NEW HOPE CHARACTER PROFILE

 
Originator of Character:  Margaret R. Dean
Name:  He tends to change use-names periodically.  Among the Exiles he comes to be known as "Masque."  Lodestar calls him "Stalky" (his child-name) when he wants to cut him down to size.  The Taiakaari call him "Kiriima" which means "Changer," or "Lakaazashiro."
Soul Name:  Lyeth  (known to his parents, Mist and Ylla Dawnchild, and to his soulbrother Lodestar; he in turn knows Lodestar's [Keth].  After NH 229, he and Snowflower [Daria] know each other's. )
Race:  Elf
Gender:  Male
Generation/Approximate Age:  Second generation on mother's side/young adult
Origins:  Born in the Aerie, home of an elf tribe known as the Hawkfriends; their location relative to the Tower/New Hope area is unknown.  Later lived in the Hidden Valley before moving to New Hope.
 
Hair Length/Color/Style:  Light brown, straight; style varies but he generally keeps it short.  When about to do a major impersonation he cuts it all off so as to be able to regrow it in the proper color.
Eyes:  Changeable blue/grey/violet
Skin:  Fair, tans well
Height:  5'  1"
Build:  Slim, in good shape from exercise
Voice Quality & Speech Mannerisms:  Light baritone, undistinguished in timbre.  Speech mannerisms vary widely with mood and other circumstances, but his natural style is fairly simple.  He's also an "accent sponge," tends to pick up intonations and speech mannerisms from others.
Other Physical Attributes:  Average-looking for an elf; fine-featured and fine-boned
 
Parents:  Ylla Dawnchild, mother; Mist, father (at the Aerie)
Siblings:  None known
Other Relatives:  Some, but they're all back at the Aerie
Current Mate:  Open
Recognized?:  Recognizes Snowflower in NH 229
Previous Mates:  Has at least a brief lovemating with Mink.  Others TBD.
Children:  Foxtail, son by Mink out of Recognition (unbeknownst to him). Mistkit, son by Snowflower, b. NH 231
Closest Friends:  Lodestar, soulbrother.  Enters into an apprentice/master relationship with Arteuran.  At New Hope, Crow of Clearwater.
 
Special Talents:  Limited self-shaper who can take on the semblance of other elves.  (Longer explanation of this Talent is appended.)  Strong sending with some Deep-sense (related to the previous power; see the explanation)
Skills:  General survival skills:  hunting, tracking, foraging, camp-cooking,etc.  A skilled mountaineer.  During his apprenticeship, Arteuran has him learn to read and write Taiakaari.
Hobbies:  Making clothing/costuming
Weapons Used:  Bow, knife
Bondbeast:  None
 
Jewelry Worn:  Bead and feather choker, a gift from his paternal grandmother and his father on leaving the Aerie.  Wears it haphazardly depending on his mood.
Clothing:  When he first comes to the Hidden Valley, serviceable but undistinguished leathers.  Whatever an impersonation requires.  After apprenticing to Arteuran, usually wears Taiakaari garb:  V-necked, long-sleeved, loose-cuffed belted calf-length robe, with trousers and boots, and a skullcap.  Purple is his favorite color.
Other Special Possessions:  None known
 
Personal Info:  Lyeth was born of a mating between a first-generation elf rescued from madness and her late-generation rescuer (the story of their meeting and Recognition is told in "Who Gave Me All My Will," published in
Yearnings IV) and grew up among a fairly primitive tribe of elves known as the Hawkfriends.  From his earliest years he never felt as if he quite fit in with his birthtribe; he got the nickname "Stalky" because he was so much taller than his playmates.  When his Talent manifested, his mother was seriously alarmed, having had a bad experience with self-shaping, and most of the rest of the tribe was rather leery of this odd magic as well. Though his father, Mist, championed him strongly and no one was actively cruel to him, as he grew up he felt increasingly alienated from most of his tribefolk.  A notable exception was Lodestar (Keth), the son of his father's friends Kestrel and Starsinger, who became his soulbrother in late adolescence.  Finally Lyeth made the decision to leave the Aerie and strike out on his own; Lodestar elected to go with him "to make sure he keeps out of trouble."
 
