Coriander Willoughby-Sterling

Coriander is short in stature for a changeling, barely over five feet tall, and a bit plump for her height. Most changelings adjust their appearance to be what they want, usually conforming to a nations standards of beauty, but Cori was raised to be proud of who and what she is, and rarely shifts to look like something else, unless it's a character she's trying to play.

Raised without any other Changelings in her life led to Cori having difficulty gaining complete control over her changes. When she feels emotions strongly her appearance often reflects in some way or the other. Her eyes will change color to match her emotions, deep oceanic blue when she's sad, fiery orange red if she's truly angry, a brilliant rainbow if she's excited.   While she usually keeps in line with her natural changeling appearance, 5'3, a little plump, with thick wild hair controlled by brains and buns and hairclips, her emotions also affect her body as well. In combat when her heart begins to race her hair naturally shortens itself in self defense. If she feels scared it might grow thicker, wilder, to cover her face from embarrassment, or she might grow a few inches shorter as she grows as small as she feels. If she feels a burst of confidence she might grow a few inches instead.

Birth

    Corianders history begins quite simply, at her birth, or rather the odd circumstances surrounding it. Her adoptive mothers, Helena and Adelaide Willoughby-Sterling, had put in with an adoption agency to finally start their own family. Due to the fact they were well off, and very desperate for a baby of their own, they ticked off a box for high risk adoptions. Those that would be considered disabled, have behavioral issues, or were simply considered too much for the average couple to handle. One otherwise uneventful evening, while out shopping for groceries they received a call, there was a baby they could adopt, but they'd have to get to the hospital right away to claim them as they had just been born.    The Willoughby-Sterlings abandoned their cart, rushed to the hospital, and were shown to the nursery where a tiny baby wrapped up in a white blanket lay, changing color to match the shirt of whichever nurse passed by. As the doctors put it simply, a heavy set dwarf had checked in claiming they needed an evaluation by a doctor. They were shown to a room and by the time a doctor was finally free to come do an evaluation, the room was empty save for a baby wrapped in a bundle of blankets that had been kept in the room. The on duty nurse recalled seeing a slim Dragonborn woman leaving the room, but had assumed they were a friend or family member of the patient.    A Changeling itself it not a problem, but raising a Changeling child, as non-changelings, would prove quite a difficult task. Managing a shape changers abilities, especially when they were too young to grasp the idea, would be a job all of its own. One the Willoughby-Sterlings were more than happy to undertake. Cori was taken home, and there she stayed, growing up in a loving and supportive household. They were told at an early age of their adoption and what all being a Changeling entailed, but that the two of them would do everything possible to support them in all they did.     

Childhood

    Coriander grew up, for the most part, as a normal child would. Supported and loved by their parents, playing with friends, going to school, everything a growing child would experience. The added addition of their shifting proved a rather interesting experience for teachers as they changed shape like others breathed air. Usually it was minor and emotion fueled, a change in the color of their hair or eyes to match their bright moods, or shifting to replicate the pictures of historical figures in textbooks. Sometimes they would shift to a near perfect copy of their friends, delighting in the mischief they would cause, or becoming someone entirely new for games for make pretend. Unfortunately, despite their parents delight in her absolute uniqueness, other children were not so kind. Cruel bullies would force Cori to shift for their entertainment, or demand they imitate them. This allowed for a sort of forced mastery over their powers, instead of coming from a place of learning and support, coming from one of fear and sadness. The aftermath resulted in a few months where Cori would stay in the form of either a Firbolg or Elven child, rather appearing as one of their parents than as a Changeling. Eventually, through therapy and her parents having strongly worded conversations with the school about stopping the bullying.    During this time to try and take Corianders mind off of what was going on they enrolled her in many extracurricular activities, including art, music, dance, and acting lessons in the hopes of building her confidence. It worked, perhaps too well, as Cori took to the spotlight like a fish to water. She excelled at her piano, voice, and violin lessons, teaching herself to play a plethora of instruments by the time she reached middle school. Dance and Theater allowed her to become used to being the center of attention, but in a way in which she directed how she was viewed. Art let her express herself in ways the physical arts could not, while she never did get the hang of painting, she found that making crafts, such as flower crowns, or designing and sewing clothes brought her a lot of joy. Entire afternoons would be spent in Adelaides flower shop, making flower crowns and entertaining customers with her antics. Helena would keep her close to her studies, and instruct her in her music lessons, insisting that she learn scales, arpeggios, and classical music before moving on to more genres, the two playing duets on the piano for family and friends during dinner parties and holiday parties. Cori was enrolled in every school and community play, and her parents were happy to see their child once again happy and comfortable as themselves.     

