought this all great fun.  Sometimes they would mix and match the appearances of several beings, for doing so sometimes was even more great fun to them than wearing their own skin.  We were beings of anarchy, of boundless humor, and a complete lack of the very word: consequences.  We were pranksters; who in Fey was going to take it all quite that seriously?

Who indeed, that is, until one prank went much too far.  During a great celebration, that which bridged the gaps between Sidhe of all divisions, a single Bodach decided a great jest was possible, greater than any other to come before.  In essence, Bodachs are natural Bards; showing off is just part of who we are.  

Taking the form of the Sidhe High King, the Bodach made many various proclamations, all of which were by no means truly malicious, but certainly confusing for the assembled nobles.  And, as it was, in their eyes, the High King whose word cannot be opposed in his own Plane of existence, the Sidhe factions began moving to do his biding.  I imagine it might have been, from a certain point of view, quite humorous to see these all-powerful beings able to warp their form and the world around them with but thought scrambling at such a prank.

But one did not see it as humorous.  One Sidhe did not find it at all amusing.

With a roar, the Sidhe High King tore into the room, a maelstrom of force and anger and tempestuous wrath.  The Bodach was stripped of his façade as mist being blown from the reeds of a swamp, leaving him trembling before his sovereign in all his terrible beauty.

'To steal the face of the High King is a grievous sin!' said the High King.  'Even in jest, you have done wrong, and so offended me that greater punishment must be in order.  For the crime of stealing my face, may the Bodachs never be able to look upon their own without fear and revulsion.  May they never again be able to stomach the sight of their own faces, that which they see in the mirror be that of that which is most repugnant, most reviled, most horrible and awful to gaze upon.'

Silence stunned the Sidhe court, save of course for the pleading of the Bodachs.  But once the High King makes such a decree, if he should speak in the Old Tongue such a curse, it is written into the fabric of all Sidhe, of all Fey.  And the High King was not done yet.  Even as all across the room the Bodachs recoiled from their own reflections shown to them in the sparkling crystal walls of the throne room, their doom was given yet another grim addition.

'And to teach thee a lesson more, in humility may you be cast out of Feylands to those of the Mortal world.  To the World of Music and Murder, of Age and Alignment, may the Bodachs be banished until such a time comes as I can stomach looking upon them or hearing of their existence without feeling such wrath.  May they even forget their own name, so that I might never again be so offended as to have to remember such an event ever happened.  For the Bodach might as well never have Lived at all.  Thank me for my kindness, for it is merciful indeed.'

And it was done.  The Nameless, Faceless, were banished to the Mortal world.  Lost and adrift in the land of the living, finding themselves all and abruptly subject to the laws of time, air, and yes, death, it is far to say that my ancestors lost almost every part of themselves that made them Fey.  Our only memento of our origins lies in our blade-like ears, giving rise to an unfortunate moniker used by those who hunt for us in society, our silver blood, and of course our aversion to that horrible metal that Humans call: Iron.

But even so, perhaps you wonder, as I did many times as I grew and learned. As bad as all that sounds, why are Changelings, Bodachs, whatever, hated so?  Why might someone as myself, no matter the good he does with his life, be relegated to much akin to that of a common monster?  To be called a Changeling is to my knowledge worse than any curse, swear, or ill wish that the ever-creative Mortal races seem to specialize in.  Many an innocent has been attacked and killed by mobs, most often not even being a Changeling to begin with.

Why though?  Why are we hunted?  Because, and you must forgive my ancestors, when you are in that bad of a place, lost and confused, hurt and scared, adrift in a world entirely alien to you, you might tend to make some generally...unwise decisions.  Many of my kind lost their lives to simple misunderstandings of the natural world around them.  

In the Fey realm, a Troll cannot tear you limb from limb since, even if he managed to deal a wound, a true Sidhe can simply regenerate it back as just from will.  In the mortal world, you get a very dead Bodach, and probably quite a few more.  We aren't an inherently hardy race; our literal only defense was in our ability to hide our real faces.  So of course, in this example, one might then change one's face to try and placate said monster, only to result in yet more casualties, since Trolls attack one another on sight.  How were my ancestors supposed to know that?  We could copy the Troll's face, but not their strength or regenerative powers.

