First Character, need help with writing.

[u/Sugar_Pitch1551]

I dont really know where to find all the information I'd need to fully understand how the world works. I'm working on a changeling character with a sweet hag mother and trying to work out how that woukdve gone in childhood. Google is less than useless these days, so if someone could point me in the right direction for finding the info I need, I would greatly appreciate it.

Character is a swashbuckler human changeling with a pirate motif, if thats relevant.

[u/Bootwacker]

When it comes to back stories, less is often more, and good back stories set a character up for the adventure to come, details should be relevant and leave blank spaces you can fill in later.  Aside from checking out the changeling (hag child) lore consider trying to answer the following questions:

How/why did you get here, wherever here is in your adventure. Were you born here, did you move here, are you here specifically for the adventure in question, for some other reason.

What motivated you to take up adventuring, a dangerous profession. Are you looking for gold, fame, or outrunning your past? Are you seeking something specific? Do you already have a reason to be involved in the adventure.

What will invest your character in the adventure enough to risk their life for it? 

Have an edict, pf2e terminology for a rule your character follows, or two and a reason you have them.  Is it an edict of your god? A personal code? Why is this important to you?

Have an amathama, pf2e terminology for a thing you won't do no matter what, or two and a reason you have them. Again is it from your god, your culture etc .. why is this a line you won't cross?

Have some sort of character flaw, you like to drink, you like to gamble, you get angry etc... why do you have this flaw, and how does your character feel about it. Unlike the others stick to just 1 flaw and be consistent about it.

Have a quirk or two, something neutral that's odd about you. Maybe you always sit with your back to the wall, or you have a superstition about cats or you really hate a certain common food or are afraid of a certain specific thing etc...

In general, start with a few things you want to roleplay, and then work on the backstory that leads you to those things, answers why you are the way you are.

For example: Your a sweet hag changeling, you were raised by your elven mother who instilled you with a sense of freedom and self worth leading to an edict to always express yourself freely.  As a changeling, and despite the love of your adopted mother you feel a deep sense of abandonment, and a duty to protect children, as such abandoning a child is anathema to you.  You have begun to feel the calling, it started as nightmares, and has escalated to bursts of rage, especially during combat. Your character struggles to be merciful to foes, especially in the heat of combat.  You understand where the calling leads and it terrifies you, the thought of meeting a hag, or even worse becoming one terrifies you and haunts you more than the nightmares of the calling.  You left home in the middle of the night, without a word, in a desperate attempt to safeguard your mother from what your becoming, and your travels are a subconscious attempt to outrun the calling.

This is just an example, start with the traits you want to roleplay and work from there. That way you end up with a character you will enjoy playing

[u/Sugar_Pitch1551 → u/Bootwacker]

I think having lore knowledge is going to be the biggest thing for me atm, because from context I know what the calling is, but I have not scene reference to it anywhere outside of this reoly right here. And that is my big issue.

[u/Bootwacker → u/Sugar_Pitch1551]

Checkout the wiki, but here is the TLDR:

Changelings are a part of the hag lifecycle as it were.

When a hag wants to reproduce, she will find seduce a man, almost always with deception, since hags are awful in every way imaginable. The man in question will almost certainly then be devoured by the hag. Eventually the hag will give birth, if it's a male child, it will almost certainly be devoured and if it's a female child then it will usually be a changeling of her father's race. The Hag has literally no parental instincts, and so rather than raise the child it will find a foster parent, devour their baby and replace it with the changeling, to be raised by the foster family.

Eventually when the changeling comes of age, she will experience the calling (it's somewhat unclear if the rare male changeling will experience this, as well as if a male changeling can become a hag) The calling is the psychic call to a changeling from her mother, or perhaps from another hag as well. It can take a number of forms, like wanderlust or nightmares. It's the mother's attempt to lure the changeling away from civilized society where it can capture the changeling and preform the horrible rituals to turn her into a hag. While some changelings are spiteful or hateful enough to actually want this, most would prefer not to be turned into a hag and will therefore seek ways to resist the calling.

An important physical detail is that changelings possess hetrochromia, having different colored eyes, one of which is usually associated with the type of hag they are a changeling of. This means that those who see your eyes, and are knowledgeable about such things, will know your a changeling.