High School

    Cori entered high school as a ball of energy and confidence. She wanted to try everything, do every club, and often times there was no stopping her once she had an idea in her head. With her parents permission she started up social media accounts and basically chronicled her life. The art, music, and crafts she posted about garnered her a modest following, and she eventually was able to save up birthday money to afford good recording equipment so she could record covers of music. In her freshman year she tried out for the cheer squad and made it in, all of her pep and energy channeled into a high adrenaline competitive sport. During this time she met a longtime friend, Aron Baynes. The two were complete opposites, yet very alike in many ways. They both participated in nearly everything that interested them, her in her arts and him with the various sports teams at the school. They were both driven, knew what they wanted, and were well liked by most people, if for different reasons. Aron was popular, went to dances, and was a sort of aspired to be figure, whereas she was just so darn nice it was impossible not to like her. She did exceptionally well in cheer, but it took away from her other hobbies, so after the battle ball season was over she decided not to try out for further years. She did however keep up her friendship with Aron, attending every home battle ball game.    The rest of high school was spent with her focusing on the arts, unaware of the latent magic that was within her. Her other years were spent doing everything she could to make herself as attractive to employment opportunities outside of high school as possible. She won awards for theater and music, went to competitions, made local papers for her volunteer efforts, and genuinely helped as many people as she could. Deep within Cori knew that her true calling was in the arts somehow, and her goal was to become a famous entertainer, someone who could bring smiles to the faces of people everywhere, spread joy, happiness, love. In her sophomore year, during a particularly passionate musical performance she accidentally cast magic through her music. It was nothing dangerous, just a ball of roiled emotions exploding into fantastical colors and lights, a veritable pyrotechnic show of excitement. Knowing nothing of her past she had not known that she was capable of magic, and as such was overjoyed that she was able to cast magic.    The last two years of her high school experience were spent as much the same, but with both parents attempting to help coach her with her magic as each was good at their own proficiency. Helena was a caster of the arcane, and as such tried to help Cori through study and practical appliance of magic. Adelaide had been a part of a druid enclave in her younger years, and tried to impart the wisdom harnessing natures magic for ones own use. Neither application worked, and even a few extended family members who garnered their powers from the divines were unable to help. Corianders magic only seemed to appear and be castable during extremely raw or emotional performances, where her emotions were at a high and she poured herself into the art. She worked with her choir teacher, a former adventuring bard, and was able to start to hone her craft. The years of training paid off, and during her senior performance she was able to hone her powers, and cast, on purpose, magic while she performed.    Originally, her goal had been to go straight to the capital and try to make it as an entertainer, or enter a world renowned performing arts school for bards, but her parents begged her to get a practical degree first. They planned on supporting her, but having a backup career in the case of the worst possible scenario was smart, and they had spent years instilling that knowledge into her. Cori took the words to heart, and while she had originally planned to just get a certificate or associates at the local university, her choir teachers words had instead occupied a new thought for her. Her teachers alma mater, Oakcrest Community College. A community college didn't seem glamorous, she had been told, but Oakcrest would provide her with not only the degree she wanted, but adventuring experience that could help her achieve her goals of fame, in a different way than she had originally predicted. Now Coriander heads off to her first year at Oakcrest, ready to learn, ready to grow, and ready to make not only her mothers, but herself proud.