What with now being lost, scared, slowly dying out from misunderstanding after miscommunication, when the Bodachs were spontaneously given a chance for aide, they took it without question.  We weren't nearly as smart as we liked to pretend we were; but how smart can you be when you live an entire immortal existence without ever facing consequences?  An open hand amidst all of that suffering was like a guiding light to the Nameless, Faceless Bodachs.  And all they had to do was work for the man who offered them a way out of their slow extinction.

All they had to do, was serve Malig.  The Malig.  His name might not be as uniquely terrifying as some legendary villains of the past might, but his evil legacy far outstrips them all.  Names both are and have power, and Malig used his to wreak evils on Talamh the likes of which had never been seen before.  Or maybe they had, and the world had tried hard to forget about them.  Perhaps new cruelty, perhaps oversight by previous powers.  And what part did such a tyrant have in store for his new indentured servants?

We became Malig's secret infiltrators, his spies, eyes and ears in every corner of the lands.  We stole into the kingdoms, the towns, the villages, the castles and strongholds of all who Malig viewed as enemies, which coincidently was akin to everyone breathing air on the face of the world.  We planted secrets, lies, false truths and real truths alike, peeling away the façade of civility amongst the Races who opposed Malig's tyrannical expansion.  We wore faces from the lowest to the highest of all society, or more accurate to our legendary alternate name, we stole them.

I am ashamed, horrified, appalled, call it what you may, to tell you exactly the truth you might have immediately thought when you first read "Face-Stealer".  No matter what we once were, what we had become now was exactly the truth.  Not quite so literal, and yet horribly so as well.  We did not just wear the faces of others, we replaced them.  We would cede ourselves near-seamlessly into society wherever we were instructed to do our horrible work: absconding, abducting, assassinating.  We learned the importance of not letting the owner of said face we wore be able to come back to expose us.

And then, came the Culling.  It began as a whisper, a rumor, sparking eventually into a full born inquisition.  'Beware your neighbor, your friend, your very kin.  One of they might be a Changeling in disguise.  They'll steal your baby, replace it with one of their own.  They'll murder your wife and wear her skin the very next day.  Your neighbor, your landlord, that vagrant in the streets.  You cannot tell who might be a Changeling.  So mark them all known, and bleed them freely of their silver gore.'

'A Changeling is known by their aversion to mirrors and all reflective surfaces; hang many in your homes.  A Changeling cannot stand the touch of iron, so carry some with you at all times.  Mark all Glaivears where you find them, and call the Watch wherever you find need.  Purge them.  Purge the Faceless.  You don't know who you can trust.'

Who would spread such rumors, to spark a nationwide genocide of my kin?  Who else was so aided by turning friend upon friend, brother against brother, and removing a dangerously powerful asset before it could ever betray you?  If your guess was Malig, I might think you a Wizard for such astute divining.  Then again, a couple fancy spells patents and a diploma might make even a Hedge Mage a Wizard.

But yes.  In one move, Malig had set up a deadly infiltration force and also sparked massive unrest in his enemies in their attempt to uproot them.  Cities turned upon one another, riots claimed entire streets, and my kind, the Changelings, were hunted down, like animals, to the last.

So why am I, the Greatest Bard who Never Lived, willing to claim such a title, be willing to tell such a story?  To out myself so openly to many of those who might view me, paint me, with the same skein, the same colors and brush, as the millions of ignorant, fearful others have?  Why take such a risk, when I've worked for so long to prove myself more than the silver blood in my veins?

Because I am myself the beginning and product of one of the greatest, and most tragic, love stories ever told.  Just as Aos-Si might in Human tongues stand for Half-Elf of varying bloodline: I, Oborro Othello, am Aos-Lok.  Half-Mortal, Half-Bodach.  Lost between two worlds, unable to claim either for my own.  But none of that matters to me.

I am more than Aos-Lok, more than Changeling, more than Bodach or Facestealer.  I've never stolen anyone's face.  I simply found my own.  My own face, my own name.  It's hard to lose those which you never truly ever had.  I have found peace, I have found home, and I have found, most impossibly, most wonderfully of all, love.

I am Oborro Othello, and I am the Greatest Bard, who Never Lived.


My story is only just beginning."