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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 7542465" data-attributes="member: 20323">Not necessarily. While I agree I've set her up to have greater long-term villain potential, her most important role is foreshadowing other factors, such as the lengths that others are willing to go to find the missing NPC (Artus) and, in turn, the lengths he's willing to go to evade his enemies. I wouldn't bring her into play unless I was willing for the players to crush her plans and end her life...I guess that's part of my DMing philosophy. I do, however, want to play her as a prepared, manipulative, and intelligent adversary.Maybe... she has never met the missing NPC (Artus) before, AFAICT, so she wouldn't have a basis of comparison to catch little details that don't add up. The only spell I know of that detect shapechangers is moonbeam – a druid spell. The party has a druid PC but she doesn't usually prepare this spell.The failure of her dominate person might, I could rule, inform her that this is not a humanoid she's dealing with.Also, the doppelganger isn't immune to cold damage like the real Artus, so a ray of frost or ice storm cast upon him should reveal as much.A ring of mind shielding would prevent the doppelganger from using Read Thoughts on her...a reasonable precaution for someone already doing deep cover work...but not help in ID'ing the doppelganger as such.Of course, dispel magic could break the Nystul's magic aura, allowing detect magic / identify to reveal the doppelganger's ring is not the Ring of Winter.Well, the goblin paladin PC joined the party later in the game, so while Xandala is aware the party picked up a reformed goblin member, she doesn't know that he can cast zone of truth. So devising some brute force "it doesn't work on her" magic item would feel out of place since she doesn't have the intel that she'd need such a thing. With zone of truth, my preference is to use half-truths and clever villainous strategies to evade the truth.In this case, I can't see any line of answering zone of truth that would allow Xandala to evade being found out. She'd probably refuse it outright, if it comes down to it.Mhmm. Xandala is the type to minimize risk to herself. She's playing a long game. I'm imagining her manipulating the goblins, manipulating (or polymorphing) the brother-in-law/gladiator NPC, and trying to engineer conflict between the PCs and the medusa queen. Don't know the specifics yet, but I'm thinking that's her general approach. Ideally, if discovered by the PCs, she has an explanation ready: "I saved you from a doppelganger in your midst, and this is the thanks I get?" I'm also giving Xandala an ace up her sleeve. If recognized as a villain & defeated, she knows a few things she might use to barter for her life. In particular, I'm having their archmage patron (Syndra Silvane, suffering from Death Curse) being proactive in searching for a cure to her illness and traveling to the Mistcliff Mountains where the <a href="https://www.dmsguild.com/product/258047/Lost-Laboratory-of-Kwalish-5e" target="_blank">Lost Laboratory of Kwalish</a> is located. I've foreshadowed this previously. Xandala knows this is a dangerous venture and that the hirelings the archmage hired have their own motives; she can disclose this as well as the location on the PCs' map if they wish to aid the archmage.</blockquote>

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