The two young elves wandered for a number of years, never finding a permanent home.  Most of the elf tribes they encountered were even less tolerant of Lyeth's magic than the Hawkfriends had been.  Lyeth became convinced that he was dreadfully misunderstood, nobody loved him (except Keth), and he was probably cursed into the bargain -- in other words, a full-blown case of adolescent romantic angst.  When he encountered the Exiles he was practically starving for someone to appreciate him and his Talent.  They, seeing lots of lovely possibilities for an elfin
impersonator, were glad to oblige.  For the next five years Lyeth became their "secret weapon" and began to really get into the perks of this position.
 
Then came the mission to Taiakaar and Lyeth's meeting with Arteuran, which resulted in Lyeth's apprenticing to the ancient healer.  Personally impressed by Arteuran and also very relieved to have a mentor at last (since Lyeth's mother had not only imbued him with her own fears about his Talent but had proved unwilling or unable to teach him herself) -- not to mention the egoboo involved in being singled out for Arteuran's study -- Lyeth was ready to do pretty much whatever Arteuran asked of him . . . even to undergo the rigors of a Taiakaari monastic novitiate.
 
Lyeth at the time he comes to the Hidden Valley (NH 190) is immature, moody, temperamental, and prone to dramatics and power-tripping.  His apprenticeship (especially the monastic regimen) gives him a certain amount of self-discipline and self-confidence, but his is still a nature prone to strong emotion, either "up" or "down" with very little in between, and with a distinct tendency to dramatize.  It is not until the Hostage Crisis and his subsequent Recognition to Snowflower that Lyeth is forced to come to grips with the moral implications of his Talent.  Not to mention a whole slew of in-law problems . . .
 
 
Lyeth's Talent
(or, the Elf of a Thousand Faces)
 
Lyeth is a limited shapechanger; he can take on the face and form of another elf, but not a human, troll, animal, or whatever (changing over to a completely different physiology is beyond him).  He can also scan the mind of the elf he is imitating and take on the target's memories, personality traits, speech mannerisms, and so on.  If a rock or plant
shaper is a metaphor for the perfect artist, Lyeth is a corresponding metaphor for the perfect actor.
 
The process of taking on a new identity is actually two separate operations.  The physical transformation is a healing-related power which is a variation of Shape-Change.  Depending on how much time and effort Lyeth wants to spend, he can change anything from just the face through the whole outward appearance up to the entire physical form of the target, inside and out -- musculature, body chemistry, the works.
 
Q:  Can Lyeth become female?
A:  Yes, but he is infertile in that form and could not Recognize a male.  It also takes a bit more power than changing to another male form.
 
Q:  What about conservation of mass?
A:  Lyeth can't change his mass (not instantly, anyway -- he could eat a lot!), but a certain amount of compression and expansion is possible in strategic locations:  heavier or lighter bones, for instance. Nevertheless, if he tries to imitate someone significantly larger than himself, you might have people remarking that so-and-so looked like he'd been off his feed recently.  The lower limit of his size is about that of an elf child of four or five, and kludging himself down that far is a considerable strain.
 
The personality transfer is a telepathic operation related to sending and Deep-Sense.  Again, there are various levels of personality reading and transfer depending on how much time and power Lyeth has available.  So much, and he gets surface stuff like mannerisms and speech idioms (the voice comes along with the vocal apparatus, but such things as accents and inflections have to be learned).  More, and he gets surface memories, recent happenings, a sketch of personal history.  More than that and he begins to pick up deep memories, attitudes, emotions and so forth, while
maximum power reads the entire personality of the target, so that another elf could speak and even send to the duplicate without knowing the difference.  Only someone who knew the target's soul name or was soulbonded to him/her would be able to uncover the deception, and then only by conscious effort.
 
