I haven't had a need for it so far in XIV, but I have in other games.
In XI, my main (Draenen) has pulled extra duty as her older sister (Malay), a 'random' mercenary (Path/Patheel), and on few occasions... a male Immortal.
-- Mal was the original name of my XI character. When I left XI years ago, I left Mal's story on a "MIA?! Dead?! Gone?!" note. When I came back years later, I decided I wanted to continue as Mal's younger sister. For that, I forced a name change when I moved servers to be with an RP group -- I had a lot of gear, levels, and mission progression behind me, and I just didn't want to have to do it all over again. Anyways, Mal has since been found to be alive and I occasionally play her on Draen, just because I don't feel like grinding up another character and struggling to get another set of Mal's 'signature' gear. Appearance-wise, they look similar enough for people to know they're related, but Mal is athletically trim with motherly attributes while Draen is a bit taller and heavily muscled to the point where she's almost masculine. Also, Mal is a RDM/BLU/DRK, whereas Draen is magically inept and is perma-jobbed as THF.
-- Path was/is a scenario/filler character. Draen was occupied elsewhere with a different plotline for a while, so I made up a merc to run with the main group until Draen ICly got back. Only thing the two shared was job/skillsets -- Path was a small, skinny thing with a long black ponytail and wore a Mirke. She ended up persisting through the original need, and has made a few appearances since.
-- The male Immortal is for storytelling. Typically I ghost him, but sometimes there are scenarios where a physical presence is needed.
A secondary character of mine, Merior, was made in the expectation to play double-duty as both The Mirror ('Mirror' was already taken) and The Farseer. In actuality these two are the same person, just at different points of their life. They are identical save for natural aging (Mirror is early 20's while Farseer is mid 40's) and Mirror wears black/brown and uses a flute while Farseer wears white, carries a dagger actually called 'Farseer', and uses a harp.
Nyiia (Nyiiaia) and Niiya (Niiya-Jiiya) were originally Tarutaru twins that I DID create and attempt to level separately. They were actually a bit of a downtime gag. I picked a male and female model that, when wearing a hat, gave the illusion of being identical. I was very sneaky when it came to getting them both pearled ("Hey, um... so, I changed my mind on Nyiia's appearance and deleted her... can you repearl me?"), made sure they had the same gear despite being two different jobs (Nyiia was a ninja, Niiya was a samurai), and decorated their rooms the same (EXPENSIVE!). The RP group encountered Nyiia first and her hat was knocked off, so for the first couple weeks the group thought they were dealing with a single, particularly absent-minded Taru girl who hid blond pigtails under a hat. From there on, I would switch back and forth between the two at random. Someone finally noticed OOCly the different names after about three weeks, and after that I would just pick at random between the two and ghost the other, RPing them as identical twins. A week or so later, someone knocked off Niiya's hat and "... You're a BOY?!" shenanigans ensued. After that, it wasn't really worth keeping both around and the RP group began to move out of the twin's encountering range, so I deleted one at random. Future interactions with the twins, I'll decide at random which is 'really' sitting there.
In World of Warcraft, I did it for a short time before Wrath of the Lich King was released. During the Second Plague and Scourge Invasion events, my main character doubled as an estranged family member who was a Death Knight. Amarilli was taller/normal sized (Dreizhen was SHORT), had shorter, curlier, and slightly darker hair, and was all stitched up like some weird living ragdoll. After WotLK landed and the Death Knight job became available, Amarilli was made as her own model.
In XI, my main (Draenen) has pulled extra duty as her older sister (Malay), a 'random' mercenary (Path/Patheel), and on few occasions... a male Immortal.
-- Mal was the original name of my XI character. When I left XI years ago, I left Mal's story on a "MIA?! Dead?! Gone?!" note. When I came back years later, I decided I wanted to continue as Mal's younger sister. For that, I forced a name change when I moved servers to be with an RP group -- I had a lot of gear, levels, and mission progression behind me, and I just didn't want to have to do it all over again. Anyways, Mal has since been found to be alive and I occasionally play her on Draen, just because I don't feel like grinding up another character and struggling to get another set of Mal's 'signature' gear. Appearance-wise, they look similar enough for people to know they're related, but Mal is athletically trim with motherly attributes while Draen is a bit taller and heavily muscled to the point where she's almost masculine. Also, Mal is a RDM/BLU/DRK, whereas Draen is magically inept and is perma-jobbed as THF.
-- Path was/is a scenario/filler character. Draen was occupied elsewhere with a different plotline for a while, so I made up a merc to run with the main group until Draen ICly got back. Only thing the two shared was job/skillsets -- Path was a small, skinny thing with a long black ponytail and wore a Mirke. She ended up persisting through the original need, and has made a few appearances since.
-- The male Immortal is for storytelling. Typically I ghost him, but sometimes there are scenarios where a physical presence is needed.
A secondary character of mine, Merior, was made in the expectation to play double-duty as both The Mirror ('Mirror' was already taken) and The Farseer. In actuality these two are the same person, just at different points of their life. They are identical save for natural aging (Mirror is early 20's while Farseer is mid 40's) and Mirror wears black/brown and uses a flute while Farseer wears white, carries a dagger actually called 'Farseer', and uses a harp.
Nyiia (Nyiiaia) and Niiya (Niiya-Jiiya) were originally Tarutaru twins that I DID create and attempt to level separately. They were actually a bit of a downtime gag. I picked a male and female model that, when wearing a hat, gave the illusion of being identical. I was very sneaky when it came to getting them both pearled ("Hey, um... so, I changed my mind on Nyiia's appearance and deleted her... can you repearl me?"), made sure they had the same gear despite being two different jobs (Nyiia was a ninja, Niiya was a samurai), and decorated their rooms the same (EXPENSIVE!). The RP group encountered Nyiia first and her hat was knocked off, so for the first couple weeks the group thought they were dealing with a single, particularly absent-minded Taru girl who hid blond pigtails under a hat. From there on, I would switch back and forth between the two at random. Someone finally noticed OOCly the different names after about three weeks, and after that I would just pick at random between the two and ghost the other, RPing them as identical twins. A week or so later, someone knocked off Niiya's hat and "... You're a BOY?!" shenanigans ensued. After that, it wasn't really worth keeping both around and the RP group began to move out of the twin's encountering range, so I deleted one at random. Future interactions with the twins, I'll decide at random which is 'really' sitting there.
In World of Warcraft, I did it for a short time before Wrath of the Lich King was released. During the Second Plague and Scourge Invasion events, my main character doubled as an estranged family member who was a Death Knight. Amarilli was taller/normal sized (Dreizhen was SHORT), had shorter, curlier, and slightly darker hair, and was all stitched up like some weird living ragdoll. After WotLK landed and the Death Knight job became available, Amarilli was made as her own model.
