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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Stormonu" data-source="post: 5218283" data-attributes="member: 52734">In the beginning - for that is where all stories start - the Gods had made all creatures, but not given them shape.  In short order, the Gods found this to a woeful state, for without shape, it made them bland, uninteresting and lacking creativity.  After much debate among the Gods, it was decided that they would gift the different races each with their own form that would make them distinct.Through their priests, the gods made their desire known and all beings were summoned to the great temples to be reformed in an image that more pleased the Gods desire for diversity.  However, among the creations of the Gods was one individual, named Dopler, who was a powerful, selfish wizard.  For many years Dopler had carefully studied the Gods and learned many of their secrets; these were the secrets of magic.  He feared that when he stood before the Gods they might discover the secrets he had learned from them and bind him to a form incapable of producing magic.  This, he could not tolerate, but he knew he could not defy the Will of the Gods.Dopler delayed his arrival as long as he could, fashioning for himself a magic cloak to conceal himself within.  When it was completed, he was among the last of the beings to arrive before the Gods.  As he witnessed their transformation of the being ahead of him into the platypus, it resolved Dopler to continue with his plan.Wrapped in his magic cloak, the Gods unknowingly blessed the cloak with a form of its own (Many tales vary on what shape the Gods gave to Dopler, but they generally agree it was humanoid) and Dopler gave his thanks and beat a hasty retreat.In public, Dopler wore his cloak to conceal his true nature from the other beings, and prided himself on duping the Gods.  As time passed, Dopler encountered many of his former friends who had been given forms that were lacking in one way or another.  One of these, Aranea the Spider-like, he fell in love with and married.  So great was his love for Aranea, that he eventually revealed his secret to her.Aranea was both pleased and disheartened by the revelation.  She was pleased to learn her husband was clever enough to trick the gods, but she was disheartened that she had not thought of such a trick to keep her own formlessness.This greatly saddened Dopler, who devoted his studies to finding a way to undo Aranea's form.  In the years Dopler struggled with how to undo his wife's form, the couple gave birth to two children - Chimera the Lion-like and Chameleon the Blender. (Some stories up this number to seven or a dozen such children, all amalgam creatures of some sort)  At first, Dopler feared that these strange offspring - who neither resembled Dopler or his wife - would tip off others that something was wrong, but his wife Aranea was able to put off any questions as it being a "Gift of the Gods" to reward their piousness with even more varied and interesting children.Eventually, after long years Dopler was able to discover a means by which he could allow his wife to alter her shape as she wished.  By distilling a small part of his own essence and allowing Aranea to imbibe it, her form regained some of its former liquidity.This would, perhaps, have been the end of the story if Aranea had not been so vain.  For against Dopler's admonitions, she would often alter her appearance to incorporate whatever pleasant feature she found in another being.  As time passed, her neighbors became more and more suspicious, and eventually Aranea's closest friend - the nymphs - tricked the secret out of her.Threatening to reveal her secret to the priests, Dopler was forced to repeat the process for the Nymphs.  However, to bind them against informing others, he demanded from them a lock of hair, which he incorporated into his cloak.  To Dopler's surprise, he found that thereafter, he could change the cloak's form to match the Nymphs, and used it to spy on them and ensure they kept their bargain.Unfortunately, they did not, and the conspiracy expanded.  Some asked for themselves, some asked for loved ones deformed by their ill-devised shapes and some even asked for the gift of morphability for their pets.   Each time Dopler agreed to share his essence with those who discovered the secret in returned for the magic elixir that allowed their shape to quiver and shift.  As less and less of Dopler remained, the power of the elixir became less potent, so that those who came later into the conspiracy could only change their shape to that of one other form, and eventually some could only partially change their shape.  Yet, from each Dopler required a bit of skin, blood, hair or other token to incorporate into his cloak and from that he could assume their shape when he desired.Under the weight of so many, the conspiracy could not withstand.  Tales eventually reached the ears of the gods and they came to Dopler's village to investigate.  By then, the magic of change infested every being within and threatened to spill over into neighboring towns.  Angered by what they witnessed and an entire village that had turned their back on the God's gift, they smote the village and captured Dopler and his cloak.Yet, with their ability to shift, many of its residents were able to flee the village.  The Gods made no further attempts to hunt down these beings, though they were scattered to the four winds.  Even Aranea escaped into the wilderness to found a people of her own.Dopler was taken back to the home of the Gods, where he was judged and found guilty of subverting the Gift of the Gods.  They made an example of him, cursing his form into the most horrid of disfigured shapes (though tales vary on the form he was forced into).  Instead of killing him, the Gods cast him back into the world and his only possession - his cloak of changing.  Forever after, Dopler was cursed to hide under the forms of others, for his own true shape is so hideous it would kill those who were to gaze upon it.  From his seed thereafter, came the Doppleganger; pale reflections of Dopler and said to carry a small piece from his cloak, by which they can assume the shape of others.It is said that to this day, Dopler, still cursed by the gods, walks among us.  We would never know if this were true or not, for he could easily be among us now, listening to this tale ... or perhaps telling it himself.</blockquote>

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