A special case:  if the target trusts Lyeth enough to reveal his/her soul name (or equivalent), the personality transfer can be almost instantaneous.  However, such a complete transfer can be dangerous for Lyeth himself, as he risks losing track of his own identity.  That danger is present in any deep impersonation, but possessing the target's soul
name heightens the risk.  This is why it is important to Lyeth to have a trusted friend on hand who knows his soul name and can use it to call him back if he loses touch with his own core personality.
 
If, on the other hand, Lyeth is attempting to impersonate an unwilling target, he will have to overcome the target's resistance (if possible) for each operation, physical and mental.  An unconscious target cannot resist the physical probe, but could still resist the mental one.
 
In no case does Lyeth acquire the target's magical abilities (probably a built-in defense mechanism -- if he substituted another's magic for his own, he would not be able to change back).  Skills are more complicated and chancy.  Since what Lyeth records is essentially memories and learned behavior, any skill that depends on memory is transferred, but anything that depends on creativity, coming up with something new, is not.  If Lyeth were to impersonate Ceyte, for instance, he would have Ceyte's vocal range and musical knowledge and would know all her previously composed music (assuming =she= remembered it), but would not be able to compose new pieces -- or if he (she) did, they would be Lyeth's compositions rather than Ceyte's, though they would doubtless be heavily influenced by Ceyte's style.
 
Any skill or ability that is physical (e.g. the heightened senses that come with wolf blood, possibly farsight unless that involves magic) would come along with the newly assumed body.  Kinesthetic skills such as weapons skills, playing an instrument, writing, can also be picked up at the deepest levels.  However, Lyeth sometimes has trouble getting his own (modest) kinesthetic skills back once he resumes his own form.
 
Lyeth must be at least in close proximity to his target to take on a new form, preferably touching; any "deep" reading will require touch.
 
Changing back is usually a quicker process than changing form in the first place, since Lyeth essentially knows where he is going and is not encountering any resistance in getting there.  However, it is an all-or-nothing proposition.  Once Lyeth resumes his own form, he cannot change back to the impersonated form without a new reading of the target.
This is probably another defense mechanism to safeguard the core personality.  The only things Lyeth may retain of an assumed personality after reversion are memories of the experiences he himself had in that form, plus any of the persona's memories he called on during that time (in response to a question, say).  Nothing physical is retained save hair length/style/color (since hair is dead tissue) and fingernails (ditto). Any injuries his body sustains while in disguise are automatically healed when he reverts to his true form; therefore reversion may occur spontaneously if he is gravely wounded while in disguise, as a kind of "panic reflex."  (Think of all those old werewolf movies . . .)
 
Chinks in Lyeth's armor:  If Lyeth is doing a serious impersonation where he really wants to substitute for another elf without anyone finding out, he must avoid:
 
1)  Impersonating elves with magical Talents he doesn't himself possess
2)  Impersonating elves with bondbeasts, since even if Lyeth were an animal bonder (which he isn't), an animal can be bonded to only one elf at a time and would know this impostor wasn't its bondmate
3)  When in female form, healers (a good healer would be able to detect that something screwy was going on with the chromosomes and hormonal balance here)
4)  Strongly magic-sensitive elves like Vyth ("Something weird and healing-like has been done to/by this elf!")
 
Once a chink is found, a really good healer or sender like Dove or Piet could examine Lyeth (if he let them) and at least figure out that Something Was Not Right.  It might take them longer to figure out exactly =what,= since none of them have ever run across this Talent before.
 
All of the above, I should note, describes the full, developed extent of Lyeth's Talent.  When he first arrives at the Hidden Valley he isn't nearly this skilled at it.  The physical side will probably be more developed than the mental.  Not until he has served a good many years of apprenticeship with Arteuran will he begin to explore the ins and outs and
byways of his power, which will be more or less fully developed by the time of the Hostage Crisis (NH 225 - 30).