As a changeling Cori has always struggled with their gender identity, but the ability to appear as nearly any race, and as any gender makeup, has certainly helped them figure out how they feel. Coriander identifies as nonbinary, outside of the realm of male or female. They feel as well, something else, something they can't quite name but know is right, and themselves. Cori doesn't feel like a woman, or a man, but they feel like well... Cori. Pronouns are a nonissue for them, as their appearance is often altered in little ways based on how they feel and they are fine with any pronouns, He, She, They, or other.

Cori believes all people, regardless of race or gender, are all amazing and unique in ways that are incomprehensibly amazing. As such, she identifies as pansexual.

Completed full primary schooling and graduated from Crown High School with flying colors, with most of her electives and extracurricular activities being focused exclusively on the arts.

While not truly working a 'full time' job at a place of employment Cori does make a pretty good wage from her social media and art efforts. She runs all of her social media through her online handle, Corination, some of which include her youtube, instagram, twitter, patreon, and kofi. She's never let her social media job get in the way of her school work, and she does videos on the side to supplement an income while she goes to school. Most of what she does is post videos of her doing covers of songs and playing music at the request of followers, and then reposting that work to her other social medias, along with pics and updates of her life. She also has an ASMR channel, QuietlyCori. The income trickle is enough that she can afford personal expenses while at community college.

Cori, as she likes to tell anybody who asks, has made a few key achievements in her lifetime, so far at least. Her main pride is her social media accounts and followers, if only because it pays well enough she can afford personal expenses. She even has little business cards with her handles on it, along with her handles for Patreon, Kofi, and Etsy.   Her favorite things to show off though are all of the parts she's played in various plays and musicals, both in school and in community theater throughout the years as well as the awards she won while doing theater in high school.

Cori has failed plenty of times at new hobbies she's tried, and cringey things she posted and talked about as a kid online. To her credit she's tried to delete most of the history and evidence of her middle school and earlier art, and embarrassing videos of her as a kid.

Cori had been bullied quite a lot as a child, mostly because of her being a Changeling. Changelings are still considered somewhat rarer, and often when kids realized she could shapeshift she'd get demands to change into certain things for entertainment. This bullying led to her avoiding using her abilities for a good chunk of her early years.   For the most part, with therapy and a lot of love and support from her moms, she's gotten over the trauma of the years of bullying, but she still does not handle people trying to control her shifting very well.

Despite being Chaotic Neutral, Cori certainly leans more towards the good side of the spectrum, only neutral because of her sometimes selfish drive and occasional petty or playful prankster streaks that she partakes in. If it wasn't for her absolute drive to do nearly anything to achieve her dreams she'd probably even be lawful. She believes that for the most part, rules are there for a reason, until they don't suit her needs. Cheating is wrong, crime is bad, but rules are flexible, and so long as you don't bend them so far that they break it's fine.   They believe that everybody has good in them, just in some people it's hidden a little deeper than others and it just requires a bit of digging and understanding to find it. To her, all strangers are potential friends and allies, and nobody should be judged harshly based on first impressions. Somebody who might appear to be rude or a villain at first may be hiding pain and agony, something that can be solved with patience, kindness, and acceptance.

Corianders motivation for getting through community college is to get their degree so they can go on to, hopefully, gain fame and renown as either a musician, or an actor. Their ultimate dream is to star in musical theater and be in film.   Besides their primary, and often loudly stated, goal of becoming a famous and world renowned actor and musician, they have another secondary goal. Of course this goal is entirely on the back burner, and mostly left up to a mix of fate and chance. Cori is, in a word, a hopeless romantic. She grew up on tales of how her mothers met at University, while pursuing different bachelors degrees. They fell in love, and while her mother Adelaide grew her flower shop and business as a florist, her other mother Helena attended medical school. As cheesy as she found it as a kid, the idea of having a whirlwind romance in college always stuck in the back of her mind, and she certainly wouldn't be upset if she found someone while she was here.

Dr. Helena Sterling (mother) Adelaide Willoughby (mother)